I'm blaming it on this manical push for across-the-board "deregulation".
Back when utilities were publicly-regulated monopolies, they could apply to
raise rates when necessary for infrastructure improvements. And they could
also get long-term financing by issuing bonds at advantageous rates, since
they were considered mature, stable entities.
Now that this ludicrous "free market" dogma has become entrenched, the
newly-deregulated utilities are supposed to be in competition, and the
competition, as always, is about price. Guess what? That means
infrastructure is an expense against the bottom line. So is maintenance, and
customer service. A few more years of this free market religion and we'll be
lucky to have power 2 days a week, like the collapsing Soviet Union. Moral?
Extremist positions are not optimal solutions in the real world.
End of rant.
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires
on 8/19/03 1:02 PM, James H. Nazarian, Ph.D. at microdoc@zoominternet.net
wrote:
> "Telewest (PH)" wrote:
>
>> Is there a grid? How can one power station failure black out cities as far
>> apart as New York, Detroit, Toronto and Ottowa as has been reported in the
>> UK? It's deja vu all over again. James Burke produced a television series
>> many years ago called Connections built around a similar power outage in
>> 1968 where a single component at the Niagara Falls power station blacked out
>> power to 30 million people over 80,000 square miles, with a similar event in
>> 1977 I understand.
>
> The answer, Paul is some people, places, things, countries and governments
> never
> learn.
>
> Jim
> microdoc@zoominternet.net
> 1960 MGA 1600 Very Red
> 1974 MGB-GT Damask (Very Burgundy) Red ( on the road again
> after a 10 year layover in divorce court)
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