Hi Max (or should that be Min)
I think there are some sensible points hidden behind all that bluff & bluster, so let's try & dig them out.
Power markets in the US? California, actually is of what you refer to. And the people of California emasculated capitalism in the 80s by way of a referendum that capped energy prices. No-brainer here then. Private operators simply stopped building generating capacity in order to remain profitable (we all understand profit, do we not?) Come the 'energy crunch' of the naughties, someone had to stump-up for the new gear and the shareholders were not up for losing their dividends. Hence the rubberband snapped and prices increased to backfill the gap in capital funding.
Lots of imagination used to back up a weak arguement here. The California electricity price cap came in in 1996 (not the 80's - See
source and came after almost doubling of prices over the previous 17 years. In fact, there were price increases in 15 out of the previous 17 years. I presume that your capitalist outlook would expect the people of California to continue to hand over piles of their hard-earned to the directors & share-holders to Enron and the other power companies, but fortunately, the California law makers disagreed with you and brought in the cap. I can't find any reference to a referendum to bring in the cap, though the power companies did later buy the result of a referendum aimed to slow deregulatulation - from [broken link removed]
In what is unarguably the highest price ever paid to buy an election, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric and their allies spent $53 million to defeat professor Coyle's proposal to slow deregulation.
And I wasn't just referring to California, as it happens. Failure to regulate the quality of service in the deregulated market was one of the root causes in the recent massive power failure on the east coast. So the great God of capitalism failed the power consumers of the USA.
'last mile syndrome' or the 'access network'. No one to blame here, either. Ireland is an admittedly small place. And like so many low population islands, pays more for most everything. There is no ROI in Eircom. Recall the exhortations of Harney and Kane prior to the first flotation. Did anyone honestly evaluate the profitability of a telcom operating in a confined market? No, the punters were looking at a takeover bid from a British or continental telco. Any imbecile could see that the value of Eircom was in the physical plant. O'Reilly and Soros, did. And now we reap what we have sown. Live small, pay big. There is no incentive (profit, remember that word) for another telcom competitor to invest in Ireland.
I just love the 'no one to blame here' line. What do you expect - we just roll over and get screwed again & again while the great god of capitalism continues to transfer wealth from the average worker to O'Reilly/Soros et al? We were told that privatisation & competition would give better service & better prices to the consumer. Well prices keep going up & service keeps going down.
UK and privatisation. So? Some politicos get the heave-ho. Please identify the strongest economy in Europe (hint: it is the 4th largest in the world).
You've answered the question that wasn't asked. The question that was asked was whether Thatcher's right wing agenda was good for the UK? Maggie divided Britain, North against South & rich against poor. The rich got richer, and the poor got stuck in the fast dwindling supply of council housing without any hope of decent education or jobs.
Yep - Are you in favour of school privatisation, where [broken link removed] (and then wonder why we have a growing obesity problem?
Or better still, just give us one example where privatisation of state services has worked to the benefit of the consumer?