Dominic Deegan Fansite
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| | 08 May 08 - "Screw That Smug Jerk!" |    |
| | Goto page : 1, 2, 3 | | Author | Message |
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Ganurath
Honorary Shintula
Age : 20
Joined : 05 Apr 2008
Posts : 1418
|  Subject: Re: 08 May 08 - "Screw That Smug Jerk!"  Fri May 09, 2008 2:05 am | |
| | SaintSmythe wrote: | | Also, why is DD listed on Keen under "Comics That Ended, Went on Indefinite Hiatus, or Left" |
Is DD still hosted by Keen?
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| Spoiler: | | | | MessiahForHire wrote: | | I for one, applaud Ganurath. For he managed to break both Maul's and Ark's brains. *applauds* |
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|  | | Maulkin
Shivering Isles Resident
Joined : 26 Mar 2007
Posts : 9154
| | Subject: Re: 08 May 08 - "Screw That Smug Jerk!" Fri May 09, 2008 2:09 am | |
| | SaintSmythe wrote: | | Competition doesn't work on something where there is inelastic demand, like education and electricity. Here in Texas, electric bills have tripled since they privatized the electric companies. I shell out $60 a month for the shoebox that I live in, and I never even turn on the A/C. |
Ummm... education is elastic. People can choose whether or not to get direct education or go for the experience route. They also have thousands of schools to choose from, as most are willing to go to different states.
And have you looked at the power company's financial statements? If they're making a low net income to gross income ratio (ie, for every dollar that they make, 90% goes to expenses), they're not making all that much. Link the name of the company and I can look that up.
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| | | | SaintSmythe
Archive Hound
Age : 26
Joined : 20 Aug 2007
Posts : 1272
Location : Dallas, TX
| | Subject: Re: 08 May 08 - "Screw That Smug Jerk!" Fri May 09, 2008 2:14 am | |
| | Maulkin wrote: | | SaintSmythe wrote: | | Competition doesn't work on something where there is inelastic demand, like education and electricity. Here in Texas, electric bills have tripled since they privatized the electric companies. I shell out $60 a month for the shoebox that I live in, and I never even turn on the A/C. |
Ummm... education is elastic. People can choose whether or not to get direct education or go for the experience route. They also have thousands of schools to choose from, as most are willing to go to different states.
And have you looked at the power company's financial statements? If they're making a low net income to gross income ratio (ie, for every dollar that they make, 90% goes to expenses), they're not making all that much. Link the name of the company and I can look that up. |
Company is use is Reliant Energy. And if they're not making any money, then deregulation has really done fuckall.
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| | | | Maulkin
Shivering Isles Resident
Joined : 26 Mar 2007
Posts : 9154
| | Subject: Re: 08 May 08 - "Screw That Smug Jerk!" Fri May 09, 2008 2:26 am | |
| Hmmm... they're making 258,710,000 net, with 2,362,600,000 gross... that's slightly more than 10 cents on the dollar. That's slightly above average for such a stable stock, but not by much. If prices get too high, another company will likely come in to take advantage of the high prices.
You are paying the same amount of taxes as before, but now you're having to pay for your own electricity (or at least, much more than usual). That is the problem with our tax system; politicians gain power by passing new programs and punishing anyone who doesn't take advantage.
Also consider; if this is an oil based energy plant (I don't know if it is), they have the price of oil to consider. Prices will fluctuate with that factor.
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| | | | Grimzag
Commissar
Age : 20
Joined : 21 Sep 2007
Posts : 2450
Location : Antartica
| | Subject: Re: 08 May 08 - "Screw That Smug Jerk!" Fri May 09, 2008 1:56 pm | |
| | Maulkin wrote: |
You are paying the same amount of taxes as before, but now you're having to pay for your own electricity (or at least, much more than usual). That is the problem with our tax system; politicians gain power by passing new programs and punishing anyone who doesn't take advantage.
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But Maulkin, that's based on the assumption that privatizing everything would make it cheaper. I would argue that the smaller the service providers, the cheaper the cost of all their services but the higher the cost of any one given service. A bigger organization can afford to operate at a loss in some areas, whereas a small organization cannot.
Now of course bigger organizations have more inefficiency, causing more waste (in the public and private sectors, though public is worse), but a larger organization can provide services cheaper to some consumers by increasing the costs on others.
A prime example of this is int he console market, where the 360 and PS3 are sold at a net loss per unit, whereas the Wii is sold at a net profit (iirc). Microsoft and Sony do not depend on selling those consoles to make a profit because they have so many other products, so they sell it at a loss to hook the buyer and then make money off of the games. Nintendo is much more dependant on selling consoles to make money, so they sell it at a profit because they need the short-term gain to survive. If Microsoft were selling the Wii, it would cost us less than it does from Nintendo, and if Nintendo were selling the 360 it would cost us more than it presently does.
So, while competition does lower prices, if the government were to sell us power they could afford to do so at zero profit or at a loss from the consumer that a private corporation could not take, and thus for certain services could potentially offer us the same quality service as a private company at less cost to us.
Now of course the quality of public goods is not necessarily up to private standards in all respects, and you could argue that private goods, due to competition, are higher quality than public goods, but if the public and private goods in question were exactly identical I predict the private goods would be more expensive unless the company was non-profit.
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