This is so fucked. The money the government hands out will funnel itself back into wealthy pockets through extraordinary scenario
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Texas congressman says emergency aid will help Texans pay high energy bills
- Thread starter thisismadness
- Start date
Its bad in this current state, but if done right, It makes sense for customers to have a choice on who provides their power services. People with this particular provider usually enjoy excellent rates. The problem is how spikes are handled in Texas (and how regulators don't ensure that the people aren't protected from preventable outages)
Australia used to have the same problem. Providers could capitalize mightily on the unreliable grid. Tesla came out and installed a massive battery that acts to instantly stabilize the grid when there's trouble on the supply side and the result is they stabilized prices as well.
If Republicans gave a damn about human beings, they would have implemented this system with a cap on consumer rates and with providers who 'fail to deliver paying the difference to the providers competent enough to winterize their generators.
I'm not against Giddy getting paid. They are one of a few providers who listened to recommendations to winterize and they were able to provide. But their customers shouldn't be footing this bill and neither should tax payers. It should be the companies that chose to risk lives so they could profit a little bit more.
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Meanwhile here electricity production and distribution is nationalized. It costs le $80 ($70 US or so) per month on average, and that's including cold winters, and that's for around 900 square feet.
OK this is confusing me now......so to double check, you aren't saying an unregulated energy grid is the reason for different providers right? Because in the UK we have a bunch of regulations on energy like everything else compared to the usa's overall limited state of regulations on everything, and I can change to any of the energy providers I want without hassle. They each have different rates and bonuses as well as each provider having a bunch of different rates and plans themselves that anyone can pick to have for a fixed term or unfixed term. So I just had to check that people aren't saying an unregulated energy grid system is the cause of having choice in providers.
And while they will generally raise prices every few years per unit, you can just lock in a price pretty easily for years. They announce prices going up ahead of time and when they did that a few years back I locked in the same rate I was getting before the price rise for 5 years by simply calling them up and asking to change tariffs to a price locked one.
Is this another case of the usa forcing whole areas into one energy company like they do with Internet and texas went a different way? Because if that's the case then texas was right to offer choice but wrong in how badly they managed this thing.
....
SO Universal Income to pay for Texans Utilties who bitch about Universal ANYTHING ALL THE FUCKING TIME
SO Universal Income to pay for Texans Utilties who bitch about Universal ANYTHING ALL THE FUCKING TIME
The folks with the high bills weren't shut off.
Basically, Griddy charges $10/month for you to access the wholesale market. It's not a power company in the sense that they buy and hedge power, and then charge you a rate with risk+profit built in.
You get the same rate that any power company gets and Griddy gets their $10/month.
When times are good, people get STUPID CHEAP rates. When demand spikes, you change providers, shut off your power yourself, or you pay the bill.
These power companies are getting people coming and going aren't they? Save money ignoring winterizing, hiking rates during lousy service, probably recieve government money to winterize, start the process over again.
most states have a regulated market. Where consumers don't have choice, but local regulators provide consumer protections through oversight. But these are wealthy monopolies with their hands in politicians pockets, so it isn't always great.
some states like Texas have deregulated market. This offers consumers a lot of choice. But it's pure supply and demand capitalism. This doesn't mean that there can be no government oversight, but Texas conservatives are anti-consumer protection so a red state isn't a great place to have a deregulated market IMO. Rather than mandate winterization, the market manager in Texas only "recommended it". Companies that bucked the recommendation killed people. The few companies that heeded the recommendation were able to provide, and capitalized on the scarcity.
IMO the best option would be a mix of the two. Where consumers have a ton of choice rather than dealing with monopolies. But the regulators impose consumer protections that ensure operators don't have financial incentive to take shortcuts on public safety And reliability.
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OK cool so your suggestion is exactly like we have it here. There are a big number of choices for who you get energy/gas from and you can change freely between them anytime, in fact when you want to change you only call up the new supplier you want and they handle the whole switching process for you without you needing to even contact that old supplier. And the government regulations body stops them doing fucked up shit and prevents them from risking lives of customers etc.
I always knew about the usa's weird Internet monopolies in areas but didn't know energy was the same.....that's insane. Btw Internet here is basically done the same way we handle energy. An insane number of companies that basically anyone can pick from and the government body just stops them breaking the law and such. It's a good system and I honestly had no idea that the usa was so weird with more than just Internet.
