Should essential services be publicly owned

Quote: beachbumbabs

Speaking of wow, I am astounded they are allowing the shipment of wet grains out of Arizona, to where the water molecules are forever lost to that area. Over decades, that represents a significant movement of moisture.

That is an interesting comment about 'wet grains' BBB. Do you have any links to discussion on this I would like to read about the idea.

Quote: kenarman

That is true and agree that the societal benefits of stripping gangs of their income is huge. Your point however is the government still needs more money and charges more money for MJ than the gangs were even with their huge profits. Governments are never efficient at anything they do except maybe killing people.

Why not? The government at all levels makes far more from cigarettes than Reynolds, Big Mo, and the rest. In these parts they make more off slots than the casino. The more you look at it the government has muscled the mafia out of more and more of the profitable businesses.

Quote: AZDuffman

Why not? The government at all levels makes far more from cigarettes than Reynolds, Big Mo, and the rest. In these parts they make more off slots than the casino. The more you look at it the government has muscled the mafia out of more and more of the profitable businesses.

I am a little surprised AZD that you are in favor of the sin tax on cigarettes. Of course the anti-smoking crowd likes to claim that the health costs of cigarettes are more than they take in with taxes. Are you also in favor of the sin tax on gambling and seeing it increase?

Quote: kenarman

I am a little surprised AZD that you are in favor of the sin tax on cigarettes. Of course the anti-smoking crowd likes to claim that the health costs of cigarettes are more than they take in with taxes. Are you also in favor of the sin tax on gambling and seeing it increase?

Where did I say I was in favor? Merely pointing it out. I point out to anyone that the PA government takes 55% of slot revenue while the Rosenthal-Stardust skim only took 34% for the Chicago Outfit. Street bookies paid 600:1 which is 20% better than the 500:1 most states pay. And people still trust their government?

Quote: AZDuffman

Where did I say I was in favor? Merely pointing it out. I point out to anyone that the PA government takes 55% of slot revenue while the Rosenthal-Stardust skim only took 34% for the Chicago Outfit. Street bookies paid 600:1 which is 20% better than the 500:1 most states pay. And people still trust their government?

I guess I misunderstood the "Why Not" at the beginning of your post.

Quote: kenarman

That is an interesting comment about 'wet grains' BBB. Do you have any links to discussion on this I would like to read about the idea.

I think the book that made the point best for me, is The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein.

That was an extreme case. The moon was colonized by private corporations after finding ice in deep crevasses. The ice was mined, and provided the water necessary for survival as a closed society, with tunnel farming for wheat, cattle grazing, and other foods, and extreme conservation of all water used for any purpose. Except...the wheat contained water, and wheat was the main export of the colony to starving billions in India.

The ice fields were finite. If the wheat was consumed within the colony, the water would in some form remain within the ecosystem to be recycled indefinitely. But sending it to Earth, where they had plenty of water, was a waste of resources that could not be replenished except at great expense, by boosting it back to the Moon from the heavy gravity well that is Earth. (They shipped the wheat in unpowered canisters aimed ballistically to land in unpopulated waters. Gravity was all that was needed going downhill.)

So, hopefully without spoiling the book, that was the primary but hidden agenda of those who sought independence from the Earth - to be released from the obligation to provide the wheat.

Our water is also finite, though currently vast. But the situation downstream from the Colorado has been volatile and worsening for decades. Taking the alfalfa grown with that water out of its biosphere to half a world away, lessens the amount of regional water left to rain, snow, feed underground aquifers, and replenish the irrigation source. By how much, I don't know, but I'm talking about decades if not centuries of compounding impact.

Quote: petroglyph

With anybody and everybody capitalizing on PG&E's facility's, who is going to pay the lawsuits to the family's if the fires were determined to be caused by improper maintenance?

When the lines are rebuilt on the taxpayer's dime, the way it works is all the private interests go back to harvesting $ at taxpayer expense. Since company X.Y, and Z all are selling services that are carried on PG&E's poles and row, should they assume part of the settlement, or should the taxpayers pay?

