Yes, but if NZ government hadn't sold it off it wouldn't be making $800M
from 3.4M people now would it?  If you still owned it, it would still be
corporate sloth, and you would be complaining about how hopeless they
are.

This would have to be the worst possible time for a government to be
running a telco.  Better to let the private sector do it.

I can't comment on foreign ownership, no ideas there.  Print money?

Jinx wrote:
>
...
> And these are mostly major assets too, originally paid for by NZ
> taxpayers. The stinger is that companies like Telecom or NZ Rail
> are now returning profits to their overseas owners. At the time they
> were sold they were regarded as comfy jobs-for-life govt depts that
> were either not developed and brought up to date or couldn't be for
> lack of funds. Telecom now makes > $800,000,000 profit on just
> over 3.4m population, and although it's regarded as progressive
> and technically efficient and innovative, it employs a small fraction
> of the staff it used to. NZ will never be able to afford to buy any of
> these back - "selling the family silver" it was called
>
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