The electric power producers want deregulation so they can make as much profit as possible -- but they want the power grid to be heavily regulated to guarantee power delivery so that they will be able to make their profits without being DISTRACTED (the Bush word do jour!) by having to make the grid work. But a grid robust enough to handle the unpredictably fluctuating loads from competition will have to have substantially more capacity than if it only had to handle minimized managed transmission from tightly regulated producers.
So the empirical question for economists arises: Which will cost more, for the whole package of transmission and production: Deregulated production with extra transmission capacity, or a less expensive transmision network with regulated producers?
This leads to the SOCIAL question: Even if competition costs MORE, do we still want competition instead of regulation, because what we want in life is not lower costs, or leisure or anything else, but the joys of competition as a good in and for itself?
--
Last week, Paul Krugman spoke of:
faith-based deregulation
--
Also, a senior Bush official described religious opposition to the U.S. in Iraq as a:
distraction
the U.S. could not afford at this time, presumably like the possibility of Gore winning in Nov. 2000 was a DISTRACTION the Bush admiistration could not aford at that time.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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