Can't you humor me?
I am perfectly willing to be convinced that electrical utilities should be
regulated or publicly-owned. What is the argument? If the argument is
"deregulation is a failure -- look at California", then I want to know your
response to the arguments cited, which as you point out are obvious to any
right-leaning neophyte. Coming from my conservative mind-set, citing the
present California energy situation as an example of the failure of
deregulation is preposterous for the reasons set forth in the articles.
I am sure there are numerous reasons for regulating or publicly-owning
utilities. Electricity is a basic human need and we need to protect poor
people. Conserve energy. Democratic control over the means of production
is inherently good. For utilities to be profitable, they need to be
monopolies or otherwise collude, and that's a bad thing. I am sure there
are a host of others. But if you are going to argue that the chaos in
California evidences that deregulation is empirically inefficent compared to
regulation or public ownership measured by the standards set by a market
economy, I don't see it. Maybe you can convince me.
David Shemano
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Eugene Coyle
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 3:26 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:6578] Re: Energy deregulation
Neither of these are conservative "analyses" of the California energy
crisis. Each is an off-the-top-of-the-head rant that could be written by
any
right-leaning neophyte.
For a REALLY conservative analysis see the work of Univ. of Chicago
economist Lester Telser. I quite agree with his analysis that electric
power
must be regulated or publically-owned, otherwise cooperation (collusion)
among the producers is required for efficiency. See my paper for extensive
quotes and citations. And Professor Telser was kind enough to tell me that
I
had gotten him correctly.
Gene Coyle
David Shemano wrote:
> For those interested, enclosed are conservative analyses of the California
> energy crisis:
>
> http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=75000389
>
> and
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20001228/t000123514.html
>
> I would be interested in your critique.
>
> David Shemano
