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Is US, and Texas in particular a free market? I was always saying that US is an extensively regulated, yet chaotic market. There is no free capitalism in Amer

Is US, and Texas in particular a free market? I was always saying that US is an extensively regulated, yet chaotic market. There is no free capitalism in America. US financial regulations are by far most Byzantine in the word, precluding the whole notion of US as a nation of free capitalism. US construction industry is a caricature of regulatory capture. For example, even door knobs are legally regulated by some states with zero rationality given. US laws governing infrastructure, and things like utility companies, and procurement of infrastructure engineering services are also very exemplary of regulatory capture becoming bordering on absurdity.

cratermoon 6y ago
The electric grid in Texas is not meaningfully connected to the rest of the US to avoid federal regulation. The state has almost completely deregulated power generation in Texas. It's about as close to the mythical Free Market as can be imagined. Everything is driven by market forces, and the utilities responded by cutting costs.
- jgnnfuncs 6y ago
  According to a post here on HN a couple of days ago, ERCOT has more stringent regulations on winterization than the Federal regulatory body requires, so basically everything you just said is bullshit ERCOT is a government regulated group, answerable to the Legislature. It's not meaningfully different from the rest of the country. People just assume Texas is a completely unregulated market because of the reputation given to us by Hollywood. Unsurprisingly, media created in a region that disdains us does not represent us truthfully or fairly. I grew up in Appalachia so I'm used to this treatment by the media and by people I interact with as a professional software engineer, including on this board, about where I came from and where I chose to make my home. We know you hate us. It's the main message we receive every time we turn on the TV or any mainstream silicon valley website, including this one, again. That's why I post with a throwaway name. I don't expect people who hate us to represent us fairly.
  - krapp 6y ago
    That reputation doesn't come from Hollywood, it comes from Texas. Anyone who's been to the state knows how proud the culture is of its wild-west rural outlaw image. You're right that it isn't entirely accurate, because Texas is a diverse state bigger than some countries, but being the quirky cowboy state is a lot better for tourism than being the... like... corn state or... whatever the hell a "Sooner" is. Some sort of groundhog I imagine.
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      > whatever the hell a "Sooner" is The US decided to sell the land in most of Oklahoma (the parts that weren't Indian territory, in any case) by land rushes. You would line up at the county border, a starting gun would be fired, and the first person to claim a plot of land would get it. Sooners are the people who were in the county before the starting gun was fired, letting them (illegally) claim the land before anyone who was honest and started at the starting line. (Side note: my great-great grandfather was in one of the Oklahoma land rushes, but lost the land he wanted to a Sooner.)
    - ipsocannibal 6y ago
      "Sooner" - the bain of UT football existence now that TAMU is playing with the big boys.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >We know you hate us. It's the main message we receive every time we turn on the TV or any mainstream silicon valley website, including this one, again. That's why I post with a throwaway name. I don't expect people who hate us to represent us fairly. It's unfortunate that you paint most of the the US with such a broad brush when complaining that those folks are painting you with a broad brush. I hope you can see the irony there. I learned as a child that treating others as individuals is incredibly important. Mostly because it became clear that most folks (of every stripe) are decent human beings, but that there are a small number of people who are assholes. The big problem with that small number of folks is that they aren't one particular group (whether that be geographic origin, ethnicity, melanin content, gender or profession, etc., etc., etc.). Rather they are pretty evenly distributed throughout society. That allows people to point at those very few and ascribe their shortcomings to everyone in a particular group or groups. The long and short of it is that, no "we" don't hate "you." In fact, most folks don't really care much (except in a general, "care about other human beings") one way or another about you or your fellow Texans. Having spent time in Texas (I'm from the Northeast), I've found that just about everyone I've met in (or who is from) Texas are decent, kind human beings. I suspect you'd be much happier if you were less concerned with what other folks think about you, and focused on living a decent life instead of shitting on people you don't know. Just a crazy thought.
- baybal2 6y ago
  I very doubt this. Even the choice of word "council" for Texas grid authority gives off smell of a bureaucratic talkshop.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Rolling blackouts are inherently a regulatory solution. The market solution in a supply crunch is keep raising prices until demand falls below supply, which creates a market incentive to have excess capacity and capture those profits during periods like this. An unwillingness to do that creates foreseeable market incentives. Not enough suppliers spend the money to have the capacity to meet demand if regulators are going to suppress demand through regulation (rolling blackouts) rather than higher prices.
  - tedunangst 6y ago
    So consumers shouldn't be allowed to sign forward contracts in a deregulated market?
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Doesn't matter. If people sign those contracts then the floating prices would go even higher for the people who didn't, or the people who made the contracts would start offering to pay people money to shed demand (because they're still paying the floating price for what they're reselling), and the seller risk of having one of those contracts might correspondingly be high enough that people avoid them due to high fixed prices.
  - yao420 6y ago
    Funny thing, in Texas there is variable pricing and some people had to pay thousands over the five day freeze[1] in addition to rolling blackouts. I experienced neither as my power was out for 3.5 days. [1] https://www.dallasnews.com/business/2021/02/20/griddy-customers-face-5000-bills-for-5-freezing-days-in-texas/ https://www.dallasnews.com/business/2021/02/20/griddy-custom...
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      "In addition to the rolling blackouts" still implies rolling blackouts. If you have rolling blackouts at all then people pay $4000 instead of $9000 and there is that much less incentive for anyone to have built adequate capacity. Also, this: > And as blackouts spread across the state, power was cut not only to homes and businesses but to the compressor stations that power natural gas pipelines — further cutting off the flow of supplies to power plants. Regulatory action exacerbates supply shortage; market blamed.
gher-shyu3i 6y ago
Is there a free capitalism nation on earth today? Is such a concept even sustainable in practice?