That explains why I was confused as to how that awful company in CA who keeps cutting power for people due to being unable to do it's job still had customers at all.....when they have 0 choice it makes it easy to stay in business.
Yeah. I don't disagree with that at all. There's no attempt to have any democratic control over these companies with the prominence of "private" property. And we've straight jacketed ourselves which wasn't made for this economy and is so easily bought (even without direct bribes)
You never learn if something doesn't bite you in the ass.
if the bills are paid, then those people will never understand how backward their thinking actually is. If anything, they will think that those selfish ass republicans in office saved them. At least that is what Fox will say.
if the bills are paid, then those people will never understand how backward their thinking actually is. If anything, they will think that those selfish ass republicans in office saved them. At least that is what Fox will say.
This situation is totally exploitative and immoral, but I don't think there is any legal mechanism to do that. Probably the best solution is for the state of Texas to foot some or all of the bill since they chose to go with this deregulated mess and keep themselves on a separate grid to avoid federal oversight.
I wonder how much all of those bills put together tallies up to.
half of the country is convinced that oversight=communism, and they vote against their own interests because they think getting fleeced by tycoons is their ticket to prosperity. It's insane.
I think the electric companies can eat the cost and beg for money from the state government. Introduce a bill that any debt incurred due to this cannot be placed in collections, nor can it be used against people establishing service. The consumers shouldn't pay a fucking cent over their regular rate.
They voted for this government to put the system in as. I think they should feel some of the pain for their choices. They shouldn't get off for voting in a government that set this up. If they don't like what the end result is, maybe they can then vote for people who will do a better job. This just lets everyone off the hook from their choices from voting in these people to the people in charge who made these decisions. Not having them feel the pain to any degree is the reason people like Ted Cruz still gets reelected as well as the other politicians who caused the problem. Nobody is going to learn anything if everyone gets bailed out because then they get to have what they see as low cost energy without any of the consequences.
Yep I've seen it first hand sadly when I visit my now wife in texas and her family. Her ex step father would ask me questions about how the systems here worked and when I told him that we have healthcare for all without having to pay for it whenever we use it as its just paid with taxes, or that we have 28 days of paid time off, paid sick leave etc for work, paid time off for either or both parents from work when they have a baby etc he was shocked as hell. He had grown up in the usa all his life and never travelled, had straight up bought into the "usa is the best" propaganda that is thrown out to discourage people looking at other countries and wondering how the usa is so behind on so much for the people.
He even said to me one time "man you guys government really take care of your people over there" and I laughed and had to tell him "well what is the point in paying all those taxes if hardly any of it is used to actually help the people of the country as a collective good for everyone?" And he had not even thought of it........blows my mind really.
Also blows my mind how against "hand outs" and "socialism" a lot of people can be there when it comes to just regular people getting help from tax payers but the moment a corporation comes demanding tax money or tax cuts to keep their business afloat despite having record profits etc, not a single word about that socialism for them. It really is crazy.
You're not going to get a power bill based off who you voted for in an election and if it's going to take some pain in order for people to make better choices in voting whether it voting for someone better or actually voting for those who didn't, then not completely bailing them out is probably for the best for the long run. Otherwise, nobody learns a damn thing and once this passes, it'll be business as usual because most people didn't feel any of the consequences.
Given how many people don't have power, they shouldn't pay anything, regular rate or otherwise.
If only we could create some kind of rules for essential utility providers that says their price schemes have to behave with a certain regulatory.
Some sort of... regulation, or something.
Some sort of... regulation, or something.
It's just important to note this is an enforced false dichotomy. Most other countries have both strong regulation and regulate to ensure choice for customers to instantly switch between providers with lots of options.
I agree and touched on it a bit later in the thread. There is no real "either or" scenario. We can have both a system that keeps prices low by offering consumers choice AND regulates it so that companies are compelled to ensure safety considerations are always met.
But enough American's are brainwashed into believing the only viable options are either monopolies or laissé faire free market, that we have no progress.
Just the other day, a trending thought was that Texan's would rather have this disaster than have the government involved in their energy market. Its pure insanity. In there mind, These deaths were worth it to prevent authoritative dictatorships and planned economies - the only other option.
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