MSNBC just put up a video interview with Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins on how the Texas power and water infrastructure was set up for failure. Right at the beginning of the interview the MSNBC interviewer talked about Texans deciding to go with a deregulated environment years ago — his answer is straight and to the point:
No. Texans didn’t decide that. The electric companies and the Governor decided that.
He goes on to say that “they set about a scheme” that benefits large commercial users with rock bottom prices who can afford to hire people to watch the commodity market(s) constantly and hedge against risk. But no protections were put in to protect individuals and smaller (than giant) companies, and they don’t have the knowledge or even access to the knowledge and tools to be able to mitigate the risk themselves.
One good analogy he makes is that this should have been more like an ARM mortgage on your house — you assume some risk of your interest rate rising, but there’s a cap on how high it can go (and the most recent ones we’ve seen don’t allow all that much of a rise).
One good bit of advice he gives: Texans should cut off permissions to direct draw from bank accounts or auto-charge credit cards and:
Don’t pay them.
He goes on further to say the governor got Texas into this predatory scheme and he needs to get Texans out of it.
There are a few more youtube videos with similar observations on the regulatory fiasco, including an interview with Krugman on the situation.
Wednesday, Feb 24, 2021 · 4:30:35 PM +00:00 · DButch
Paul Krugman has an op-ed on the Texas debacle in today’s Seattle Times titled: Et tu, Ted? The deregulation myth.
He starts off with the truism that nobody is ever fully prepared for natural disaster but:
The disaster in Texas, however, was different. The collapse of the Texas power grid didn’t just reveal a few shortcomings. It showed that the entire philosophy behind the state’s energy policy is wrong. And it also showed that the state is run by people who will resort to blatant lies rather than admit their mistakes.
He doesn’t even get into the massive contributory failings of the water distribution system and the inadequate building regulations that helped turbo-charge the damage created by the whole of the energy grid collapse.