4 ms·

That's how a market works. You say "Czechs" but it's Czech producers and Czech consumers (respectively) making those transactions. Where the market is situated

That's how a market works. You say "Czechs" but it's Czech producers and Czech consumers (respectively) making those transactions. Where the market is situated is irrelevant. If you're making electricity that cheaply right now you are indeed getting rich, and so you should. The market is what is doing something about it. Prices will moderate over time as inefficient producers are pushed out and as consumers reduce their usage due to high prices.

mandmandam 4y ago
> Prices will moderate over time as inefficient producers are pushed out and as consumers reduce their usage due to high prices. Electricity isn't optional. "The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized. In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries that privatized it.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  "You just don't understand the market." Any sufficiently big scam can waived away with "the market has spoken". It's like a religious belief
- gruez 4y ago
  >Electricity isn't optional food isn't optional either. How well did nationalized food production work out? >"The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized. I can get the source for each of those claims? Some of them seem dubious, eg. housing. Was housing ever not privatized? >In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries that privatized it. well if we're talking about "energy" in general (ie. not just electricity), I can point out a counter-example of PDVSA going to shit after it was nationalized.
  - mandmandam 4y ago
    Many successful governments subsidize food production and delivery in many, many ways. Your talking points are tired and debated to death; mostly by people who don't actually have much interest in learning anything and would rather invent straw-men to pwn. If you really want to challenge your view, I'm sure you can read a book that lays it out better than I could in a quick YC comment. For example, here's Chomsky's take: "Privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person. It means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For one thing they may purposely run at a loss. They're not out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because of the side benefits. So, for example if a public steel industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel to other industries. Maybe that's a good thing. Public institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that means that they can maintain employment in periods of recession, which increases demand, which helps you to get out of recession. Private companies can't do that in a recession. Throw out the work force because that's the way you make money."
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
      You talk of OP's tired points - which I agree with - then cite Chomsky... can both "stupid extreme capitalism" and "stupid surrender leftism" be put to rest finally.
      - mandmandam 4y ago
        I have no idea what "surrender leftism" is supposed to mean, in relation to Noam or otherwise. However, if we'd paid a little more attention to Noam's points about war (clandestine and overt, economic and military) and the media a few decades ago, we the people would be tens of trillions of dollars better off. Millions of brown skinned folk would still be alive, tens of millions wouldn't have had to become refugees, and South America would be immeasurably better off. If you have some kind of beef with Chomsky I suggest you take it up with him; I hear he's quite good at responding to people.
    - merely-unlikely 4y ago
      You missed the step where the public institution gets broken up into many smaller private competitors who are then incentivized to provide better/cheaper service to gain marketshare. The Soviet Union missed that step too when it collapsed. Monopolies are trouble whether private or public. Unfortunately, energy markets have a tendency to be dominated by local monopolies of both the public and private variety.
bsaul 4y ago
Rules for this market are a lot more complex than a straightforward producer / consumer one though. That give a lot of room for biased / non-optimal behaviors For example, only gaz-based electricity producers « needs » to be paid such a high price. Nuclear or renewable would be perfectly fine with much lower price. Or, if we had not one market, but one market per type of energy used to produce electricity, we would also have a « market driven » pricing, however the end-result would likely be much much different.
- toast0 4y ago
  There's one market for grid delivered electricity because within the grid, electricity is mostly fungible. There's details of course, but if I need X kW @ 240VAC to run my house, business, or factory, my equipment doesn't care if it's from wind, solar, nuclear, or lemon batteries, as long as it's within the specifications, well synchronized and continuous. There's some amount of market preference for different generation types, but that's a small portion of the load, so it's handled outside of the grid operation marketplace. It's also true that grids with limited interconnection have separate markets. You could run a grid on a cost plus basis, but you lose the benefits of market economics as well as the negatives.
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  Yes but it's a multi-buyer multi-seller simultaneous auction for a required electricity load. Some sellers will get more than they offered, but that's how the auction works, there can only be one market price to secure the given quantity of electricity.

mandmandam 4y ago

> Prices will moderate over time as inefficient producers are pushed out and as consumers reduce their usage due to high prices. Electricity isn't optional. "The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized. In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries that privatized it.

beebeepka 4y ago
"You just don't understand the market." Any sufficiently big scam can waived away with "the market has spoken". It's like a religious belief
gruez 4y ago
>Electricity isn't optional food isn't optional either. How well did nationalized food production work out? >"The market" didn't make water, or housing, or waste, or healthcare, or telecoms, etc, cheaper once privatized. I can get the source for each of those claims? Some of them seem dubious, eg. housing. Was housing ever not privatized? >In fact, it didn't make energy cheaper in the countries that privatized it. well if we're talking about "energy" in general (ie. not just electricity), I can point out a counter-example of PDVSA going to shit after it was nationalized.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  Many successful governments subsidize food production and delivery in many, many ways. Your talking points are tired and debated to death; mostly by people who don't actually have much interest in learning anything and would rather invent straw-men to pwn. If you really want to challenge your view, I'm sure you can read a book that lays it out better than I could in a quick YC comment. For example, here's Chomsky's take: "Privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person. It means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For one thing they may purposely run at a loss. They're not out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because of the side benefits. So, for example if a public steel industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel to other industries. Maybe that's a good thing. Public institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that means that they can maintain employment in periods of recession, which increases demand, which helps you to get out of recession. Private companies can't do that in a recession. Throw out the work force because that's the way you make money."
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    You talk of OP's tired points - which I agree with - then cite Chomsky... can both "stupid extreme capitalism" and "stupid surrender leftism" be put to rest finally.
    - mandmandam 4y ago
      I have no idea what "surrender leftism" is supposed to mean, in relation to Noam or otherwise. However, if we'd paid a little more attention to Noam's points about war (clandestine and overt, economic and military) and the media a few decades ago, we the people would be tens of trillions of dollars better off. Millions of brown skinned folk would still be alive, tens of millions wouldn't have had to become refugees, and South America would be immeasurably better off. If you have some kind of beef with Chomsky I suggest you take it up with him; I hear he's quite good at responding to people.
  - merely-unlikely 4y ago
    You missed the step where the public institution gets broken up into many smaller private competitors who are then incentivized to provide better/cheaper service to gain marketshare. The Soviet Union missed that step too when it collapsed. Monopolies are trouble whether private or public. Unfortunately, energy markets have a tendency to be dominated by local monopolies of both the public and private variety.

bsaul 4y ago

Rules for this market are a lot more complex than a straightforward producer / consumer one though. That give a lot of room for biased / non-optimal behaviors For example, only gaz-based electricity producers « needs » to be paid such a high price. Nuclear or renewable would be perfectly fine with much lower price. Or, if we had not one market, but one market per type of energy used to produce electricity, we would also have a « market driven » pricing, however the end-result would likely be much much different.

toast0 4y ago
There's one market for grid delivered electricity because within the grid, electricity is mostly fungible. There's details of course, but if I need X kW @ 240VAC to run my house, business, or factory, my equipment doesn't care if it's from wind, solar, nuclear, or lemon batteries, as long as it's within the specifications, well synchronized and continuous. There's some amount of market preference for different generation types, but that's a small portion of the load, so it's handled outside of the grid operation marketplace. It's also true that grids with limited interconnection have separate markets. You could run a grid on a cost plus basis, but you lose the benefits of market economics as well as the negatives.
dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
Yes but it's a multi-buyer multi-seller simultaneous auction for a required electricity load. Some sellers will get more than they offered, but that's how the auction works, there can only be one market price to secure the given quantity of electricity.