Action Briefing Apr 2003 - May 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

"Water is a product which would normally be free and our job is to sell it"

Gerard Mestrallet, Suez Lyonnaise (water company)

It's the Great GATS Sell-off and we’re literally giving away public services globally! Massive savings to be made! Massive profits to be made! Government Subsidies! No pesky Government Control! See what your company could own:

Water
A fantastic business investment! From the moment it rains the waters yours and - everyone needs to drink. This resource is at a premium right now and is predicted to become more important than oil in the next 50 years. Make massive savings on deprived, rural and polluted areas and developing countries. Customers will pay high premiums to keep their lawns green.

Tourism & Travel
Why not own a country’s tourist industry? Attractive, idyllic and unspoilt countries are much sought after. Huge savings to be made on building regulations, cottage industries and eco-holidays. And as local economies become dependent upon the new tourist industry, they’ll do anything to gather a few crumbs for your table.

Postal Services
A cheap investment. Great savings to be made from cutting expensive delivery services to rural areas and isolated communities. The current regulations are all paid for by government so you can charge what you like for stamps and the rest. Why not erode the service further and charge extra to ensure post arrives in reasonable time?

Sewage & Waste Disposal
With increasing populations world wide, this vital service provides enormous opportunities to make money. Make savings on high cost, heavily polluted areas and poor populations with little money. The real opportunities lie in new housing and, of course, local governments desperate for clean water. And as mixing sewage with clean water as part of the treatment process means less available clean water, you can charge a premium to remove it.

Social & Council Housing
Good news for investors disappointed with Birmingham voting against transfer. GATS means you’ll get another crack at the whip in 2005. Up for grabs are housing services, repairs, construction, eviction and rent collection. Full subsidy available from local government taxes to meet current regulations. Huge savings on deprived areas and urban slums, rural housing repairs and improvements, aesthetics and quality of living. Social housing will always be needed and your company can find cheaper and more cost effective ways to tackle housing needs - pile them high! No need to consider quality of life.

Libraries
Own a country’s cultural heritage! Library stock, records and databases, carefully built up over the years will be yours, and they must be worth millions. When the government introduces a charge for the library service in 4-5 years, libraries will at last be a growth industry.

Why not hook-up with a mail-order book company, who will pay you for your address list? Replace superfluously qualified librarians with library assistants who are much cheaper to employ - all they have to do is to hand books out.

Small libraries in semi-rural areas cost disproportionately more to run than city facilities. You know that the only sensible commercial decision is to close them. And if there are regulations that insist they remain open, you needn't be out of pocket. If they insist that your stock of books, reference sources etc. should cover a range of subjects and not just the more profitable Mills & Boon-style novels, GATS will make sure you can compete freely with others in the library industry. And if they claim to have deep knowledge of local readers’ needs, you will be paid to acquire the same!

Transport
Don’t worry about being the next Railtrack - GATS ensures that no matter how badly your company may perform, the country or local government can not steal your service from your shareholders. Grand savings on rural areas safety, quality & convenience, the environment, and any non-car based transport modes.

Universities
Ensure that research is only carried out into the profitable subjects. Maximise knowledge and maintain legal ownership of all information. Focus only on commercially useful research, patents and intellectual copyright. Protect products from negative research results.

Electricity
You’ll be sizzling with this service! Great savings to be made on safety, environmental consideration, and by building dangerous reactors in areas with quiet populations. And with payment available for all current regulations, plus the chance to develop renewable resources at a profit to your company, your shareholders will be raking in the money.

Bus Services
In cities, people too poor to afford a car will crowd on to your buses at peak times, and they are conditioned to pay higher fares when the bus is full. This is the industry standard, and you are advised to stick with it.

In rural areas, where there are not many poor people, a subsidy for rural buses will enable you to take advantage, even if you are from another country. And don’t worry about anything you hear about local services for local people - you will be given the bus service contract under GATS. Your large, shiny vehicles will easily outstrip the local cowboys with their funny half-size buses. And if their little buses use less petrol, you will be paid to make your service comply with the exhaust emission regulations. Take advantage of a free market!

Household Waste Disposal
Waste is rubbish, and we want to get rid of it. Take it overseas where there’s plenty of room and no trade-restrictive regulations about burning and burying it. And you will be providing employment for sailors, long-distance truck drivers and navvies.

You may have heard of plans to recycle waste (oh, you haven’t?), which means a lot of sifting and sorting but don't worry - under the GATS you will learn how to follow all the recycling rules. A local company might claim that they would be better at the job because of local knowledge - but that would be unfair competition.

Education
Put a tiger in your timetable! Mould your customers of the future! No more messing around with piecemeal sponsorship deals - you can control the education of an entire population!

Link with other companies to control market shares in all areas. Get your other investments onto the syllabus and develop pupil's vital customer care skills.

You cannot apply to run education services at present, but think of the future! There are lots more GATS negotiations to come, and the deregulation of services will yield untold opportunities for profit (and publicity) in this field.
In the meantime, why not offer education services to those poor countries who are obliged to sign up to GATS as a condition of their borrowing from the World Bank. Now there’s a captive market! Once they sign, they are obliged to pay you to meet all of their own regulations in the interests of fair competition. Collate a database of all the students and their parents and you can sell them anything.

Daniel Morris

"The interest of dealers . . . is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. . . The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution [since they] have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public."

Adam Smith, known as the Father of Free Trade