Would be nice if we could unfuck the US, also if we could take a bit of money from the military to get heat pumps and induction stoves, and just skip the gas
I agree on the gas for health reasons.
I really want an outdoor wok burner, because my induction stove just doesn’t get hot enough. I’m used to working with a professional stove that will go up to 700° F. The induction stove won’t get my wok above 500° F.
It’s expensive and not available yet, but this might do it: https://www.impulselabs.com/
It has a built in battery so it can have a higher peak power output without upgrading your electricity supply.
I have questions. They specifically say that once available it will run on a 120w or standard outlet, or low power 220w outlet. I don’t know that it would be possible to hit 700° F without a high power 220 outlet.
It charges its internal battery from whatever supply you have over the course of a day, then when you are cooking it can operate off the battery alone. So it doesn’t really matter how good your supply is because most home users won’t be cooking all day, so it will charge its battery slowly.
It has a 3kwh battery, I’m not sure how powerful the inverter is and it depends on supply but it might take an hour or two to charge from flat.
But it probably couldn’t maintain 700F for an extended period of time. I guess most people won’t need that heat for a long time.
They make a standalone induction burner specifically for a wok (mine came with a wok, but the one I already had works). It’s nice because you don’t have to use a flat bottom one, but it still maxes out at like 550°.
It is what it was, before the whole privitization thing
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Oh shit you’re right. There’s no such thing as a societal need, everything ought to be turned into for-profit endeavors that enrich private equity! Don’t just defund the police, let them compete in the free market! Let’s see who has the best ideas! Let’s see if we can create a quadrillionaire! Because isn’t the invisible hand of the market such an inherently appealing idea that we should ignore its failures? Isn’t it fun to think of an economic theory as a great filter?
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Infrastructure is terrible to use as an example where competition exists.
We can’t all have 6 different gas lines run to each building or even to each street to choose who to buy from. The distribution will always be common. So either that has to be installed and maintained by a municipality or a single company which then rents it out.
Competition is also predicated on the concept of low barriers to entry. If it’s nearly impossible for small companies to enter the market place, there effectively never will be competition. We also have seen that money talks, that the power inequality of a big company vs small company means the large company can squeeze the small company out by economies of scale and being able to absorb larger losses until either the smaller company quits or sells to the larger company.
We can offset a lot of this by putting in strong regulations, pathways for small businesses to enter the market, create and enforce strong anti-monolopy laws, or take ownership of core infrastructure by municipalities.
You also seem to have the idea that anything state run is inefficient and corrupt, which has just been corporate propaganda. I trust USPS far more than FedEx, UPS, or any other parcel service. They run quickly, efficiently, and against some very harsh regulations which make them fully pre-fund retiree pensions.
Meanwhile FedEx consistently says I wasn’t home when they tried to deliver which is highly interesting because I work from home and never leave my neighborhood on workdays. If they tried to make a delivery I’d see the truck. They just leave the “we missed you” post it without ever ringing the bell or knocking at the door
We can’t all have 6 different gas lines run to each building or even to each street to choose who to buy from.
Can you think of no other ways to deliver gas than running six pipes?
When everything becomes electric, we’ll have plenty of utility room to spare. Locking us into a different type of monopoly won’t allow room for innovation or advancement.
The next sentence was about shared infrastructure for the pipes. That multiple gas companies could use to distribute, with the caveat that they still would need to be owned by a single entity whether that’s a private company or municipality. I’d argue a municipality is the correct answer here.
If we look at electric as an analogous system, the poles and wires are always owned by a single company and then the supply can be “chosen.” Even though it’s just routing where your cash goes, since electricity is all pooled. The downside, is no matter how much I may not want to support the company that owns the poles and wires, I have no other option and there is no way for a competitive company to build another product to give the consumer a choice.
It’s why I advocate largely for the distribution infrastructure to become public owned, paid for and maintained with taxes. I don’t necessarily agree with the production of the gas/electricity/water. If the distribution infrastructure if publicly owned, then so long as a new business creates a product that matches the regulated quality they only need to pay for the permits and means to attach to the distribution network. We can lower the barrier of entry to new competitors.
The minimum standards would be set based on regulatory capture in very many municipalities. I don’t think it would be worse than jank monopolies, at least. I don’t know that the speed (or incentives) of either is something I trust with keeping up technologically.
Moving from a monopoly to a municipality doesn’t help when the standards they set are super strict.
Not my tempo 🥁
You’re dragging a bit.
Central planning is not to enrich the elite, lmao. That’s Capitalism.
