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Bill: Energy Privatisation Bill
Details
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: June 2318
Description[?]:
| As private companies are more efficient, and seek to gain profits, they must provide a superior service at a cheaper cost in order to compete in a free market. Thus by privitising the energy sector, we remove the old monopoly and allow the creation of a superior good at a cheaper cost. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy on energy generation.
Old value:: Private and public power stations exist side-by-side.
Current: All power stations are publicly owned.
Proposed: Private power stations provide energy for the entire power grid.
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change Government policy on the nation's power grid.
Old value:: The national grid is fully owned by the state.
Current: The national grid is fully owned by the state.
Proposed: Multiple private companies each own and maintain sections of the national power grid.
Article 3
Proposal[?] to change Energy regulation.
Old value:: Energy is provided by nationalised companies.
Current: Energy is provided by private companies but the prices they can charge are regulated.
Proposed: Energy is provided by private companies which are not subject to any special regulations.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 11:18:38, November 18, 2006 CET | From | Avenir Alduria | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | Do you hope to pass these laws by proposing them every week ??? Energy is a natural monopoly with increasing return to scale, the investments it needs are enormous, as well as the overseeing costs... the better way for energy is definitely a state-owned company |
| Date | 12:43:50, November 18, 2006 CET | From | Jacobites | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | Our honourable friends, we do not propose this every week, in fact the Jacobites last proposed this in 2314, one and a half years ago. Energy is not a natural monopoly, because energy can be produced from a variety of products from a variety of locations. A natural monopoly would exist if a product could only be produced from one source, in one location. What you talk of is economies of scale, but government organisations are never subject to such economies. Only with private investment will there be an incentive for research, efficiency and true economies of scale. |
| Date | 15:51:24, November 19, 2006 CET | From | Avenir Alduria | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | lol, your economics courses seem far away! government-owned enterprises (and thus legal monopolies) do by definition benefit of economies of scale, and the number of ways to produce energy doesn't havemuch role here, especially since they are not that many (when you put aside alternative energies unable to power a great courntry as alduria). the matter of efficiency indeed is more problematic but is secondary to the problem of the economies of scale implied by the enormous amounts of investment this sector requires. the thing with natural oligopoly is that in reality, we can only reach a second best optimum, but that's not a reason to submit in face of ultra-liberal doctrines misundurstood by the politicians of the white cockade... |
| Date | 16:48:08, November 19, 2006 CET | From | Aldurian Green Party | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | Private companies can not be left in control of such a vital industry. Private companies are only interested in increasing their profits and therefore tend to cutback on important areas like maintenance well raising rates for consumers at the same time in order to increase profits to the shareholders. This leads to private utilities having many blackouts and consumers paying more for less service. |
| Date | 18:12:30, November 19, 2006 CET | From | Jacobites | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | Economies of scale and efficiency are effectively the same argument. Although a larger company will have obviously be able to produce an economy of scale, as with all monopoly companies, it remains subject to greater inefficiencies and corruption that businesses that exist in a free market competing with other companies. Indeed any economics lecturer will explain that without a free market, efficiency will not occur, because it is not in the interest of the monopoly company to do so. Hence the bloated and highly inefficient state producer we have here. ECP, you have put forward the basic drole socialist argument. If private companies cut back their maintenance costs, and increase their rates, the rational consumer will opt for a company that provides a better service. People are not entirely stupid, especially when it comes to their own money. A company that puts up prices, whilst providing a shoddy service is unlikely to survive in a free market. |
| Date | 13:48:06, November 20, 2006 CET | From | Nuncpart Alduria | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | Nuncpart opposes this because it suggests that people can do things better than the State. |
| Date | 16:15:55, November 21, 2006 CET | From | Freedom Party | To | Debating the Energy Privatisation Bill |
| Message | Can you please put this to vote, thankyou XX |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 99 | ||||
| no |
Total Seats: 233 | ||||
| abstain |
Total Seats: 93 |
| Random fact: Players who deliberately attempt to present a misleading picture of the nation's current RP laws will be subject to sanction. |
| Random quote: "The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it." - Edward Dowling |