308
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
308 points (99.0% liked)
politics
18601 readers
5280 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
When you create an account with a utility, aren't you creating a contract with them? What happened to contractual duty?
"Well, in the land of the fee, your level of freedom is directly proportional to your wealth, and the corporations have... an ungodly amount of wealth... but you... you're a peasant... you understand?"
"Damn you Deal-breaker Jones! That wasn't part of the deeeeeeal!!!"
I don’t think it works that way in Texas. There’s a layer of energy resellers who customers create an account with. Those resellers buy energy from the main utility companies and offer different plans. So, there’s no contract between consumer and generator.
Ah yes more middlemen with do nothing jobs ment to reduce corporate liability. The American dream.
Dont disparage what they do. They also add to the price so they can profit. Clearly, added value.
It's a separation between power generation and power delivery. We have the same thing in New York. Someone has to own the actual delivery infrastructure, which in NYC is generally this company called ConEdison. They'll also provide the generate power for you, but you have the right to switch to other providers. For instance, I could switch to a provider that generated all power from renewable sources, though it is naturally more expensive.
Maybe it works that way in NYC, but here in Indiana, I get one option for a power company. Power, gas, water, sewer, trash collection, all single option. And no, that single option is not a government one because I live outside city limits. Until they laid fiber in this neighborhood last year, I only had one option for internet too.
I won't pretend to know the regulations in Indiana, but it's also entirely possible that startup costs or market conditions there don't really facilitate additional competitors. Utilities tend to become way less efficient as you get less dense, so I wouldn't be surprised if you don't really get much competition even if there aren't strong regulatory barriers. The market being open doesn't necessarily mean that it's profitable.
Do they, though? I hear there's this neat thing called "public ownership" that works wonders for basic necessities like utilities. And that way you don't have someone scheming to profit off the things you need to stay alive.
During the Great privatization scam we are promised that the free market would somehow be magically more efficient but it turns out it was a just so they could show profit Hearing in the middle of stuff that had previously been free of it. Worst service and higher prices were universally the result because those profits have to come from somewhere and that'somewhere is you
There are lots of examples of private companies working well as regulated monopolies. The key word is "regulated", though.
I mean, that isn't incompatible with this system at all. Government ownership of the delivery system, which I'd fully agree is a good thing and one of the places where state ownership naturally fits, is still ownership.
The government generally isn't in the energy production business, so either they lock you into a monopoly with an energy producer, or you get to choose one. Either way, it's the same general system.
We had a Internet Wholesaler in our previous residence who wanted to do the retail side as well. They had the monopoly on the estate we were in, so the ACCC forced them to break up.
With multiple retailers, we suddenly had much better customer assistance, but prices stayed the same.
that and how many of their customers can afford (or have the spare time) for a contract lawyer?
Ok, then sue the middlemen for failing to withhold their side of the contract.
They can deal with recouping the costs from their shitty suppliers.
They'll either pressure the suppliers into change, or go out of business handing the liability back to the suppliers.
Wouldn't the energy broker company want to sue the generator then? Honestly they probably have better lawyers than their customers, anyway.
In my experience contracts are one-sided. The big corpo end of the contract basically has no real power over them but they sure can use their contract to fuck you little guy over. All the contract does is allow a corporation to use state power against you really. No contracts that's not between equals never truly be fair unless we were to have a public defender system for civil court
Usually this is not the case when you bargin collectively.
Your contact is to pay for the power they provide. It is a regulated field so if something fails, then it is up to the regulators to cover the costs of they want more redundancy but 100 percent guarantees are not possible. Solar doesn't provide all days and wind can be gone for weeks. Do you think you should be able to sue them for that?
Yes, because they should have energy storage for renewables, such as molten salt, gravity, synthetic methane, and/or electrical batteries, etc