[ExI] Fwd: question

[BillK]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2021 at 01:54, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> The Texas energy crisis isn’t an example of an unfettered free market. Instead, it’s a matter of a state-level regulated energy sector, where it’s regulated, it seems, on behalf of big energy providers. (By the way, this is how much regulation works: big players lobby for regulations to keep out competition and basically rent-seek. Sometimes ‘secondary revaluations’ come in to play. This is new regulations attempt to mitigate the problems of earlier regulations — and often these are done to protect consumers or small players. But these are usually bandaids on a system regulated for the big players and connected interests.)
>
> Deregulation is sometimes advocated by some so called. liberals too. The Carter administration oversaw and promoted airline and trucking deregulation. That seems to be one reason for low airfares and the kind of rapid delivery services that happened afterward. Of course, the devil is in the details. Sometimes a particular deregulation is really nothing more than allow big players to do as they please in an override heavily regulated industry. (Think of banking and securities. Both heavily regulated, yet loosing some rules usually doesn’t mean promoting a free market in either, but usually just allowing big players to do stuff they wouldn’t be able to do in an actual free market. Of course, bailouts don’t help this either.)
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________


Agreed. As Dan says the big problem in Texas is regulatory capture by
large companies.
This has grown to be a major problem throughout the USA in many industries.
'Profits before people' is the result.

The Texas power industries have been warned time after time that a
disaster could happen, but they negotiated a system where if there is
a shortage of power the price to consumers escalates hundreds of
times. They claimed this would encourage the companies to supply more
power. Well, it didn't. What it encouraged was the companies to allow
shortages of power where they made huge profits. People dying and
homes ruined by burst pipes were just collateral damage.

Nothing personal, it's just business.


BillK