Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 281 posts

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

#251

Post by hntrader »

volta83 wrote: post #223
hntrader wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders already do get a penalty. The company gets fined which impacts future profitability and the stock price, thereby impacting shareholders. Also, most often the shareholders of large companies have no knowledge of illegal behaviour because the responsible stakeholders/executives inside the org are hiding that information. Enron is an example. What we need is more executive accountability. For example jail s…

Right now, as a share holder I don't really care about what the company does, only that the stonks go up. There is no financial motivation for me to care. Sure, stonks can go to zero, but I still don't care. I have a very diversified portfolio (5k positions) because stonks go to zero all the time, even if companies don't do anything illegal. If I were liable, I would have to care, because one position could bring dow…

I'm averse to making a big change like stripping limited liability when there's easier and less complicated first steps: much larger fine size and executive accountability.

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

#252

Post by jiofih »

anthony_r wrote: post #108
jiofih wrote: post #47

Isn’t it mind-boggling that under the stress of winter, the same infrastructure that they had yesterday suddenly costs billions of dollars more to operate? Profiting from calamity. The exact opposite of how public utilities should operate.

It's not the infrastructure that (temporarily) costs this much. It's the power that runs through it. There was simply no power. > Unusually frigid temperatures knocked out nearly half of the state’s power plants in mid-February They were short on the futures/forward contracts, i.e. they had to provide electricity, but there was none. When shit hits the fan someone has to foot the bill, and here it is them (among othe…

I mean that the power that is still online doesn’t suddenly cost 500x more to produce. The plants are paid extra for.. not being prepared? This is why regulations exist.

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

#253

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #200
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish our political systems would admit to this. So often I hear one side praying at the alter of free markets and deregulation, while the other condemns any profit making business as greedy. It just seems to me that free markets work absolutely fantastic in some areas and absolutely horrid in others (health care being probably the most notorious example).

I think you are citing a false equivalency. "Any profit = Greedy" isn't as tightly held on the Left as Free-Market principles are on the right. The proof is in the pudding, which states have lost production of a service utility due to adhering to "Any profit is greed!"?

Well, I'll give you a specific example I was thinking of. Nearly every economist agrees that rent control is a bad idea if your overall goal is to make more affordable housing available to the largest possible population [1]. Yet I consistently see arguments in my left-leaning city against increasing density (e.g. with large multi family buildings) as "those greedy developers". Even the whole "Cancel Rent" protests during Covid often portrayed landlords as greedy (literal) rent seekers, despite the fact that some of the largest providers of affordable housing are small landlords at risk of losing their properties. The overall effect of this demonization of profit motive is a severe, and in some places catastrophic, housing crisis.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent...

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

#254

Post by curryst »

IgorPartola wrote: post #86
jonplackett wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the reason politicians all around the world have been so ill-equipped to deal with Covid - they are used to their decisions having 10 / 20 year repercussions, by which time they're well out of the blame-zone.

The thing that I find surprising about the US government is that everything is a bill/law. Like instead of the transportation agency deciding to build a bridge, Congress has to pass a law to build a bridge. Does anyone know exactly why it’s set up this way?

It's funding. If the transportation agency had money in their budget, they could just build it as far as I'm aware. Most transportation agencies don't have enough slush money to randomly build a bridge. Taxes are unpopular, people don't want to spend that much. It also means the cost is localized, so the tax increase would be higher since it's over fewer people.

The way I rationalize it is that despite the fact that it might be a bridge in Nowhere, West Virginia, it will likely have wide-reaching impacts. More trucking routes helps almost everything. If I'm a visitor, I'm going to use the bridge, so I should pay some part of that.

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

#255

Post by freewilly1040 »

ansible wrote: post #53
azujus wrote: post #33

Interesting does this mean that global warming will cause the insurance crisis in the US?

