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Not always. Certain services, electricity for example, are “natural monopolies”. Once someone is in there, it makes no economic sense for others to compete, thi

Not always. Certain services, electricity for example, are “natural monopolies”. Once someone is in there, it makes no economic sense for others to compete, this is where government regulated monopolies are the optimal solution.

huffmsa 7y ago
Oh? How's PG&Es monopoly working for California? I'm of the opinion that much smaller grids with high volume solar would do a lot better of a job. Sure the monopoly made sense when it was issued, but once tech catches up to the point of making it obsolete, the incumbent rarely goes down without a fight, delaying the deployment of new technologies, ultimately hurting consumers.
- thebooktocome 7y ago
  PG&E's problems are due to a change in liability laws combined with decades of poor maintenance. A non-profit government-run utility wouldn't have a profit incentive to skimp on equipment maintenance for decades. It would have other, more interesting problems.
  - huffmsa 7y ago
    The US military skips on maintenance all the damn time. They were running bootleg copies of Windows as recently as 2015 because they don't have the resources or incentives to upgrade. Every office of the executive executive branch is in theory non/not-for-profit but they still manage to waste as much money if not more than a comparable private sector firm. Federal light and power would not go well.
- ldoughty 7y ago
  For-profit government granted monopolies are a terrible idea. They should be government-run, or watched, and should not choose between providing a service to customers or money to shareholders. I'm not in California, but sounds to me like PG&E maximized profits by reducing maintenance, then when they were really far behind and running into issues, they begged for more money from taxpayers because they could not afford to make up for years of maximizing shareholder and senior management profits... I.e. corporate welfare.. they made lots of profit knowing this would bite them in the rear end, and then want the government to bail them out. It's nearly always win-win when you're that large of a company to pull these shenanigans
- formercoder 7y ago
  Suboptimal regulation is just that
  - shiftless 7y ago
    All regulation will always be "suboptimal." Your type will always be clamoring for more and more of it, while our collective problems continuously increase...but you'll never make the connection between the two.

huffmsa 7y ago

Oh? How's PG&Es monopoly working for California? I'm of the opinion that much smaller grids with high volume solar would do a lot better of a job. Sure the monopoly made sense when it was issued, but once tech catches up to the point of making it obsolete, the incumbent rarely goes down without a fight, delaying the deployment of new technologies, ultimately hurting consumers.

thebooktocome 7y ago
PG&E's problems are due to a change in liability laws combined with decades of poor maintenance. A non-profit government-run utility wouldn't have a profit incentive to skimp on equipment maintenance for decades. It would have other, more interesting problems.
- huffmsa 7y ago
  The US military skips on maintenance all the damn time. They were running bootleg copies of Windows as recently as 2015 because they don't have the resources or incentives to upgrade. Every office of the executive executive branch is in theory non/not-for-profit but they still manage to waste as much money if not more than a comparable private sector firm. Federal light and power would not go well.
ldoughty 7y ago
For-profit government granted monopolies are a terrible idea. They should be government-run, or watched, and should not choose between providing a service to customers or money to shareholders. I'm not in California, but sounds to me like PG&E maximized profits by reducing maintenance, then when they were really far behind and running into issues, they begged for more money from taxpayers because they could not afford to make up for years of maximizing shareholder and senior management profits... I.e. corporate welfare.. they made lots of profit knowing this would bite them in the rear end, and then want the government to bail them out. It's nearly always win-win when you're that large of a company to pull these shenanigans
formercoder 7y ago
Suboptimal regulation is just that
- shiftless 7y ago
  All regulation will always be "suboptimal." Your type will always be clamoring for more and more of it, while our collective problems continuously increase...but you'll never make the connection between the two.