If you are lucky enough not to live somewhere that power's been deregulated, here's how it works:
No new power sources are built. No new transmission lines are built. Energy "brokers" buy huge "amounts" of electricity, at wholesale, in advance, from whoever was selling you electricity before. They then sell that wholesale electricity to you. It is sent to you on the same lines as were used before deregulation, and comes from the same place it did before. But now, there's a middle man, who takes his cut. This is said to assure "efficiency".Often, if you are with one of these brokers, there's a contracted price that "guarantees" you a certain price per kilowatt hour, assuming you never, ever, are late on your payments. Miss one, and you're back to your original dealer, paying more than you were before deregulation to make up for lost profits in electricity sold wholesale to brokers. This is the fate of almost all people of modest means.
Deregulation was supposed to save consumers money. And it has, oh, it has.
Well, it has if you're a BIG consumer. Meaning, naturally, a BIG Business. The kind with a CEO, often. The kind with a Really Rich Guy CEO running it, who calls his Really Rich Buddy on an Electricity Board, and says, "I use lots of electricity, and the cost is just killing my bonus. Isnt there some way to make people who dont use as much pay for a larger share of the cost?" A little conferencing, a little spin, a secret meeting or two with the Vice President of the United States, and voila, everybody (who is a CEO) wins!
Somehow, during the 80's and 90's, we were somehow convinced that any organization run by the government was wasteful, and that their job could be done so much better by profit-making private organizations. But we missed a few important points.
- Nobody thinks that government workers are real go-getters. We've met too many that arent. But government pay has never been particularly good, which is why they always lose people to the private sector. With privatization, the (fewer) workers will get even less money, and lose many of the benefits that have always been the one advantage of civil service. You also get a new layer of management, one that will pay more to stay "competitive". And finally, because this new privatized organization still has to answer to the government, there will still be a layer of bureaucracy in place. Result: more management making more money, less workers making less money.
- Secrecy. Dont like how your government is operating? Well, BushCo notwithstanding, there's a little thing called the Freedom of Information Act, which allows you to pry into almost anything that the government is doing. Try doing that with a private company (sorry, trade secret). Wonder where the money is going in the government? You can find out. It might be a pain in the ass, but you can find out. Wonder where the money is going in a private firm? Hope you've got a friend high up in the FBI (who wont be vetoed by someone higher up in the Justice Department). Oh, and probable cause, since mere curiosity wont kill this corporate cat.
- Profit. Lets see, we werent making any profit before, but in the hands of private individuals things will be "streamlined" making profit possible while resulting in no loss of service. Seriously, that's the claim. See #1 for how things are "streamlined", read this or this or this or this to see how "no service is lost".
- Ask yourself this: Do we really want people making money off of government service? Isnt that what generally leads to corruption?
And if you want to get really wacky, how about if you pay less money when you use less electricity. Yeah, nuts, I know.
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