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> “the tax payers are being ripped off as asset owners because once the debt incurred to pay for the energy system is cleared they just give out cheap electrici
by Affric 2y ago
> “the tax payers are being ripped off as asset owners because once the debt incurred to pay for the energy system is cleared they just give out cheap electricity and don’t seek profit. It is more efficient to sell, reinvest, and then let some massive rent seeker over charge you for something you once owned”
The economists who argue for this, only slightly paraphrased.
- crazygringo 2y agoI have never heard a serious argument that it is more efficient to sell and reinvest from a finance perspective. The argument is generally that private companies are more productive than public services due to productivity improvements that are forced via competition. There's no such forcing function for a government-provided service, enabling (potential) waste and bloat, depending on governmental competence and oversight. The correct counter-argument is that there needs to be competition for that to happen. If you have only one electric utility for customers to choose from, the argument is totally invalidated.
- Affric 2y agoHere’s [1] a report from the early days of electricity privatisation in NSW. In all honesty it’s been about a decade since I have read it closely but I would say it’s fairly serious and it does like efficiency as a metric. Underproductive though is certainly simpler but my understanding is that it was inefficient because the asset owner charging an equilibrium price should in theory lead to higher overall production (obviously lack of competition hurts this). [1] https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/electricity-and-privatisation/ElectandPriv.pdf https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/e...