I’m just hoping it does not become the new norm, if you know what I mean… the latest hot lick around here is “decoupling” which is a scheme whereby the utility charges you independently of your actual metered use. I am not making this up. They have very seductive arguments… especially if you are rich and own a generator, like so many of the very rich folks around here do…
Everyone knows the stereotypes and tropes. Demolition Man’s franchise wars, Syndicate’s Megacorps, every other sf novel from serious Gibson to fun Fforde. We also know the negative side, the conspiracy bullshit, the antisemitic allegations.
But seriously, besides unionised strikes, is there anything on the table which could help changing this concentration of power and “wealth” in a bottom-up approach?
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My water is from a multinational conglomerate.
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Finally found a furriners-allowed version.
It’s Oliver’s usual quality stuff, but I have one problem:
He’s calling for a restoration of powers to the DoJ.
In the current environment, enhanced DoJ antitrust powers just make it easier for the fascists to seize control of the economy.
Reform the corporate sector, yes. But after.
The antitrust division of the DoJ is almost entirely comprised of dedicated public servants who are strongly anti-monopoly and are not fans of Trump or Jeff Sessions. The “current environment” might make it difficult for these people to do the job they would like to(*), but increasing the division’s powers is not somehow tantamount to supporting the bad guys.
You might as well say that increasing NSF funding just makes it easier for climate change deniers and young earth creationists to seize control of our technology.
(*) Just as having only a tiny fraction of the salary budget for good lawyers that the corporations do and uneven support from attorneys general and legislators has often made it difficult for the division to succeed under most recent administrations of both parties.
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That’s not entirely accurate from what I can tell.
The proposal is that you’re charged based on your peak usage for the year (regardless of how much energy you use any other day) plus a base fee to go towards infrastructure cost (for the poles, etc). The result would be to encourage customers to find ways to be energy efficient year round (such as switching to solar) without forgoing the maintenance cost of keeping the grid functional.
I’m actually cautiously optimistic this could work well provided that government programs were in place to help people take advantage of becoming more energy efficient which is something we should all be taking seriously.
The problem isn’t just the monopolies that come around, it’s what is effectively a monopoly through co-ordination. Most of what is shown here we oligarchies happily not competing with each other and working together to lobby the same policy with the government, and who use their position to make sure they stay the only ones in power through M&A - it’s why anti-trust laws we have are failing and I don’t know that they US had the policy to prevent it outside of aggressively denying M&A which usually just meant the larger companies would starve the smaller one instead.
It’s an important issue, but it would take a pretty radical new policy change to combat it.
It’s apparently only part of your bill (the bit that covers the cost of the delivery infrastructure) that is ‘decoupled’.
Given that’s a fixed cost, I suppose it makes sense for there to be a fixed charge to the customer.
The actual energy costs will still be metered and charged according to use.
Ha ha! No. You have to read the actual language of the proposals, not the glossy PR handouts and corporate web pages. They will be allowed to literally charge you whatever they want, with a rubberstamp from our corrupt and incompetent PUC, up to and including charging people who use no energy whatsoever. It’s the holy grail of regulatory capture.
That’ll make the poor have “skin in the game” as Ted Cruz might say, since they can’t use technology to load-shift. The rich here are already setting up for power-levelling - storing energy at night to use for AC during the day in summer, for one example. My neighbor set up a natural gas powered generator since natgas hits its lowest price at roughly the same time that electricity use peaks. The whole point is to make the system gameable - it’s a huge scam.
I think that any time someone says they want to charge you for a commodity independently of your use of that commodity, you should assume they would also cheerfully render your children down for soap as long as they could make a profit on it.
I’m happy to believe you. I’m also going to have to since all I can find is the glossy PR handouts and corporate web pages. It’s almost as if they’d rather not have anyone look at the proposals in detail…
I did find this:
which is an invitation to submit bids for advice on the proposals. That has links to:
http://depsc.delaware.gov/electric/decoupling.shtml
where apparently more details of the proposal are to be found.
Except that it actually tells me that I have “stumbled upon a place that does not exist in The First State.”
Wow.
Even the PR bumf was extremely confusing.
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And he knows all the Artful Dodger’s tricks!
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Jeez, why don’t they just whip up some collateralized debt obligations from all that liability, while they’re feeling creative?
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Don’t give them any ideas!
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This sounds similar to “demand metering” that has been in use for commercial customers forever. You pay a base rate based on your peak usage. People don’t realise that businesses get charges completely differently, kwh on a low usage “commercial” account for hallway lights in a rowhouse can cost twice as much as for your home.
Cooperative price fixing is certainly prohibited by current law; that’s what the successful case against ADM (for example) was based on.
Really one of the best John Oliver segments yet.
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Except they are not co-operatively price fixing, they are establishing market territories with only minor competition between brands. There is no need to break the law in order to do what is most effective for your company.
It’s only price fixing with collusion, when you simply choose to charge the same rate as your competitor after they lead the market (see checked luggage charges) it is not collusion. It’s why Comcast and Time-Warner are not considered monopolies or colluding. To be a monopoly you have to have sole control of the market, so once you are established as a majority or close to it you squat and fend off newcomers instead of competing.
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Non-compete agreements leading to geographical dominance are also prohibited under antitrust regulation (cf the recent Oltrin Solutions bleach settlement), though the bigger enforcer here is the FTC, not the DoJ. If the non-compete is purely accidental then perhaps there is no foundation to enforce, but in the cases in question they are almost surely actively colluding, it might just be hard to prove.
That’s not even what I said. Delta doesn’t have all the same routes as United because they bought companies favorable to their market - probably based on service miles. Since they don’t all service planes in the same spot, small markets can’t sustain competition since there is no equal financial footing between companies. This leads to a single company controlling a set geography naturally.
Now Delta sees American charges $15 a bag for checked luggage and realized they are simply choosing to not do the same and collect their millions. Same for United. Again, no collusion but there is price fixing just by reacting to other companies’ extremely public strategies.
It takes zero collusion for an oligarchy to form, and there isn’t a policy to prohibit that aside from aggressive policing of mergers which has been abandoned for a generation.
Does the game serve a purpose other than profit maximization?