I expect there will be a big fight about this. Insurance companies are already worried. I expect them to start writing into their policies exclusions about man made climate change. Which most people won't notice until it is time to file a claim. And then there will be a big uproar.

More likely is a gradual increase in premiums, which is probably already underway.

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

#256

Post by EdwardDiego »

meepmorp wrote: post #97
EdwardDiego wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when the last government was trumpeting a new stadium in Christchurch post-quake as a massive economic boom, I was somewhat dubious. If the rugby franchises want it, maybe they should put their money where their mouth is.

They did put their money where their mouth is, they just had the sense to spend it on a lobbying campaign because it's cheaper to build a stadium with your money than theirs.

Very true indeed.

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

#257

Post by pm24601 »

tzs wrote: post #214
lmeyerov wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought energy generation is still regional in practice -- loosely, the further it goes, the more expensive -- and private co's deciding to cheap out on weather protections showed the king has no clothes in this case? grid sounds nice and platform-y, but when you zoom in, similar to us telcos: not quite as stable and abundant as the lobbyists advertise for any given region when you look. as an intuition, a solar pa…

I don't see why solar in Arizona would not help Maine. If Maine has a shortage, they aren't going to get power directly from Arizona, but couldn't they get power from New Hampshire? If New Hampshire doesn't have any spare capacity, couldn't they still supply Maine and get some from Massachusetts to cover for what they send to Maine? And if Massachusetts doesn't have any spare, can't they similarly go ahead and supply…

Side note:

> I don't see why solar in Arizona would not help Maine

Arizona power companies have essentially made home solar system uneconomical.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/solar-arizona-net-metering_n_...

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

#258

Post by bzbarsky »

maxerickson wrote: post #209
bzbarsky wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all retail customers have fixed rates.

Yeah, that's why I added the qualifier. It seems likely that most of the spot load was going to home heating (with less flexible large loads having contracts).

Ah, I misunderstood your comment. You meant "those retail customers who have fixed rates", but I read it as "retail customers, who have fixed rates".

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

#259

Post by bzbarsky »

klodolph wrote: post #243
bzbarsky wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your analogy, where the grid corresponds to roads and railways, the equivalent of the supermarket or farm is a wholesale electricity provider or power plant, right? In Massachusetts you can absolutely comparison shop for specific power plants or sets thereof as an individual, at least to the extent of explicitly picking which generation company your money goes to by default. Of course in the end the way the grid w…

> In your analogy, … Going to stop you right there. I wasn’t making any analogies. I was talking in literal terms.

Well, "the grid" is not literally like "roads"; they have all sorts of difference in practice in terms of who interacts with them and in what ways... So equating them in some way is absolutely an analogy.

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

#260

Post by m4rtink »

hinoki wrote: post #154
m4rtink wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I just found this [0] paper about the development of the Tsukuba Express, one of the more recent train lines into central Tokyo. Land owners whose land is taken away are given new plots of land that are smaller, but closer to stations. These smaller plots are worth more than the original land because they are now near (future) train stations. [0] http://www.wctrs-society.com/wp-content/uploads/abstracts/ri...

That's really clever idea, no wonder they can get it to work, thanks for the article!

BTW, that's something else I noticed in Japan - train stations are almost always hubs of commercial and often also cultural activity - there are shops, hotels, good restaurants and often also galleries, event spaces, monuments and even the buildings themselves are often architectonic masterpieces (for example JR Kyoto station, just check it out!). This definitely helps with passenger numbers and keeps the whole thing sustainable not to mention profitable.

In comparison Czech & Slovak railway stations (Prague, Brno, Bratislava) are often run down, dirty, fregvented by questionable people who aren't going to ride the trains and any shops or food places are cheap low quality ones. As a result one tries to spend as little as possible on these train station, let alone spend there any money for the few sub-par amenities available.

It's really strange why it is like this, given the missed commercial opportunities, seems to be much better in other european countries (Vienna, Eindhoven, etc.).

Post reply on HN