You fundamentally misunderstand what people are calling for. The aim of making utilities public isn’t the enrichment of a small few, its to spread the benefits of society to all who contribute. The core of this is that we want responsible accountability and the best way to do that is to operate with a communal mindset. One in which if we find a political officer is abusing their position of power we can remove them and restore the material wealth stolen to who it belongs to. You’re so used to operating in a system where positions of power go to the already wealthy that you’re assuming that’s what we’re still calling for. Collaborative cooperation has become such a foreign concept to you that you’re completely ignoring that we’re saying utilities and services should enrich no one but society as a whole
Nobody is stopping people from having a commercial option next to a government option.
A monopoly run by the government can operate at a loss no problem. Why? Because their job isn’t to make a profit first but to serve the people. Can any private business operate at a loss? And IMHO, utilities are the prime example of what should be owned by the government.
Would you say rampant inefficiencies and cronyism are also present in the private side of things as well though?
I can certainly imagine that the rich owner of a company is more likely to take a service contract with his rich buddy than with the newbie on the block, and nobody will do anything about it because private.
Then in terms of inefficiencies, the only thing a private company seems to be able to do efficiently is take money off you, not deliver their service or even customer service.
At least state services have the opportunity to hold those in charge responsible, if the systems put in place work for the people. In many countries however, this is not the case.
Therefore it seems like turning companies private is just another bad option. The actual, and perhaps impossible, fix is to resolve the issues in our governing bodies such that our leaders are held accountable.
If the state is run by the workers, and in the interests of the workers without the profit motive, it is soley directed towards providing a service. A capitalist monopoly is directed towards profit alone, and can price control.
Planned economies are based.
The correct answer to #2 is
‘Make it easier to tap the lines safely and steal gas without putting anyone at risk, then die in the revolution.’
Look, I get it, but maybe don’t give a warning?
Wow, maybe some of us think honesty is important, and they were kind enough to ask.
But that’s communism 🤣
Ohio separates distribution from supply. You can’t select the distributor who connects your home to the gas mains, but you can choose from dozens of suppliers who put gas into those mains.
We do the same with electricity.
This is the same for both gas and electricity (both import and export for those who can) in the UK.
It generally works quite well, and could be pretty competitive if you knew to shop around. Since Vlad’s 3 days began and natural gas prices spiked the entire market (the companies that survived) has pretty much been at the government price cap. There are some deals starting to re-appear but the main reason to switch right now is customer service. Amazing how much brand loyalty let’s the big firms treat people like shit and get away with it.The best deals tend to be time of use for people with smart meters.
Same in the EU. Or at least I think so, it’s the case over here and it’s EU-wide for electricity providers. Water, sewage and garbage disposal are municipal responsibility though there’s no network/provider separation there.
What’s actually missing is a municipal-level telecom monopoly – again, with separate providers. The last-mile network is just as much a natural monopoly for telecom as it is for other wires or pipes.
it’s the case over here and it’s EU-wide for electricity providers
I find it interesting that this is a good thing in the US and most of Europe, but in France this majorly fucked our electricity market by forcing the (mostly) state funded electricity producer into selling their electricity to some companies that provide no value aside from being an intermediate between the producer and the consumer (they are not required to produce their own electricity to buy some from EDF at a discount, and they are even allowed to sell it to consumers for less money than the lowest price EDF is allowed to charge when they are doing the same thing, because of some dumb regulations I can’t remember).
All in the name of the free market because “monopoly bad”, even though electricity production and especially distribution is, as you said, a natural monopoly.
Yeah you can’t combine a market mechanism while telling a production (quasi-)monopolist that they need to fix prices.
Reminds me of the good ole GDR: They would subsidise bread so that people could always afford it, a completely laudable goal. People also had chickens in their backyard because eggs and meat and when it came to feeding those chickens, they had a look at the prices – and, yeah, the state subsidised bread. Not grain. So they fed the chickens bread as it was cheaper. It’s an easy enough fix, just shift the subsidies but nope, governmental inertia or something prevented them from doing it.
municipal utilities are not much better either unfortunately
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Having government owned gas I can tell you it’s also a monopoly but one enforced even further by law
And when government fucked up those management, you as a citizen should held your government liable. People shouldn’t be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of their people. Also, the government’s main priority is NOT to make a profit but rather serve the people. So there is a (theoretical) obligation for the government to make sure every citizen has access to their service even if at a loss.
A government monopoly run by the workers, not for profit but to provide a service, is far better than a private monopoly.
See: The USPS
It works great. It’s my favorite shipping option.
Easy to say living in a first world country
First world countries tend to not be run for the benefit of all. Not that third world countries are either, mind you, but generally removing the profit motive from basic necessities seems to have very positive results on levels of freedom and social mobility.
