Word: basic
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France is the land of public service par excellence, where a whiff of sacrilege still adheres to the very notion of privatizing basic infrastructure. Trains, hospitals, universities and pensions are all largely state provisions. But water--a sector that remains a function of municipal government in 90% of U.S. cities--is the almost exclusive domain of two companies, Suez Environment and Veolia Water...
Whatever their strategic differences, both Suez and Veolia turn water into cash in the same basic way: securing long-term concessions from public authorities to run, maintain and, if necessary, build water and sewage systems, but not buy them. Both reject the notion that they are privatizing water. "We're delegated providers of a public service," insists Frérot. The idea is to stay "asset light" and profitable while running publicly owned facilities. "In France we've developed over many years a kind of partnership between public and private that works well in the water sector," says Chaussade...
...text of the editorial or the critiques it elicited, but in something entirely outside of the authors’ control: the credence the international media has given their grousing and the blind deference to status that such validation represents. For in giving weight to the authors’ most basic assumption—that had Oxford been more accommodating and convenient, it might have satisfied their expectations—the media substantiated the idea, widespread among colleges catering to student whims, that the frustrations of everyday life can diminish the value of the opportunities these venerable institutions provide...
...more basic level, we can put an end to complaining about the glut of options available to us. The fact that Harvard facilitates applying for the Rhodes is not evidence of a system conspiring to make students unhappy. Rather, it is evidence of the extraordinary opportunities the College gives...
...measures to avoid those that have resulted in tragedy. We do not study history in order to blame contemporary people for the actions of others who lived in the past. This not only constitutes an inappropriate and unprofessional use of history as an academic discipline, but furthermore violates the basic precept of human justice that an individual is responsible for his or her own actions solely...