Electric Utility Deregulation

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Uh, lower rates overall 20 years later.

I think it took about 10 years for rates to go down significantly though.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i don't think microsoft needs to be broken up. there's still much competition to be had in the computer os market.

What competition?

All we have outside the Mac OS is Windows and Linux, which is a long way from making any serious inroads into the general consumer market. Or am I missing something?

[Starchild]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


I thought you were living in Canada for a while, hun. Not like the UK's a garden spot for weather, either.

Finished highschool in Canada and moved to England for a bit of pre-uni Sixth Form. After this, off to Scotland for university. Sometimes, I don't know why I bother unpacking.

[Q Classic]

standardization among oses, i think, is a good thing. if microsoft had any brains, they'd switch to a unix-based platform, do away with that entire "monopoly" on the desktop market, and then we'd have real competition between osx, windows, and the different linux flavors.

microsoft isn't the really the king in the server market.

microsoft has a long ways to go in the gaming market, both for pc and for console.

as for office productivity, you still have productivity suites and plenty of alternatives.

when i said competition, i wasn't restricting it to only oses.

[Odin]

In computers the only serious corporations are Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft uses its near-monopoly to force software companies to suck up the them, hence the court case a few years back. The near monopoly also lets Micrsoft sell Windows for rediculous prices, $150 for XP my @ss! I'd say no more than $80.

[Q Classic]

windows also comes with support packs free of charge:

to move from winxp to winxp sp1 costs nothing but time.

to move from osx 10.0 to osx 10.1 to osx 10.2 is usd$160, minimum.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
mtg, it might have been pipeline--but from what i've seen, it's a billing problem.

one guy has never gotten a bill.
another one didn't get a bill for two years, then suddenly received one to the tune of several thousand dollars.
others have received much higher bills than the amount they've used...

that just ain't right....

Those types of clowns usually disappear from the market pretty quickly. California at one point had over 180 companies registered as retail providers of electricity, but 90% of them were clueless and never would have done business. Enron's approach (God, I wish I hadn't lost the flyer) was to have "independent contractors" (so they didn't have to pay the morons) as independent sales agents going door to door with flyers and crap they printed up themselves - no "official" Enron material, although the phone numbers and stuff you'd call to sign up were in fact Enron numbers - the thing was so unbelievable, I checked it out.

Another dork I overheard at a dessert place near downtown San Diego was working for some supposed energy marketer, promising resellers a 33% commission on sales, claiming that they could deliver a guaranteed 20% savings to the retail costumer, not counting "upline" commissions in an MLM scheme. I overheard that pitch, and broke out laughing so loud the scammer made the mistake of asking what I thought was so funny.

First I pointed out that between the wholesale price of power they'd be paying, and the transmission and distribution charges they'd pay to the utility to carry that power to the residential customer, there wasn't a ten percent margin, let alone 33% plus upline commissions plus a 20% savings. Then the guy had to one-up me, so he said:

"Well. That may be true for some folks, but we have a contract to buy power at a very favorable price."

Me: "How much, from who, and delivered from where?"

"Well, that's confidential, of course."

Me: "No, sorry, it isn't. All wholesale power transactions other than short-term dispatch trading between regulated utilities have to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the parties, quantities, price and terms of sale are all public record. Everybody in the industry knows the details of the wholesale power transactions of everyone else. If you don't believe me, feel free to call the electricity division of the FERC."

The guy was pretty steamy at that point, but he knew when to shut up. I don't think he managed to sign up his MLM victim, though.

All that kind of horse**** normally dies out instantly in the deregulated market, if it ever gets there. Enron gave up on their quarter-assed retail marketing game before it ever started, so they never played in that low-end retail market. With their approach, they never would have gotten anywhere in the first place, but it's hard to believe a company could get that large and be that clueless.

[Odin]

I knew Enron was full of BS, but thats hilarious!!!

[MichaeltheGreat]

The MLM dork wasn't Enron - he was just one of the many get rich quick scammers who flocked in to the marketplace and went nowhere.

Enron was just the door to door guy, but they were at least (not) paying those guys straight commissions, no MLM. First class marketing support, though.

[Imran Siddiqui]

MtG: Thanks for the good info (I knew you'd show up sooner or later ).

Deregulation is definetly good in many markets. When you have one company which controls everything in one industry you have problems. When you start getting choices in the market, it really causes prices to fall because the bigwig monopoly provider can't gouge people's eyes out.

If you look at the converse, when you have a bunch of providers and then one company buys out the others, you end up with much higher prices, because that one provider can basically say 'screw you'.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
MtG: Thanks for the good info (I knew you'd show up sooner or later ).

Deregulation is definetly good in many markets. When you have one company which controls everything in one industry you have problems. When you start getting choices in the market, it really causes prices to fall because the bigwig monopoly provider can't gouge people's eyes out.

If you look at the converse, when you have a bunch of providers and then one company buys out the others, you end up with much higher prices, because that one provider can basically say 'screw you'.

I'm confused, it looks like you contradicted yourself between the 2 paragraphs. wouldent it be best if you have as many providers as possible?

[MRT144]

Imran, there is also the problem which i believe has affected the radio and tv medias and that is deregulation. Basicly it has not been in the consumers best interest for all these media mergers because the consumer now has less of a choice in news and opinions and that is a imperitive of a good information and media system.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
windows also comes with support packs free of charge:

to move from winxp to winxp sp1 costs nothing but time.

to move from osx 10.0 to osx 10.1 to osx 10.2 is usd$160, minimum.

To move from 10.0 to 10.1 was free. All you had to do was go down to the store with POP and they would give you it for nothing.

10.2 is a significant upgrade with lots more stuff - it isn't a service pack.

[Kidlicious]

Deregulation is always an industry scam. It's just a matter of how much more money they can rip us off for. If you are fooled by big business than shame on you.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm confused, it looks like you contradicted yourself between the 2 paragraphs. wouldent it be best if you have as many providers as possible?

Isn't that what I said? The 2nd paragraph that I described would be a BAD thing .

Deregulation doesn't mean you abandon anti-trust laws . It just means that you allow more companies to come into the market.