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Free-As-In-Beer Electricity In Greece?
PolygamousRanchKid writes New Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will lay out his radical left-wing government's policies in a speech later on Sunday, firmly rejecting any more austerity forced on his debt-strapped country by its euro zone partners. In his first major speech to parliament as premier, Tsipras is expected to say that Greece wants no more bailout money, plans to renegotiate its debt deal and wants a "bridge agreement" to tide the country over until a new pact is sealed. A second part of the speech will touch on his government's social and fiscal policy over the longer term and is likely to repeat pledges for such things as a rise in the minimum wage and free electricity for poorer Greeks. Which gets me to thinking: with free electricity, wouldn't that be a great business opportunity, to build a cloud of servers in poorer Greeks' basements? Maybe that is the real plan behind the free electricity idea.
Is electricity "stuff"? Or does it enable the use of stuff?
Anyway, I don't think they've looked far enough east for inspiration. I remember reading a few years ago that in one of the south-east Asian cities (Kuala Lumpur maybe? Singapore?) there was two-tier pricing on electricity -- dirt cheap up to X kWh so that everyone could have lighting and basic usage, but then ramping up to very expensive so that the rich buggers running air conditioning all day long were effectively subsidising the poor.
Although, on reflection, that's not really a solution for Greece seeing as it's not a matter of a large wealth gap as a severe lack of wealth....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
That's what always cracks me up about the arguments made for or against a form of monetary policy, people argue against a fringe extreme without actually looking at what the goal is.
Very few conservatives argue for the complete abolition of all social services and safety-nets such that everyone literally is on their own. Sure, some do, but not the majority.
Very few liberals argue for the complete abolition of corporations and the ability to accumulate private wealth. Sure, some do, but not the majority.
All we're arguing is to what degree we limit the accumulation of personal wealth, and to what degree we provide social services. I happen to agree that corporations should not have so many individual rights as they currently enjoy, and I also believe that corporate officers that have subdivided their companies up into small entities to attempt to limit liability should not be free to do so. I also believe that there should be limits on the amount of financial assistance offered to those unemployed that have children, and that many things that qualify for assistance should not do so, and that continuing to receive benefits should be somewhat contingent on proving that one is making a concerted effort to find work.
I'm sure that some disagree with me. That's fine. I don't want to hear how some view that could be interpreted as possibly relating to mine is bad, I want to hear about how someone's different idea and its merits, and after we've established pros, let's look at cons.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That is not the only thing they are being asked for. They are also being asked to cut the minimum wage, rise working hours, cut pensions, fire public sector employees and sell state enterprises including the electric power company. The result of those measures, rather unsurprisingly, was 25% unemployment, including over 50% youth unemployment, people who cannot pay back their loans and more vagrant on the streets.
Unless the Greek government offers these people a change to live a decent life what do you think will happen?
Or so you keep hearing. But when you actually look at the statistics the amount of people who actually do that is rather low.
How many failed capitalist experiments are we going to be subjected to before corporations are no longer people, and the fruits of labor are distributed much more equitably here in the US?
What if it didn't matter how the fruits of labor were distributed so long as the number of fruits grew faster for each individual? That is, what if society was not a zero-sum game involving distribution of a set supply but a question of setting up the rules for maximum growth of the total?
I, for one, would rather consume 50-units in a community of individuals making 100 each then just getting 25 in a community making 25, even if the latter was distributed more equitably. To be fair, this is a point that a lot of people differ on - I've had some people earnestly believe that the disparately of consumption is itself an evil that's worth paying the price of making everyone worse off on an absolute scale.
[ Note that none of this suggests that unbridled capitalism is the best at growing the average consumption power. The history of capitalism is full of crony deals and other market perversities that ended up making everyone poorer on the whole (even as it made some individuals rich). Ultimately this is distinction that I think we need to abide -- are people getting rich by making everyone better off (e.g. by giving people things they actually want at a price they are willing to pay) or are they getting rich at the expense of others. ]