the free market tends towards monopolies and cartels
and in the modern era, advertising is more efficient than innovation, especially for pharma

It is not a simple problem.

Heh. I like that you bring in Edison. 😛

Kind of a scumbag.

Well, some things should never be left to free market

Like Firefighting

Ancient Athens and USA in 1800 tried that

Firefighter mafias were having fights in the streets

I can kind of see your point there.

anything that has high infrastructure costs imo

competition is nigh-impossible with broadband

might wanna take a look into westinghouse history

Texas has a brilliant solution to the electrical grid and private industry.

Some things need state to function properly and/or not to be abused

They broke the Electrical Supply system into three separate industries.

I do agree that the state should be as minimal as it can get though

Production, Transmission, and Delivery.

Small govt is my Jive

rye we got that over here

Production company sells the power. Transmission maintains the insfrastructure, Delivery sells the electricity to the customer.

electricity itself has never been cheaper.
Yet the final product price that you pay for, has never been more expensive.

Production creates the power rather

sounds like a good way to pay 3 times for a single service

It's a LOT cheaper under that system than it is in the part of the state I live in

which is 100% government fault since theyre the ones that are adding +70% of the price in taxes

where we've got one company, take it or everything in your fridge rots.

welcome to my country rye

That is literally the situation

plenty of competition tho

One of the things is, you can actually CHOOSE to go with a 'green energy' company

that only buys from Wind Farms

but they all cost tons of money due to the phonebook of taxes added

Or you can chose to not care about the environment and go cheap if you like.

lol ur describing the situation here 😄

because those green energy companies pay a fuckton for those solar farms

and wind farms

And yeah, Taxes and regulations are largely responsible for the high costs of a lot of things

im not from texas

Especially pharmaceuticals and energy.

I know.

But i didnt know texas was like this as well

A large portion of it is.

Certain parts rebelled against it because they were afraid of the new-fangled 'Smart Meters'.

They'd rather pay a guy a $50 connection fee.

Tbh i would too

I got "smart meters" on my heaters

I live smaller then before

better isolated then before

And i have never in my life paid more for heating then now

does electricity even need to be taxed?

It is here

I mean...

but why, what's the reasoning behind it?

And its not even a light tax, its a ridiculous tax

It depends on what you think the government should be doing, Shin.

If you think the government should be active in a caretaker role for people

then the taxes are necessary.

And, in fact, more taxes would be needed to strengthen that role.

if the government should be an active caretaker, it would be providing electricity in the first place, not taxing the businesses that provide it

If you believe government shouldn't be given decisive power over wellbeing as I do, you start to really see where cuts could be made.

adding 70% to the price, without actually helping to provide the service, seems bizarre

I pay regular taxes for electricity 21%, then another tax on distribution and something for social security shit, then a green energy tax.
And on top of that an illegal extra tax (100€ a year) that will be abolished next year i believe, because its an illegal doubletax.
But forget about seeing your money back oh no thats not how government rolls here.

Presumably, the tax is a fee for the public property used in the process.

which ends in an electric bill that is +70% tax

and 30% electric usage cost + distributing/maintenance costs.

Really little difference between reality and an ideological AnCap paradise.

green energy tax? <:thonkraka:430185885720510475>

except in Acapistan there is no public property.

it is bizarre

Reasoning is that it would incentivize ppl to use less electricity

lol

Be realistic.

That was never the goal.

problem is that the poor of society got serious financial problems now

That's just the excuse that was given.

The only feasible solutions to energy seem to be Nuclear and hydroelectricity

ofc not its all about milking everyone dry to fund that goddamn bureaucracy

People who levy taxes have this nasty habit of telling you 'why' you need the tax on it.

Hey y'all I'm new so I just wanna introduce myself, not tryna interrupt or anything, but what exactly are we talking about?

or telling you 'what' it's going to fund.

electricity

electricity, taxes, capitalism, the usual

Oh fun lmao

This is a great place to get into an argument for hours.

Time to s c r o l

lol

Well let me put it like this

solar, wind, and geothermal are the most realiable afaict

I do insist that you scroll up to my 'Apple' explanation of capitalism

I used to live in a 2 bedroom appartment 130 m²

Now i live in a single appartment 65 m²

I pay more for heating now

then i ever did at the other place

rip

Even tho, now i only have 1 heater working

lmao this dude using meters like we're in eu

and at the other place i had 7

we don't ever heat, but we still gotta pay for it

Difference is: Other place had a guy check the meter every year.
This place got "smart meters"

Nuclear is most relaiable and best way of producing electricity