>All this looks as if the situation is out of control, no matter what is being done.

I agree that it is out of the control of THE PEOPLE, but is **fully** controlled by the corporate (thus political) world! Until the people get the power (not just electrical < s > ) it will remain that way.

So sad!!!



>
>>Your original mentioning how the 'economic model' might drive such events had me thinking, and I think you've hit on something...
>>
>>President Reagan, in the early 1980s, began a process of 'deregulation' on the basis that it bloats government (and subsequent cost of government) and that money was better off in the hands of the people. Hard to argue with, really!
>>
>>Now, after 2 decades of deregulation (the practise was copied here too) I look at what we've gained...
>>
>>1) Airlines, still regulated to a large degree, used to have far more routes (because of regulation), there were far more airlines (regulation helped to protect them), they all served food and drinks, they valued their customers and THEY MADE A PROFIT. Now we have 1 airline left and it is in bankruptcy (lost 2 majors and several regionals), there are far far fewer routes, food costs extra (without improvement in quality), any drinks costs and customers are an afterthought. Not to mention all of the additional "user fees" collected, that amount to a cost almost as high as the ticket price itself (a recent return flight to Halifax was $158. for the ticket and $148. in surcharges).
>>
>>2) Energy overall has been deregulated, quite to the extreme. We used to have several refineries competing in various regions, resulting in a "natural" oversupply as each competed to corner its regional market. Now we have constant under-supply because refineries were bought out by the big boys and shut down in favour of more centralized processing. Now we have 3 oil companies where before there were 7-10. Now, when a truck delivers to a gas station it is not even marked with the oil companies' logo, but is some distribution outfit owned as a shared asset by 2 or more oil companies.
>>Similar with electricity. Regulation used to enforce specific maintenance activities and used to enforce additional capacity building as usage grew. Now there is none of that and all of the "majors" now do their profit-making 'on paper' by controlling availability and demanding higher prices and by buying each other out. We recently "privatized" our electrcity. Companies nearby (U.S.) bought what capacity was put up for sale, then promptly declared that they had to decommission what they just bought to perform significant maintenance. Removing such capacity, of course, created shortages which they were only too happy to supply from thier out-of-province facilities at "spot rates" (typically 5-25 times the local production rate). It got sooo bad that pricing had to be FIXED by the provincial government.
>>
>>3) Look at the communications industry. Deregulation gave us WorldCom and several other fiascos.
>>
>>These examples simply to make the point that the new "economic model" for deregulated inductry seems quite clearly to be:
>>1) Make all of the profit you can by cutting staff, cutting maintenance, cutting planning, manufacturing 'shortages' to justify higher prices.
>>2) When you can't keep up the profit rate, run to the government to get bail-out money so that the vital industry employing so many people can be 'kept afloat' (read: keep profit levels up).
>>
>>The airline industry was in deep doo-doo long before 9/11. The petroleum industry has been crying poor for years too. And while the electric utilities industry was LOOKING good (ENRON, Montana Power, etc. etc.) it was all a house of cards that came tumbling down. We learned by the big outage that it is far worse than just bookkeeping - the state of the Grid is highly in question!!!
>>
>>So the new economic model is drain what you can, then get government money on whatever pretext will do. Use that money to restore profits, investing only what's left over to improve the health of the business.
>>
>>Looks to me that regulation was a far more useful to THE PEOPLE than deregulation has shown itself to be.
>>
>>cheers