Should utilities (electricity, water/sewer, etc) be allowed to run for profit?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Private utilities shouldn't exist.

[Marokai Backbeat]

We live in a world where now we want people to conserve electricity, be sustainable, and save the environment, meanwhile wanting to lower utility costs and favoring government subsidies to drive prices down even further so they can use even more electricity, requiring a larger carbon footprint, so then we try to limit carbon emissions and spend even more money on inefficient technologies like solar and wind so we can subsidize the whole mess even further and push us all into an even larger government money-sink. Argh!

Stop making sense.

So I take it you would all be fine heavily subsidizing alternative forms of electricity generation for American consumers, then?

[Marokai Backbeat]

We live in a world where now we want people to conserve electricity, be sustainable, and save the environment, meanwhile wanting to lower utility costs and favoring government subsidies to drive prices down even further so they can use even more electricity, requiring a larger carbon footprint, so then we try to limit carbon emissions and spend even more money on inefficient technologies like solar and wind so we can subsidize the whole mess even further and push us all into an even larger government money-sink. Argh!

Stop making sense.

So I take it you would all be fine heavily subsidizing alternative forms of electricity generation for American consumers, then?

Not really.

Then I no longer care about that argument.

Further, all three of you managed to completely miss most of the point anyway. Even if, for the sake of argument, electricity was super cheap for everyone and we never had to worry about paying it forever and ever, I would not support utilities that supply the basic necessities such as water and electricity, being private, just as I have something of a moral objection to the idea of private healthcare.

And I counter your anecdote with my anecdote. My family has routinely spent several hundreds of dollars each month on electricity that we definitely don't go out of our way to waste, and this has been the case over multiple homes. Electricity is most certainly getting more and more expensive and for questionable reasons. I see no problem in wanting to nationalize utilities such as electricity. Personally I've never bought the "waste" argument except with regards to gasoline.

[Marokai Backbeat]

No. Food is not a utility or some form of natural monopoly. The food stamp program is suitable for protecting those basic needs when necessary.