When a publicly owned power utility is found to have been at fault for their lines starting a fire, it doesn't take long for claims to be paid and business continues.

In a case where say ten different sellers of power are all on the exact same wire, who's to blame for the fire?

Reading with interest. Here in the England, the Electricity transmission network is owned by ONE private company National Grid. That one company is licenced by the government and answers to a regulatory body 'OFGEN'. It's fully responsible for getting electricity from power station to end consumer. There's No duplicate sets of infrastructure. It may contract out infrastructure maintenance, but it holds total responsibility for any damage or costs arising. Retail customers, however, have their business relationship with any of a vast number of 'electricity providers'. But that's just a billing relationship. The retail provider buys the metered amount of capacity from the electricity generators at whatever wholesale price they can arrange and just provides meter reading and billing services. National Grid is tightly regulated by government, as are the electricity generating companies and retail providers. One such retail provider recently cocked up too many retail billing relationships ( overcharging etc ) and was just punished by a ban on signing up any more customers until they get their act sorted. OFGEN, the government regulator can and does hand out stiff financial or administrative penalties to all parts of the industry. Private enterprise is alive and well and coexists well with government regulation. I own shares in National Grid.

You know, I hadn't seen it discussed in the legalization of marijuana, but the idea that cost might go down is somewhat dependent on what goes on with the sin taxes. Even if privatized it's still an issue as with cigarettes and alcohol and might become just as big an issue with weed.

Quote: AZDuffman

"Natural Monopoly" is a term taught in ECON-101. It describes a service, usually a utility of some kind, that is so large and disruptive to provide that it makes sense to have only one provider.

Then the agency's you are describing in the elec. power market [at least on the western side of the rockies] are company's such as BPA, the BOR, or the COE. Not large or small electric utility company's, that as I posted upthread, at times have multiple power company's mounted on the same poles at the same time.

Quote:

The key phrase her is "in your opinion." Sometimes they do, often they do not. One thing for sure they will absolutely innovate less.

Yes, in my opinion. My family and relatives have been in the elec. business since before I was born, still today over 60 years later, there are two trade journals on my desk. I have been sought out for labor estimates for labor by Dillon engineering, and CH2MHill, recommended to do estimates by BPA to engineering firms. I've worked as a lineman, contractor, supervisor and estimator, for decades, contracted for dozens of power company's private and public and studied each of their practices, contracts and specs. That work was done literally on the coast in all western US states from San Diego to Anchorage, in 6 states, and as far east as eastern Montana. All over the PNW, and even owned a tree trimming company for awhile.

Logged thousands of hours of training, both giving and receiving, and consider my opinion professional about who does their maintenance, and how well. I've worked for, or contracted for, nearly every single power company private, muni, federal, or native owned in those states, that were larger than one county.

Quote:

Why not with water? I currently live in a place with high water costs. If someone could draw from the river and clean it up cheaper, I would love the chance for that. Let them pay the muni the fee for use of the water lines similar to how the power companies do it. Muni then maintains the lines (which you are of the opinion they would do better) and I can get cheaper water.

That is another discussion, but I don't recall singing the praises of the water dept.

I'm trying to find out if posters approve of the California taxpayers paying for disasters in Cali, including the loss of life and property, as certainly the costs will far outweigh the assets and credit available to PG&E. You have stated that you have monetary interests in utility's because they are stable, and you have also railed against any public entity that could be feasibly contracted to private enterprise.

If you had stock in PG&E and they go bankrupt [which they are] do you want the taxpayers to pay the difference? Should the taxpayers make you whole if the stock tanks? Or would you refuse the money, because that would be commie or something?

Quote: beachbumbabs

Public. Essential services should be public, accountable, and not have the extra load of profit/shareholder requirements to meet. Regulate prices, provide for improvements, maintenance, and New lines in the rates charged.

A few years back there was much discussion about selling all those dams on the Columbia River.

I tell people that, "your taxes already paid for the construction of those dams" once . If you allow those dams to be sold to private enterprise, you will have to pay for those dams again.

No company in the world is going to spend billions of dollars and not expect to recoup that money, with profit.