Some things make financial sense but not in a national security, social security, or unity sense. Privatizing utilities generally falls into one of those categories. I was arguing with my brother once about privatizing the local telco and he said it wasn't profitable. I responded with, "So? It never had to be profitable." There were certainly problems with it, and the expense was one of them, but it hasn't really gotten much cheaper after privatization, although a lot of people who could afford to buy stocks made a lot of money. And don't ask why, when our company was converted to publicly traded, we all didn't get stocks in it. Saying that out loud just proclaims it for the money grab it was.