I grew up in Norway. As a grid customer I could shop around for the best power company that fit my situation (e.g. solar? Apartment?). Norway is covered in snow 8-9 months of the year. I think what you're describing is a problem with money not reaching infrastructure investment locally for whatever reason: not public owned infrastructure issues in general.

Its a complicated subject, the power company is a mandated monopoly, its fully owned by the government.

In the 50s or so the infrastructure was created, including power plants etc, it was a profitable venture for the government, so they borrowed against the profits of the energy company, then failed upgrade/update any infrastructure. Add to to that the retirement pensions of all the people which they did not fund and it creates a big problem.

So now as it stands the energy company is in debt ( technically the government owes the energy company money but the government is insolvent ) and they are trying to sell it to a private entity.

Also if you are wondering why anyone would want to get a private pension plan instead of a 401k, well you werent allowed to put your money in a 401k ( same thing happened to the teachers by the way ). It actually very sadto hear the stories of people that worked theur whole life and have nothing to show for it due to the greed of politicians.

> in Puerto Rico, the power company there is run by the government

> in Norway (...) I could shop around for the best power company

The grid is a common good.

It's the same for the grid in Sweden (Svenska kraftnät), also how optic fiber is deployed here in Stockholm, the costly infrastructure was developed and is maintained by the government, private ISPs can lease out capacity but aren't the ones maintaining it. That avoided the costly deployment of multiple similar infrastructure per provider like you see in the US, where corporations cornered some markets and made the barrier of entry so costly that they became de facto monopolies.

I understand that. But the context of this thread was

> there shouldn't be a profit motive attached to basic services like electricity

Ah, now I get that. Adding my two cents on this discussion: if there is a profit motive for any modern basic human need (food, shelter, energy, communications, healthcare) it should be very well regulated to protect society. It may sound paternalistic when seen with a neo-liberal eye to it but I have developed a firm belief that neo-liberalism has utterly failed as a societal experiment to move us forward.

Statnett, a state owned entity operated by the energy ministry, runs the Norwegian grid.

I understand that. But the context of this thread was

> there shouldn't be a profit motive attached to basic services like electricity

I replied to (a comment) and tried to contrast how a state owned power grid can still have profit models attached and function both technically and for it's intended customers.

Interestingly, ERCOT is a non-profit.

(Like most hospitals in the US, by the way, coming back to the original "There shouldn't be a profit motive attached to basic services like electricity, policing (private prisons), or medicine" comment.)

My understanding is that they're registered as a charitable organization, not a non-profit. These terms are often used interchangeably, but from a tax and earnings perspective they mean different things. This is often further confused with not-for-profit organizations, which is yet another thing.

> My understanding is that they're registered as a charitable organization, not a non-profit.

That's impossible in the US; “charitable organizations”—501(c)(3)—are a subset of nonprofits—501(c).

501(c)(4)

Right, not the same as 501(c)(3), was my point exactly.

501(c)s, including 501(c)(4)s, are nonprofits, so “not a nonprofit” was wrong.

501(c)(3)s are charitable organizations, so “as a charitable organization” was also wrong. But 501(c)(3)s are a subset of 501(c) and thus are also nonprofits, so your implication that they could be a registered charitable organization but not a nonprofit was also wrong.

As a 501(c)(4) they are a nonprofit and not a charitable org; if they were a 501(c)(3) they would be both.

Who says 501(c)(4) are not non-profits?

The 501(c)(3) are the charitable ones, by the way.

No. My point was that 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) are not the same thing. The important point to note in this case is: "501(c)(4) organizations may engage in unlimited lobbying in furtherance of their social welfare purposes."

"The more generous limit of non-exempt activity permissible to a 501(c)(4) explains why a 501(c)(4) organization may engage in substantial amounts of political campaign intervention activities even though the regulations make clear that such activities do not constitute the promotion of social welfare."

It's less pedantic and more: you can call a fork a spoon all you want, until you have to eat soup with it.

Ok, so when I said “ERCOT is a non-profit” and you replied “they're registered as a charitable organization, not a non-profit” you really didn’t mean that it was not a non-profit and your point was that it’s a 501(c)(4) non-profit which is not the same thing as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. And a spoon is not the same thing as a fork. We agree on both counts.

Edit: or maybe you were referring to hospitals? In that case you may be right and I was using the term loosely when I said “most”. There are different kinds of hospitals. My later comments were about ERCOT, not hospitals.

This is usually the correct position. Regulated competition and controlled monopolies try to provide the best of both worlds. Private companies will always push for deregulation or find ways to exercise a monopolistic advantage because they are incentivized to do so. Companies should be allowed to optimize within the regulated structure set forth by government. Aside, this is why government corruption cannot be tolerated and we must have strict laws limiting lawmakers' actions when reentering the private sector and oversight when they are in the public arena. We cannot have lawmakers eroding regulations in the name of increased profit when those regulations guard the public from poor outcomes.

I don’t think the “more laws!” approach will cut it. Many of the most corrupt countries in the world have extremely harsh anticorruption laws (inevitably these laws are applied to political enemies and not the corrupt rulers).

Assuming people are corrupt and greedy and then working backwards from that point imho is the best approach, and that often times means giving people less control over our lives.

Less regulation has generally led to more public harm. Toxic waste in rivers, siphoning of pensions and retirement plans, ponzi schemes, and on and on and on. There is always a balance to strike and then a constant rebalancing. We must guard against regulatory capture and many other ways the system can go wrong. This means we should favor the election of informed lawmakers that understand complex systems and then oversee them. This is a very technocratic position, but also a balanced position.

An approach some countries use is to operate it like a company, but have it fully government-owned.

If, say, every county it serves owns a share of the company, you set up a structure in which it isn't supposed to generate a profit: shareholders can't run it into the ground for monetary reasons. On the other hand, being independent from the government itself makes it less vulnerable to corruption and harmful interference.

Isn't the middle ground what we have in the US, regulated utilities?

You're saying the US is the middle ground between Texas and Puerto Rico - both parts of the US? Maybe you need to be more specific about where you are referring to.

It's kind of weird to see HN twists itself into knots while putting forth the question of "How did this happen, how can we prevent this". While turning away from the countless regulated states in the country that get cold weather and don't have their systems shutdown because they have some sort of regulation.

The middle ground is what Europe does.

The failures of what the US calls "regulation" is shown by California (where decades of under-investing in both modernization and upkeep has led to countless deadly fires) and the Texas clusterf..k.

In the almost 30 years I've lived in Germany and a bit of Croatia, the only time I can remember I lost power without actively causing it myself by careless drilling was the Nov 2006 europe-wide blackout.