A national grid infrastructure is no more socialist than national highways, railroads, pipelines, water supply infrastructure, etc.

As a nation we will grind to a halt without them.

A national grid infrastructure is no more socialist than national highways, railroads, pipelines, water supply infrastructure, etc.

As a nation we will grind to a halt without them.

Hope we do find a solution here.

Hope we do find a solution here.

an interesting article. Links to further reading on how the UK and China accomplished their changes would be most useful.

Also, I wonder whether — as an interim step before nationalization, and in a bow to property rights and profit motives — the Government might change its accounting rules to re-allow Pooling-of-Interest accounting treatments for mergers in the energy transmission sector? This change (and some others) would likely go a long way toward promoting mergers among transmission providers. In this way, the government could end up with a much reduced number of players, making any future regulation/cooperation/nationalization easier. It might eliminate a source of tax revenue for the government on the mergers, but so what — what it really wants is the creation of fewer, merged entities, not more tax revenue.

Just a thought

an interesting article. Links to further reading on how the UK and China accomplished their changes would be most useful.

Also, I wonder whether — as an interim step before nationalization, and in a bow to property rights and profit motives — the Government might change its accounting rules to re-allow Pooling-of-Interest accounting treatments for mergers in the energy transmission sector? This change (and some others) would likely go a long way toward promoting mergers among transmission providers. In this way, the government could end up with a much reduced number of players, making any future regulation/cooperation/nationalization easier. It might eliminate a source of tax revenue for the government on the mergers, but so what — what it really wants is the creation of fewer, merged entities, not more tax revenue.

Just a thought

Ben – you nailed it. So this is a huge problem.

Ben – you nailed it. So this is a huge problem.

If you’re so hungry for socialism, why not pick up stakes and move to Europe … they’re well on the way. Personally, I prefer a nation where the rights of the individual are equally as important as the rights of the crowd. The protections that you see as limiting progress, I see as preventing government abuse. It’s easy for you to sit back and say that we should socialize the transmission grid for the common good because you don’t stand to lose anything. Someday, though, when it’s your own rights or property that are being threatened, perhaps you’ll feel differently about government intrusion.

If you’re so hungry for socialism, why not pick up stakes and move to Europe … they’re well on the way. Personally, I prefer a nation where the rights of the individual are equally as important as the rights of the crowd. The protections that you see as limiting progress, I see as preventing government abuse. It’s easy for you to sit back and say that we should socialize the transmission grid for the common good because you don’t stand to lose anything. Someday, though, when it’s your own rights or property that are being threatened, perhaps you’ll feel differently about government intrusion.

Poor Obama is already being labeled as a socialist, this could be tough sell for him.

Poor Obama is already being labeled as a socialist, this could be tough sell for him.