This
In a corporate organisation - is called cross-subsidation and is, providing the corporate structure entitles it - perfectly acceptable.

In a national economy it's called Nationalisation. Once upon a time it was perfectly acceptable. The nationalised steel industry made steel to support the nationalised railways (steel rails and steel bodied carriages), the nationalised motor industry (steel chassis and steel derived frames and bodies), the nationalised defence industries...need I go on?

Then the wicked witch of Grantham wandered onto the scene and proclaimed all of this self-sufficiency wasteful. And with one flick of her wand (which she called Keith Joseph) this utopia had gone.

Here I must declare that I was brought up in a shipbuilding town (Barrow-in-Furness) and saw first hand that ill-managed nationalisation had the potential to be exceptionally wasteful.

But with a deft and careful touch, eliminating the excesses and championing the most efficient this system may well have brought about an economy capable of weathering the current tempest.

Just a thought.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Mon 23 Feb 2009, 19:49, 1 reply)

I do recall
wondering out loud at the time why everyone was queueing up to buy shares in British Gas etc when they were privatised - as National industries surely we already owned them?

I was shushed.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 8:11, closed)