The London £20.12bln Olympics

Let me first say that I do think a well run, efficient, clean Olympics is a good thing for this country. Any reason to finally get the Crossrail going for the love of 'riced.

What I do NOT want is some corrupt, inefficient, shambollic, late, disorganisesd and shoddy affair as appears likely, given that that imbecile Jowells is "in charge".

Utter moron does not come close, as if she were a moron she would not have the wit to perform such a monumental feat of self-delusion as would be required to not have her resign and never darken public office again.

Tessa, I want you to swear by your mortgages that if the Olympics is any combination of: Late, corrupt, shoddy, over budget, ugly, tacky or in any way embarassing to the UK you will foreswear any future employ by the State.

....thought not.

Rolling Stock Leasing

We hear that the Government is going to buy rolling stock to lease to rail companies.

We already have a cartel small number of leasing companies providing rolling stock to the time limited monopolies operators.

So, the government invests OUR cash up front to buy rolling stock instead of the private sector leasing companies. I am certain that the leasing companies will squeal like stuck pigs if the government stock gets leased before their own inventory. Thus, the leasing companies are likely to get pretty close to 100% utilisation on their investment. Nice.

The government will pay up front and has a chance of being left with surplus stock - it is almost like UNDERWRITING the rail leasing companies losses for underutilised stock without the rail leasing companies ever having to pay a bean up front.

It is another example of Sociofascistic behavour. The government gets indirect control over the leasing companies - i.e. "do what we say or your fat profits are at risk", the leasing companies get their fat profits and the taxpayer is well and truly stuffed AGAIN.

UPDATE 2007-30-23: The BBC Story here. Hat tip: Not Proud Of Britain (But would like to be)