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Three cheers for privatization of public utilities! /s
As an aside, I am gutted by 250+ people losing their lives because Texan politicians can't get their act together to hold companies responsible. Legislation works ... and politicians can, and should, make the laws.
This was the second time it happened too. It happened ten years prior as I recall. So they did nothing then. Did nothing later. No responsibility for anything later. Fuck Texas.
We had rolling blackouts for a few hours. Nothing that remotely resembled the state of failure in 2021 where 90% of Texas lost power for several days.
However it was a very clear indication that we had a problem that obviously was never resolved.
That storm was completely crazy though. I don't think Texas has EVER experienced anything like it before.
Maybe they decided the right people were getting hurt?
It's less about the right people getting hurt, and more about the right people making bank (e.g. themselves).
Remember when conservatives blamed "windmills" for this? All while conservatives in charge of Texas raked in millions of dollars in campaign donations from ERCOT members. Conservatives will gleefully watch your family die for fun or profit.
A conservative is incapable of empathy or remorse. Be very careful in your dealings with them. They do not value the lives of others the way normal people do.
Conservatives will gleefully watch your family die for fun or profit.
From their beach cabana in Cancun, no less.
Rafael Cruz 😂
Canada apologizes for exporting that to America.
Don’t worry about it. We just assume Canada is too sane to support that craziness
Incapable of truth, too. As a lawyer, I will not take them on as clients. They lie constantly to justify their emotions. That's really it.
But muh feewings!
As an aside, I used to live in a remote fishing area and we had tons of American visitors. I remember one woman told me she knew Obama was the devil because she felt "the evil" emanating from him.
smdh
They can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until we are dead.
Hot take: The ruling is accurate.
Vote for candidates who privatize utilities. Get what you vote for.
Only sucks for those that can't leave and are stuck with a system they can't correct.
Capitalism 👌
As one of those people who is stuck in the system I can’t correct: I agree.
I had to shit in grocery bags for a week because my toilet was frozen solid. But the blame only partly lies on the power companies. The vast majority of the blame lies on the regulatory agency who had the opportunity to require winterized gear for power plants… And repeatedly refused to do so.
Companies will always choose the cheapest option for whatever market they’re in. And winterizing all your gear is expensive when compared to… Well… Not. Could they have taken the initiative and winterized anyways? Absolutely. But if there’s one thing humans are generally really really bad at, it’s emergency preparedness. Because nobody wants to spend a ton of money building an earthquake-resistant home until after they experience their first earthquake. But that’s why building codes exist, to ensure everyone is forced to build to a minimum safe standard. To use this same metaphor, the building codes didn’t require winterized gear, so the companies didn’t build winterized gear. The fault primarily lies with the people who wrote the building codes, while knowing full well that the area could and would experience winter weather.
ERCOT is the regulatory agency that set those standards, and ERCOT is the agency that refused to require winterized gear. It wouldn’t be fair to penalize the power companies for failing to provide power, when ERCOT should have ensured their facilities were adequately prepared. It would also set a weird precedent to require companies to provide something in a disaster. Yes, they’re utility companies, and are subject to more regulation than most. But does this also mean they could be penalized for downed power lines during a tornado, or for blown transformers during a hurricane flood in Houston?
Right, but also power delivery shouldn't be privatized at all. Sure the energy providers might not technically be at fault, but having a corporate middle man providing an essential service is ridiculous. We shouldn't be talking about electricity providers as corporate entities at all. But you are still technically correct
Absolutely. Protecting profits and shareholders is priority #1.
GOP: "Cry more, peasants."
Cops don't have to serve and protect or abide by the law. Power companies don't have to supply power. People who sell you things can deny you access to them.
Hey this is fun, let's do more!
Health Insurance companies don't have to provide payment for health services you pay them to cover.
Corporations are people, my friend. Just people with all the rights and no responsibilities.
Yeah ... SCOTUS.
If there are no people, there is no company. If there are no companies, people will survive.
That takes care of whatever stupidity SCOTUS was thinking when they made companies and people equal.
They're not even equal. Corporations are given more freedom than actual people.
You can't arrest a company. You apparently can't even arrest the company's executives for the company's crimes.
I really want to figure out how to make a company and sell it all my debt.
It's called the Texas two step.
You file business papers in Texas and open an account there.
You use that business to buy all your underwater assets and other liabilities, leaving you free and clear. Then you declare bankruptcy with your Texas company, wiping out the debts. It what you do when grandpappy and the old board sold asbestos to everyone and their kids and now that you're in charge you just want that to go away so you can enjoy your trust fund without fear of any destitute widows or their children trying to take any of it.
In any normal state, this is treated as a sham transaction or a straw purchase and is void ab initio. In Texas though, as a handout to the mining, chemical, and business insurance industries, you can follow none of the corporate formalities needed anywhere else to preserve your corporate viel, and just declare that your company is now two, unrelated companies, sort of like that movie Twins where, even though they are genetically identical and born at the same time from the same parents, one of the newborn companies has all the good stuff and the other has all the crap, and you can pretend it was separated at birth, like it never even existed. And that's how you do the Texas two step. Step three actually is profit.
You set up a company A. You also make a consultant company B. Company A hires very highly paid consultants from company B. Meanwhile you make paintings. You sell those paintings to company B at high prices with the money you got from company A. Now your debts are gone and company A is in debt. Fold company A and B. Add in some shell companies in the Bahamas if needed.
But, you need to have enough money to set up companies, have expensive accountants and lawyers, and to pay off some officials. You'll have to be rich to become more rich basically.
Don't follow this advice, it's just fiction.
Better pull up those bootstraps and start finding your own individual source of power. Maybe you can drill for oil in your backyard?
But don't do this by installing solar panels. That's "woke!"
Then once you strike oil find out you never owned the mineral rights to begin with ¯\(ツ)/¯
The whole social contract thing in the USA is giving off an EULA vibe these days.
The more and more I hear about these terrible decisions made in Texas, no exception abortion (even if medically deemed necessary) and now this, the more and more I am grateful I don't live in that trainwreck state.
A recent study showed that Texans have the least personal freedom of any state
I hate this fucking state so much.
Deregulating the electricity industry has been a complete and utter disaster.
#fuckyourdividends
Phew. Worried this could lead to overturning that cops have no duty to protect you.
If you don’t like the service you’re getting then just vote in new leaders who can change things /s
In the opinion, Justice Adams noted that, when designing the Texas energy market, state lawmakers “could have codified the retail customers’ asserted duty of continuous electricity on the part of wholesale power generators into law.”
Wow, so helpful to say that 20 years after the fact
I agree with the problem, but I also kind of agree with the judge. The point of separation of powers is that the judicial system interprets the will of the legislative. We have had similar cases in Finland , where the law clearly should say one thing and the courts conclude that the law in fact says another thing. Fortunately, this situation occasionally leads the parliament into saying 'well fuck' and changing the law.
I will admit I don't really understand the role of courts making law in the US and other common law countries, so it might be different there.
Let me guess, if I don't like it I'm free to start my own power generation company, in a city that's had only one provider for over 60 years.
Texas power plants have no responsibility to ~~provide electricity~~ save lives in emergencies, judges rule <- FTFY
After all, why should they care if you suffer or die? There's plenty more where you came from.
Man, Texas is a real shithole
Is there legislation that says otherwise? What should the judges do here?