After Recent US Storms, Why Are Millions Still Without Power?

Hugh Pickens points out a report from Jamie Smith Hopkins that "The unusual nature of the 'derecho' is complicating efforts to get everyone's much-needed air conditioning up and running again as more than 1.4 million people from Illinois to Virginia still remain without power and power companies warn some customers could be without power for the rest of the week in the worst hit areas. Utilities don't have enough staff to handle severe-storm outages – the expense would send rates soaring – so they rely on out-of-state utilities to send help, says Stephen Woerner, Baltimore Gas and Electric's (BGE) chief operating officer. Hurricane forecasts offer enough advanced warning for utilities to 'pre-mobilize' and get the out-of-state assistance in place but the forecast for Friday's walloping wind was merely scattered thunderstorms. 'No utility was prepared for what we saw in terms of having staff available that first day,' says Woerner. But is it a given that a strong storm would cause this magnitude of damage to the electricity grid? 'Even without pursuing the extremely expensive option of burying all of the region's electrical lines, the utilities can and do take steps between bouts of severe weather to prevent outages,' writes the Baltimore Sun, adding that consumer advocates are concerned that utilities invest sufficiently in preventive maintenance. 'Tree trimming and replacement of old infrastructure — particularly in areas that have been shown to be vulnerable to previous storms — helps prevent outages.'"

Comments

Union mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all the fault of the unions that control skilled labor in that part of the country. They impose stupid specialization rules on who it permitted to work on what tasks, do everything f*cking slow as hell, and bleed the companies dry for unreasonable salary and benefits demands instead of following the "honest day's pay for an honest day's work" model that once made this country strong.

While it's true that once upon a time, a very long time ago at the turn of the 19th-20th century, there was positive outcome from the effects of the labor unions, when the factory owners were truly abusing their employees and keeping dangerous working conditions, but that is long gone now, and the unions are nothing more than a parasite on society. They now exist solely to keep themselves fat and happy, not unlike a kind of organized crime extortion racket. Well, now the union-supporting folks of the east coast who are suffering, are getting to reap what they've sown.... that well-known wonderful quality of work output in a crisis that union workers are now so famous for.

I fully expect to get moderated down by.... union supporters.

Re:Without power?

[roman_mir]

Gov't spending IS bad regardless of outcome. ALL gov't spending is bad under ALL situations.

It is necessary to spend on government, but none of it is good. It is necessary to have military protection of some kind, of-course what USA has today is not for protection, it is for an attack, it's war spending, not protection spending.

The productive USA was built without income taxes, without corporate taxes, without payroll taxes, without FDIC, Fed, IRS, FDA, FHA, EPA, CIA, FBI, SS, Medicare, EI, Medicaid, welfare, without dep't of energy, education, agriculture, small business, commerce, interior, HUD, etc.

USA was a third world country before the 19th century, but during 19th century it became largest producer and exporter and thus largest creditor, yet nothing that I listed above existed. The time that parts of it were tried (like the Continental currency) it was a gigantic failure, leading to major recessions.

But how does a country become a productive exporter, creditor without gov't building infrastructure? Because it's not true that gov't is needed to build any of it, what IS true is that WEALTH is needed to build infrastructure.

There has to be a REASON to build infrastructure, there has to be wealth first, there has to be a promise of making a return - the profit motive is the driver, nothing else.

With the gov't, the profit motive is shifted, it's not to make a profit by producing the best product the market wants to buy, it's to make profit by growing the biggest department and by giving out the most free fake, borrowed or taxed money - that's how you grow power in government.

But a big gov't, is a powerful gov't, it's a huge spender and it needs things to do, so it gets its hands into everything.

It was the gov't that destroyed 3000 competitors to AT&T and turned AT&T into a monopoly. It was the gov't that broke apart a successful in the market Standard Oil corporation, which only had 4% of oil market in 1969 at 30 cents per gallon of refined oil and did enough investment and innovation to bring prices down to 5.9 cents by 1899. Of-course once Standard Oil was broken (and there were 150 competitors at the time), the prices for oil never went down again.

Infrastructure? How about the Keystone pipeline - the actual PRODUCTIVE infrastructure that private companies want to build, because they believe it's going to be profitable, it's going to make money. Is that the wrong thing today somehow - making money? USA was built by business, not by any government. USA was built by ABSENCE of gov't, people came to USA for freedoms from their totalitarian governments.

The countries today that do the best are those that removed the most government controls from their economy over time, and USA is moving in a completely wrong direction.

You want infrastructure? You can't have infrastructure, there is nothing to build it for, and if there is something to build it for (like an oil pipeline) you are arguing against it, and it's not even a government project.

You are not going to have infrastructure, because you don't have production. You are not going to have education and science, because you don't have manufacturing and engineering.

There has to be manufacturing and it has to be private - for profit, and gov't must stay out of it and that's how you will have wealth and infrastructure, because manufacturing will require it. That's how you'll have science - engineering done for manufacturing will require it and that's how you'll have education - all of the above will require it.

It's not enough to WANT something, you have to either do it yourself or step away and let those do it who want to do it, and their motivation is profit, and that's the best motivation. It's the best motivation, because absent gov't meddling, they'll be making profit by doing something that everybody wants (market wants to buy).