Obama may sell TVA, Socialists and Commies are in an uproar

[Sbane]

A shame, TVA definitely should be privatized.

But why? Why do you want TVA to be privatized?

Because they don't like the idea of people having cheap electricity. Some useless middleman should be able to extract profit out of the people of the Tennessee Valley.

I don't know if Nashville gets electricity from the Tennessee Valley, but I'll tell you that it sure as hell isn't cheap. I think it costs more than it does in California.

[TNF]

A shame, TVA definitely should be privatized.

But why? Why do you want TVA to be privatized?

Because they don't like the idea of people having cheap electricity. Some useless middleman should be able to extract profit out of the people of the Tennessee Valley.

I don't know if Nashville gets electricity from the Tennessee Valley, but I'll tell you that it sure as hell isn't cheap. I think it costs more than it does in California.

Western Kentucky does and we have some of the lowest electric rates in the whole country. Our electricity actually doesn't come from a power company, though. We get ours through a co-op which is a part of the TVA system, IIRC.

This is an aside, but whomever mentioned expanding the TVA model is exactly right. We need a kind of American Energy Authority that nationalizes all energy production and plans out future growth. Especially the nuclear sector. An "Atomic TVA" (which was one of the big goals of the Truman administration that unfortunately never panned out) would be a great way to reverse climate change's effects.

[Bacon King]

My family's home has a very cheap power bill because they receive it from the local Electric Membership Cooperative (EMC), a non-profit entity that receives the electricity it markets from the SEPA (Southeastern Power Authority), which is a government agency that was established by the Flood Control Act of 1944 to sell the electricity generated by Tennessee Valley Authority and other government-owned hydroelectric sources. With this regulatory framework, the electricity only costs the consumer the amount it takes to fully reimburses the government for harnessing and transferring the energy; there are no additional costs embedded on account of a private owner's effort at making a profit.

Essentially, the TVA and its associated entities represent a collective action by consumers to get electricity in the most efficient and affordable manner possible, albeit at a scale so massive that the Federal government was required to front the cost (and yes, they've been paid back in full).

This entire situation doubtlessly represents a conundrum to many absolutist fiscal conservatives: the efficiency in pricing was not accomplished by greed and selfishness, not by any individual's desire for wealth and profit. It was accomplished via communal effort-- an effort initiated by a government of the people, on behalf of the people they represent-- in essence, the very antonym of "private market forces." The dams of the Tennessee River Valley stand triumphantly as proof that the invisible hand can not always be trusted.

Selling everything off, as Obama seems to desire, would simply be idiotic; millions of homes throughout the Southeast would face higher power bills once a  corporate entity starts extracting profit from the system, just so Washington can make a one-time profit that'll merely be petty change in comparison to the huge sums they need to reduce the tide of increasing debt. The fact that privatization is even being seriously discussed is almost laughable, but since Wall Street's suffocating grip on our Capitol is so tight that we can't even open a realistic discussion on reestablishing decent tax rates, I suppose this is the extent our nation has fallen.

Hell, why stop here? I'm sure there are plenty of investors out there who are willing to buy Yellowstone, Los Alamos, and the Interstate Highway system. It'll be just like pawning off the furniture to pay off some debt-- I'm sure that's a successful strategy! And even if it's not, hey, when the bill collectors come at least they won't have anything to repossess, right?

Seriously, America. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Especially if the "fix" is just the fulfillment of an ideological wet dream that coincidentally happens to perfectly emulate the financial habits of a drug addict. We can do better than this.


This tl;dr EffortPost is brought to you by four cups of coffee and a desire to procrastinate on this annoying Tolstoy paper I'm writing. Maybe it's just the caffiene talking, but I'm pretty sure I'm starting to sounding like a socialist, eh?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The key point is that the pressure for privatisation doesn't just come from ideology or from a governmental version of the feeling that leads people through the doors of depressing little shops with the words 'cash for gold' in the window, although both these things are factors, obviously. Privatisation also often acts as a form of legalised corruption.

[pbrower2a]

Is there any reason TVA should be privatized? There doesn't seem to be any justification for it.

Those who advocate privatization   insist upon higher prices for others whose low-cost supplier be turned into a profiteer.

The current model for business success is higher prices through captive markets -- great for profits, and bad for people.

Most countries have long nationalized electrical power.