Except when corrupt officials just pocket the money and invest nothing into infrastructure
Monopolys aren’t good either but living in a third world country I can tell you you can find worse problems with state controlled systems than with private companies that at least have to keep you as a client somehow
Sounds like a problem with how democratically accountable it is, not with it being state run. Privately, this is how it’s supposed to work, haha.
In my experience government operated facilities are only accountable to the current government so any political wants or ideologies come first.
In a for profit situation without a monopoly the company at least has to try to keep you as a client so there’s some give and take.
Taking a monopoly from a company and putting it in the hands of the state is just as bad in my opinion
Some problems don’t have a nice for all solution sadly
Again, sounds like a government structure issue.
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Um… I’m perfectly OK with a “monopoly” for my fire fighting services. Why would I feel differently for my utilities services?
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Nothing says punk more than enabling for profit corporations to hold sole ownership of the utilities that we need to continue living in a bare minimum standard of living. /s
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Make sense before you comment next time
Please enlighten me on how I can start a utilities company? Make sure you give me details on how I can maximize profits to my shareholders while fucking over my customers.
Or maybe I should start a non-profit utilities company, and the cost of your services is subsidized by taxpayers’ money. That way, I don’t have to constantly chase capitalism and make life better for my community instead of my shareholders.
Put a solar panel on your roof.
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Insightful.
We’re talking about basic utilities though. Do you think the average person can start or run such a business? I’m honestly interested in the answer.
Solar power, yes definitely. Is power not a basic utility?
Good point but I would say it’s hard to monopolize solar power since it’s easy to just buy your own panels. Wheras it’s not feasible to buld your own power plant.
Wasn’t that the point though? You’re arguing that small scale power doesn’t exist when it clearly does.
I never said that. Small scale power is always the way to go! Be it small hydro or solar panels!
It’s very different to have small localized power and distribution networks than controlling a whole country’s power and then giving that whole network to a private company to manage.
If the government decides to privatize utilities like electricity/gas or whatever, then sure it is freedom for some rich business owners to open up new businesses. However, this also results in those utilities becoming profit driven (as opposed to being for the public), and literally everyone in the country having to pay much more than they were paying previously.
My country had electricity privatized around 4 years ago, and in result we have to pay a lot more, not to mention about numerous fraud cases that were all over the news during and after the privatization period.
If you think that rich business owners being able to open up a couple of business at the expense of fucking over the public is a good thing and being against it is some weird hexbear delusion, then I’d advise you to get out of the libertarian bubble and look at the real world instead.
It’s not the people in the solarpunk community (because of federation posts get federated throughout the fediverse) but rather people not noticing the community
Freedom to be enslaved is negative freedom.
It is replacing a privately owned, for-profit business with a public utility owned by… the public.
Those things are natural monopolies, so the choice isn’t monopoly vs free-market it’s profit-driven-monopoly vs public-good-driven-monopoly.
Unlike what’s said by the mindless pseudo-Economics bollocks a lot of prople have been indoctrinated with, the upsides for consumers of a Free Market only exist in the subset of markets were there are natural conditions for high levels of competition - which is most definitelly not gas provision to households - and even in those there are still systemic problems such as negative externalities that require some level of regulation.
Distribution is a natural monopoly. Supply is not. Every supplier is putting the same, standardized product in the pipes. If they put a cubic foot in, and I take a cubic foot out, I can call them my supplier, even if they are putting it into the pipeline a thousand miles away from me and there is zero chance I will ever be burning the actual gas they supplied.
Indeed, and separating distribution from production is how decent competition is introduced in such markets (there are still barriers to entry related to infrastructure, but they’re nowhere as bad as the ones when the distribution infrastructure is owned by the gas company).
However, often that’s not how things are in the markets for gas, power and water supply as well as internet access.
Not only that but in markets were those things are separate the supply companies will try as hard as they can to get their hands on the distribution side (for obvious reasons), and, well, neoliberal politicians are usually happy to let them. The natural tendency in an unregulated market in those things is for sooner or later to end up in a winner-takes-all situation were one of the suppliers got it’s hands on the distribution side and used it to create a monopoly position, if only locally.
It’s a funny thing about the so-called “Free Market” in domains were it is possible for businesses to directly or indirectly create the conditions for natural monopolies: without actual intervention from an outside strong and independent actor (i.e. a governmental power with the will to intervene) such markets sooner or later end up naturally not being free anymore.
Market actors activelly and constantly seek a dominant position so if there are conditions for a monopoly (the most dominant position there is) one will eventually succeed and if there aren’t but there are for the next best thing (a cartel) a handful of them will eventually succeed.
