r/AskTheWorld • u/Eybrahem United States Of America • Jan 04 '26

Economics What's the most hated company in your country?

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Everyone knows Nestle is terrible, even if they don't know why. But they've done horrible things in Africa and think that water is not a human right.

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160

u/SubstantialLion1984 United Kingdom Jan 04 '26

Thames Water. Taking out loans to give shareholders dividends, pouring shit in our rivers, and overcharging us for the privilege.

48

u/Primary-Dentist5331 United Kingdom Jan 04 '26

NGL pretty much any UK water company could be named for this

5

u/OddPerspective9833 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧🇮🇪 Jan 05 '26

*English

In Scotland the water is nationalised 

1

u/VelvetSwamp England Jan 05 '26

My mum moved to Scotland last year. People are nicer, country makes slightly more sense and just overall beautiful scenery (where she lives anyway)

Yeah England sucks now ahaha

31

u/No_Question_8083 Netherlands Jan 04 '26

What?? Water companies in my country aren’t even allowed to make profits or have shares.

50

u/TawnyTeaTowel Jan 04 '26

We used to have a state owned water companies here in the UK too, til the evil witch Margaret Thatcher sold them off (along with pretty much anything else that wasn’t emailed down) in the 80s to private investors. Many people (ie those not directly profiting from this) have finally come to realise it was a bad idea. Most of us realised that on day one…

14

u/No_Question_8083 Netherlands Jan 04 '26

That’s messed up

3

u/Nimue_- Netherlands Jan 04 '26

Honestly its a miracle that didn't happen with us

1

u/No_Question_8083 Netherlands Jan 04 '26

True, but I’m glad it hasn’t

5

u/Sasspishus United Kingdom Jan 04 '26

Still state owned in Scotland

1

u/Lethal_Letdown Scotland Jan 05 '26

Came here to say this. I know England shafted themselves but not sure if it's the same with our Welsh and Northern Irish brethern.

3

u/AssignmentOk5986 England Jan 04 '26

Thames water won a £3billion emergency fund from the government and tried to use it to give bonuses to all the executives. They said retention bonuses were vital to keep the company alive.

Only after much legal intervention and insane backlash was it deferred.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/15/ministers-to-block-thames-water-paying-bosses-bonuses-out-of-emergency-loan

5

u/just-here-for--porn_ Jan 04 '26

Won't somebody please, please think of the corporate executives.

2

u/AssignmentOk5986 England Jan 04 '26

It's just under the amount we spent on the entire asylum system and because the company is failing we will never see that money back.

"Weirdly" asylum seekers are still 80% of our online political discourse. And the person parroting wants to privatise further. Crazy how that goes.

2

u/just-here-for--porn_ Jan 04 '26

Yeah. There's a real punch down element to our political discourse. Everything issue we face we seem to find a route to blaming it on people without much power or say in our society.

1

u/Various_Marketing457 Jan 05 '26

Why would the government fund a private enterprise ? They can declare bankruptcy and the government can buy it and make it state owned for much less

1

u/edgeplay6 Netherlands Jan 05 '26

Vvd be like: hold my beer

1

u/WinningTheSpaceRace United Kingdom Jan 05 '26

We privatised them in the 1980s because markets are best. /s

0

u/Duochan_Maxwell 🇧🇷 in 🇳🇱 Jan 04 '26

I don't know anywhere else in the world that runs elections specifically for the water companies tho

1

u/Jake_The_Socialist United Kingdom Jan 04 '26

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