5 ms·

Is this a plea for 'letting the markets solve the problem' ? Because California tried that 15 years ago with their electricity problem and history shows how ba

Is this a plea for 'letting the markets solve the problem' ? Because California tried that 15 years ago with their electricity problem and history shows how badly Enron abused the 'markets' for profit.

pjonesdotca 11y ago
I love it when a comment gets downvoted with no response. Can't be bothered to explain why you disagree?
- bsder 11y ago
  Welcome to the tech groupthink brigade. How dare you criticize capitalism! It's because tech people think they're all going to get rich. They don't realize that the genuinely rich regard them as stupid peons to be exploited--if they regard them at all. "Work work. Zug Zug. Dabu."
  - stickfigure 11y ago
    Or, perhaps, you're getting downvoted because you said something stupid.
- rosser 11y ago
  Comments bitching about downvoting tend to get massively downvoted, so that's why this one's getting it. FWIW, I upvoted your previous comment, though; I think you're right there.
bsder 11y ago
Actually, California had a very nice electricity market. We even had green energy companies that you could choose to buy your power from even if it was a little more expensive. Then Enron crapped all over it with fraud and collusion. And, of course, since it was Dubya in charge, the Feds did ... absolutely nothing. I'm not a free market defender. However, we will eventually need something like a market in electricity; there are going to be too many suppliers sending electricity into the grid. In addition, had lots of electricity suppliers existed, Enron would not have been able to get away with what they did. The whole reason Enron could do what they did was that they could deplete the grid capacity by taking single power plants offline for "maintenance". If you could backfill that capacity and make money, Enron never have been able to pull that off. That was why the Republicans went out of their way to sell off California's electricity producers.
fennecfoxen 11y ago
You have a good point. If California repeated like it did 15 years ago and made a "market" called the California Water Exchange, and required water-supply entities to sell to separate aqueduct companies... and if the aqueduct companies were required to deliver water to farmers/consumers/industry at a government-fixed price ... with the supply available on a 1-day-in-advance contract basis only ... and if they made up special mandatory fees when water moved across state lines that people could exploit for fun and profit ... then yeah, that'd be pretty stupid and wouldn't solve anything. because the entire point of moving to a "market" structure is to make the price variable (and in the case of a drought, making water more expensive). Then everyone is financially incentivized to conserve and the high-water-seniority low-margin alfalfa farms could sell their water rights to the almond farmers who just want their expensive trees to survive until the drought ends.

pjonesdotca 11y ago

I love it when a comment gets downvoted with no response. Can't be bothered to explain why you disagree?

bsder 11y ago
Welcome to the tech groupthink brigade. How dare you criticize capitalism! It's because tech people think they're all going to get rich. They don't realize that the genuinely rich regard them as stupid peons to be exploited--if they regard them at all. "Work work. Zug Zug. Dabu."
- stickfigure 11y ago
  Or, perhaps, you're getting downvoted because you said something stupid.
rosser 11y ago
Comments bitching about downvoting tend to get massively downvoted, so that's why this one's getting it. FWIW, I upvoted your previous comment, though; I think you're right there.

bsder 11y ago

Actually, California had a very nice electricity market. We even had green energy companies that you could choose to buy your power from even if it was a little more expensive. Then Enron crapped all over it with fraud and collusion. And, of course, since it was Dubya in charge, the Feds did ... absolutely nothing. I'm not a free market defender. However, we will eventually need something like a market in electricity; there are going to be too many suppliers sending electricity into the grid. In addition, had lots of electricity suppliers existed, Enron would not have been able to get away with what they did. The whole reason Enron could do what they did was that they could deplete the grid capacity by taking single power plants offline for "maintenance". If you could backfill that capacity and make money, Enron never have been able to pull that off. That was why the Republicans went out of their way to sell off California's electricity producers.

fennecfoxen 11y ago

You have a good point. If California repeated like it did 15 years ago and made a "market" called the California Water Exchange, and required water-supply entities to sell to separate aqueduct companies... and if the aqueduct companies were required to deliver water to farmers/consumers/industry at a government-fixed price ... with the supply available on a 1-day-in-advance contract basis only ... and if they made up special mandatory fees when water moved across state lines that people could exploit for fun and profit ... then yeah, that'd be pretty stupid and wouldn't solve anything. because the entire point of moving to a "market" structure is to make the price variable (and in the case of a drought, making water more expensive). Then everyone is financially incentivized to conserve and the high-water-seniority low-margin alfalfa farms could sell their water rights to the almond farmers who just want their expensive trees to survive until the drought ends.