Hmmm. Let's say people in your state love bananas and the average price of a banana is $1 with a profit of 20 cents. And your friend who is married to the daugh

Hmmm. Let's say people in your state love bananas and the average price of a banana is $1 with a profit of 20 cents. And your friend who is married to the daughter of the governor suddenly has an exclusive license to sell bananas in your state. What do you think will happen to the price of bananas and subsequently what do you think happens to profits your friend starts accruing? Ok, so far so good you don't really care because you don't like bananas. You are your 10 friends sell apples and you all compete hard against each other and sell an Apple for between 95 cents and $1.05 cents. One day your friend thinks the Apple business looks interesting. He's raised the price of bananas to $1.20 and is now making 40 cents a banana. Now he starts selling Apples. At 70 cents each. 10 cents below cost. He's losing 10 cents on every apple but he doesn't care because he makes 40 cents on every banana he's selling. Naturally in 9 months you and your 10 friends are out of business. You can't sell Apples at a loss. Once you leave he raises the price of Apples to $1.10. Feel tempted to jump back in? No way, he'll just drop them to 70 cents each for a while and crush you a second time. All of this happens because your friend has an unfair advantage in terms of his access to capital. Power utilities (and cable and internet too) are great examples of law mandated monopolies who generate protected profits. Taking that protected revenue stream to subsidize your entrance into a competitive marketplace isn't fair.