Comments on: SB 31 is Bad Business

By: Bill Simon

Bill Simon — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:25:12 +0000

In case anyone forgot, a certain Senator from Bonaire, named Sonny carried the water for natural gas deregulation.

Yes, ProgD…a certain DEMOCRAT SENATOR AT THE TIME carried that legislation. Nice try.

By: Icarus

Icarus — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:25:00 +0000

And that I’m just over 2 years old…

By: Bill Simon

Bill Simon — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:24:03 +0000

Even scarier now, Jon, that he’s “just a cartoon.”

By: Bill Simon

Bill Simon — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:23:23 +0000

Georgia Power Lobbyists = Lying crooked SOBs.

By: Jon Hodges

Jon Hodges — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:31:18 +0000

No he is just a cartoon.

By: jenny

jenny — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:29:49 +0000

Um, honey? You and Icarus are bedfellows? ……
This place is getting scary.

By: Jon Hodges

Jon Hodges — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:24:39 +0000

“It’s time for the Republican Party to differentiate from being “pro-business” and “pro-big business”” – Icarus

Good Grief, I agree with Icarus.

A common enemy makes for strange bedfellows.

By: jenny

jenny — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:18:01 +0000

Lookee, lookee–freedom is popular with everyone. Even on PeachPundit. Down with Corporate Tyranny. Let’s go picket Georgia Power! We can invite all their dirty lobbyists to a luncheon laced with GMO’s and rBGH. LOL.

By: Progressive Dem

Progressive Dem — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:04:24 +0000

In case anyone forgot, a certain Senator from Bonaire, named Sonny carried the water for natural gas deregulation.

By: gawatch

gawatch — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:28:05 +0000

EMC ratepayers are also shareholders, birdfan. Not so for Georgia Power. This bill forces Georgia Power ratepayers to act like shareholders, but we get none of the shareholder spoils. And we won’t see a net benefit until 2027 at the earliest, ignoring opportunity cost.

Your $300 million “savings” exists in a world of nominal dollars and unicorns – not reality. That “savings” doesn’t take into account consumers’ cost of money, the forced prepayment of income taxes, SB 31’s partial exemption for RTP customers, nor the sales tax impact.

By: Daniel N. Adams

Daniel N. Adams — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:05:30 +0000

Enron and natural gas deregulation are bad analogies. It only opened the market to “marketeers” or middlemen where none were needed. As if someone was having trouble finding Atlanta Gas/Light. It only introduced another layer or groups buying from the same monopoly producers. Libertarian economist (Cato) stated that partial deregulation like this would not work and cause prices to go up for consumers. And as usual, they were proven correct. And now these examples are held up as “see, deregulation doesn’t work.” When in fact, it wasn’t deregulation at all. It was a scheme set for failure from the start.

Anytime you only partially deregulate between production to final delivery, you will set up a bottleneck that causes a false supply and demand issue within the stream that causes prices to increase. In the above examples, the middlemen were competing for the same supply with no increase in production or new producers entering the market, creating a market within a market where one wasn’t needed. Not what I’m advocating.

By: Icarus

Icarus — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:28:43 +0000

Technocrat,

Please don’t bog down a discussion of Libertarian utopia with details from the real world. Don’t you know the free market would solve the problem of making room for the extra poles if the market demands it? And that this would also somehow result in the lowest cost?

By: Technocrat

Technocrat — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:24:33 +0000

“have 3 to 5 companies stringing wire down every street” .
Unlike Cable or Telephone which have only a 2-3 foot working space and must be 12″ apart on poles.
Power companies must follow The National Electric Safety Code which limits the closeness to communications space to 4 feet minimum. In short there is no room on existing poles for another company. Now we could go back to ENRON and have different Power Suppliers and Marketeers use the same Ga Power lines just as Natural Gas companies use the common pipes today.

It is much less expensive to maintain a Gigawatt of Nuclear than 2000* – 5MW wind powered turbines.
*you need 10x the peak capacity of wind for cold weather and low wind conditions.

By: chamblee54

chamblee54 — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:51:45 +0000

Thank you for the email. The commentary is up on my blog

By: Daniel N. Adams

Daniel N. Adams — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:50:56 +0000

Sorry… Misread the 10x part, that was suppose to be me. I don’t believe that would be the result. Show me where, an actually example, where truly unregulated competition lead to higher price for less service.

By: Daniel N. Adams

Daniel N. Adams — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:45:48 +0000

Ic… that’s that little central planner in you that you need to learn to quit listening to (just keep him drunk and blathering to himself). You actually have no idea what the outcome of allowing true competition would be. Maybe another outcome might be that a company bids for maintaining different portions of the infrastructure then providers could pay for attaching to it. Or the plublic could own it (like the roads) and constantly put out bids for upkeep for portions of it. Or some other outcome that you or I are unable to conceive. And just because you’re willing to pay 10x,… you could probably get your own minnie power plant for that.

By: Icarus

Icarus — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:14:33 +0000

“Now if they’ll just get rid of that “Natural monopoly” nonsense.”

I agree. Let’s have 3 to 5 companies stringing wire down every street. I’d much rather pay 10 times what I pay now for electricity so I could enjoy a greater delusion of liberty.

By: birdfan

birdfan — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:13:20 +0000

Actually, Georgia Power(who has only 40% of the Nuclear Power Plant project) is asking rate payers pay for the interest in 2 years when they begin production rather than wait 7 years when it comes on line, which they would have to pay interest on interest. This will save the “rate payers” an estimated $300 million. Also, the EMCs (who have 60% of the project) havr the ability to have rate payers pay for both interest and production costs prior to services being on line.

By: Dave Bearse

Dave Bearse — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:55:20 +0000

This legislation adds a whole new dimension to the Georgia GOP being the party in power.

With 70 Georgia Power lobbyists having worked this, it ought to be the best legislation money can buy. Hope someone bothers to followup up and insure these lobbying costs aren’t passed through to ratepayers.

By: Daniel N. Adams

Daniel N. Adams — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:43:36 +0000

Now if they’ll just get rid of that “Natural monopoly” nonsense.
Then we could work on their ability to tolerate how individuals might use their non-infringing freedoms.