cratermoon 6y ago

The electric grid in Texas is not meaningfully connected to the rest of the US to avoid federal regulation. The state has almost completely deregulated power generation in Texas. It's about as close to the mythical Free Market as can be imagined. Everything is driven by market forces, and the utilities responded by cutting costs.

jgnnfuncs 6y ago
According to a post here on HN a couple of days ago, ERCOT has more stringent regulations on winterization than the Federal regulatory body requires, so basically everything you just said is bullshit ERCOT is a government regulated group, answerable to the Legislature. It's not meaningfully different from the rest of the country. People just assume Texas is a completely unregulated market because of the reputation given to us by Hollywood. Unsurprisingly, media created in a region that disdains us does not represent us truthfully or fairly. I grew up in Appalachia so I'm used to this treatment by the media and by people I interact with as a professional software engineer, including on this board, about where I came from and where I chose to make my home. We know you hate us. It's the main message we receive every time we turn on the TV or any mainstream silicon valley website, including this one, again. That's why I post with a throwaway name. I don't expect people who hate us to represent us fairly.
- krapp 6y ago
  That reputation doesn't come from Hollywood, it comes from Texas. Anyone who's been to the state knows how proud the culture is of its wild-west rural outlaw image. You're right that it isn't entirely accurate, because Texas is a diverse state bigger than some countries, but being the quirky cowboy state is a lot better for tourism than being the... like... corn state or... whatever the hell a "Sooner" is. Some sort of groundhog I imagine.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    > whatever the hell a "Sooner" is The US decided to sell the land in most of Oklahoma (the parts that weren't Indian territory, in any case) by land rushes. You would line up at the county border, a starting gun would be fired, and the first person to claim a plot of land would get it. Sooners are the people who were in the county before the starting gun was fired, letting them (illegally) claim the land before anyone who was honest and started at the starting line. (Side note: my great-great grandfather was in one of the Oklahoma land rushes, but lost the land he wanted to a Sooner.)
  - ipsocannibal 6y ago
    "Sooner" - the bain of UT football existence now that TAMU is playing with the big boys.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >We know you hate us. It's the main message we receive every time we turn on the TV or any mainstream silicon valley website, including this one, again. That's why I post with a throwaway name. I don't expect people who hate us to represent us fairly. It's unfortunate that you paint most of the the US with such a broad brush when complaining that those folks are painting you with a broad brush. I hope you can see the irony there. I learned as a child that treating others as individuals is incredibly important. Mostly because it became clear that most folks (of every stripe) are decent human beings, but that there are a small number of people who are assholes. The big problem with that small number of folks is that they aren't one particular group (whether that be geographic origin, ethnicity, melanin content, gender or profession, etc., etc., etc.). Rather they are pretty evenly distributed throughout society. That allows people to point at those very few and ascribe their shortcomings to everyone in a particular group or groups. The long and short of it is that, no "we" don't hate "you." In fact, most folks don't really care much (except in a general, "care about other human beings") one way or another about you or your fellow Texans. Having spent time in Texas (I'm from the Northeast), I've found that just about everyone I've met in (or who is from) Texas are decent, kind human beings. I suspect you'd be much happier if you were less concerned with what other folks think about you, and focused on living a decent life instead of shitting on people you don't know. Just a crazy thought.
baybal2 6y ago
I very doubt this. Even the choice of word "council" for Texas grid authority gives off smell of a bureaucratic talkshop.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Rolling blackouts are inherently a regulatory solution. The market solution in a supply crunch is keep raising prices until demand falls below supply, which creates a market incentive to have excess capacity and capture those profits during periods like this. An unwillingness to do that creates foreseeable market incentives. Not enough suppliers spend the money to have the capacity to meet demand if regulators are going to suppress demand through regulation (rolling blackouts) rather than higher prices.
- tedunangst 6y ago
  So consumers shouldn't be allowed to sign forward contracts in a deregulated market?
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Doesn't matter. If people sign those contracts then the floating prices would go even higher for the people who didn't, or the people who made the contracts would start offering to pay people money to shed demand (because they're still paying the floating price for what they're reselling), and the seller risk of having one of those contracts might correspondingly be high enough that people avoid them due to high fixed prices.
- yao420 6y ago
  Funny thing, in Texas there is variable pricing and some people had to pay thousands over the five day freeze[1] in addition to rolling blackouts. I experienced neither as my power was out for 3.5 days. [1] https://www.dallasnews.com/business/2021/02/20/griddy-customers-face-5000-bills-for-5-freezing-days-in-texas/ https://www.dallasnews.com/business/2021/02/20/griddy-custom...
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    "In addition to the rolling blackouts" still implies rolling blackouts. If you have rolling blackouts at all then people pay $4000 instead of $9000 and there is that much less incentive for anyone to have built adequate capacity. Also, this: > And as blackouts spread across the state, power was cut not only to homes and businesses but to the compressor stations that power natural gas pipelines — further cutting off the flow of supplies to power plants. Regulatory action exacerbates supply shortage; market blamed.

gher-shyu3i 6y ago

Is there a free capitalism nation on earth today? Is such a concept even sustainable in practice?