Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#171

Post by eqvinox » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

clcaev wrote: post #148

eqvinox wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cooperative that went bankrupt isn't the platform that the argument applies to. In fact, you could create another cooperative without much trouble and start a parallel implementation of the same scheme. This really applies to the power grid itself. Even the power plants aren't covered by the argument, since if you have a reasonable grid, you can build another power plant of any kind you feel viable in some reason…

If this cooperative was not the platform, what exactly is the platform being discussed? Why do you could think one could recreate such a large cooperative like this without much trouble? Isn't the likely outcome of this bankruptcy a sale of assets to private equity: a situation that can probably never be reversed? What do you think this cooperative did if it was not facilitating the transactions between power plans a…

> If this cooperative was not the platform, what exactly is the platform being discussed?

The power grid is the platform; I'm not sure how the original poster intended to apply the platform argument to the cooperative.

As far as recreating the cooperative goes: it doesn't need to start large, and I'm reasonably sure it doesn't hold much in assets. My understanding is that this cooperative is simply a collective of buyers who "pool their shopping", so money flows in and back out. A new cooperative may need to work its way back up to bulk pricing, but that should be doable?

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#172

Post by imtringued » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #126

simonh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private companies pay taxes, which profits other tax payers.

"After two straight years of paying $0 in U.S. federal income tax, Amazon was on the hook for a $162 million bill in 2019" "$162 million is still just a fraction of the $13.9 billion in pre-tax income Amazon reported for 2019 — roughly 1.2%" How much is your income tax rate?

Corporate income tax is too easy to game. I wish it was replaced by an enhanced income tax.

Here is an article with a nice chart:

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-does-corpo...

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#173

Post by eqvinox » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #144

eqvinox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road networks are a great example. Just assume the hypothetical position of a competitor. Where are you gonna build a competing road in, say, NYC? Each block only has 4 sides, and each of them already has a street. You could maybe compete on interstate highways or other long-area bits. Maybe. That's stretching it. Build a competing water supply network to each house? Another set of sewers? Electricity distribution? H…

Seems to work fine in Japan for railways - there are three different rail connections from Tokyo to the Narita International Airport for example, each run by a different company (at the same time, we have 0 rail/subway connections to the Prague Airport:P). Same thing in many other places - in Kyoto there is big and nicely build station by JR and, Transport Tycon style 200 meters from it another big station by IIRC Ki…

"yes, but:" the lines don't provide the same service along their path. Just because you can get from some point in Tokyo to NRT airport on 3 different services doesn't mean that these 3 services are competing on everything else. Same for the different lines and companies in other places.

I would actually consider this an odd example of "long-range" transport.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#174

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

A12-B wrote: post #13

Elon Musk making the move to Texas specifically to avoid the regulation that would have helped stop this from happening, would be kicking himself right now if he was in any way affected by this or consistent in his beliefs.

> to avoid the regulation that would have helped stop this

Actually it was the regulators themselves who were responsible: the Public Utility Commission of Texas - the government organization that is explicitly set up to prohibit price gouging - deliberately set the price to the highest possible price for the entirety of the storm.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#175

Post by throwaway3699 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #163

CydeWeys wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it did. Plenty of Texans were reducing their power usage to the absolute bare minimum once they got word of how expensive power had just become.

Why would retail customers (with fixed rates) worry about it?

Commercial customers like factories and empty offices cutting usage can still make a serious impact.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#176

Post by cheph » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

snidane wrote: post #94

jonplackett wrote: post #41

This is the side of privatisation that gets ignored. When private companies screw up, who gets left with the bill? Private companies have no incentive to be ready for really big problems because they know they’ll get bailed out, or just not have to pay. Privatise the profit, socialise the losses.

It's actually well understood that privatisation for platform industries is bad, privatisation for businesses running on top of platforms is good. Networks and infrastructure = little to no competition. Eg. networks naturally settle in a optimal geographical location and utilize economy of scale then. Can't compete with that. So don't privatise platforms. Rather - make them monopolistic and make them share the revenu…

> It's actually well understood that privatisation for platform industries is bad, privatisation for businesses running on top of platforms is good.

Cite?

I have lived in two countries, one with privatized market based grid and have not yet had one power failure, one with nationalized grid and producers grid that had daily 8 hours power outages for weeks on end to the point where year on year per capita electricity usage (an important measure for development) was going down.

Anecdotes are not data, but all I can say is that most definitely every nationalised grid does not run better than every privatized grid, and without some data to back your claim I am skeptical.

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#177

Post by snarf21 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #41

This is the side of privatisation that gets ignored. When private companies screw up, who gets left with the bill? Private companies have no incentive to be ready for really big problems because they know they’ll get bailed out, or just not have to pay. Privatise the profit, socialise the losses.

“We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.” -MLK

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#178

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

dkersten wrote: post #138

meepmorp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we prosecute the janitors, too? What about the admin staff? I'm fine with burning HR at the stake, but some fairer minded folks might point out their general lack of involvement in business decisions that affect the public, as a reason to spare them. The kindest thing I could think to call your idea is naive and poorly conceived.

Do the janitors and admin staff hold shares? Ie do they benefit from the companies profits and do they have power over the board and executive teams? If not the shareholders, someone in control of the company should be held accountable to avoid a "company in trouble? oh well, just shut it down, debt go poof, start again elsewhere, pocket the profits" situation or a situation where the company does something like dama…

[deleted]

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#179

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

eqvinox wrote: post #98

snidane wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually well understood that privatisation for platform industries is bad, privatisation for businesses running on top of platforms is good. Networks and infrastructure = little to no competition. Eg. networks naturally settle in a optimal geographical location and utilize economy of scale then. Can't compete with that. So don't privatise platforms. Rather - make them monopolistic and make them share the revenu…

Road networks are a great example. Just assume the hypothetical position of a competitor. Where are you gonna build a competing road in, say, NYC? Each block only has 4 sides, and each of them already has a street. You could maybe compete on interstate highways or other long-area bits. Maybe. That's stretching it. Build a competing water supply network to each house? Another set of sewers? Electricity distribution? H…

> Hand the operation & maintenance out to some company or whatever, there it's possible to compete.

Oh no. Construction, operation and maintenance of electricity and other vital networks (water, gas, sewage, telecommunication) should be done by the government as a government agency with a quality of service mandate and not in form of a profit-oriented company no matter if government owned or private owned / publicly traded - because "competition" and/or a focus on costs is always going to end in price and wage dumping, cutting corners and sometimes in deathly disasters (California fires caused by cutting costs on maintenance, Flint water scandal, Texas infrastructure collaps due to un-hardened systems, ...).

Re: Texas electric firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8B in claims

#180

Post by imtringued » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #64

waterhouse wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infrastructure to produce food is pretty vital, but I think it's also mostly market-driven and works well. I think the issues around power utilities are more to do with a lack of competition, and legislation that creates perverse incentives. (I don't know what the current perverse incentives are, but at least as of 2010, an energy startup founder said[1] that power companies were legislated monopolies that were "…

> The infrastructure to produce food is pretty vital, but I think it's also mostly market-driven and works well. You're talking about on of the most subsidised matkets on Earth. It's hardly market-driven.

Yeah and that is by design. We consider famines as simply unacceptable and thus we make sure that the agriculture sector works, even when it shouldn't. Compare that to countries who are dependent on food imports for basic nutrition. They simply aren't doing nearly as well as the EU or USA.