Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation Part 6

Professor Banks response to "Some Friendly Comments on True Electric Deregulation Part 5"

Sorry José, but you'll have to take this discussion up with somebody else. Deregulation was sold to the electorate/television-audience (and their political masters) on the basis of lower prices for their electricity. They don't care about the rest of the soap-opera, and neither do I.

Incidentally, given the structure of the electricity generating industry in this part of the world, your suggestion about short-run marginal cost pricing is completely wrong. Somebody else who got this wrong was Fred Schweppe, which is interesting, because teachers of electrical engineering at MIT are not encouraged to make mistakes.

Former students and colleagues are constantly asking me for advice about career choices, and so I'll pass some out here. Electric deregulation isand always has been a lost cause: its failure wasn't predicted in the stars, but in the economics books that outstanding teachers of that subject like myself used. So, as the great tennis player Bill Tilden said: "Never change a winning game; always change a losing game.