To illustrate the advanced state of utilities deregulation in Texas, today electricity went out on my entire block. Deregulation does not promote competition–except in who can charge the highest rates. It creates dozens of companies & makes utilities costs sky high. This is a poorer working class neighborhood where a refrigerator of rotted food would be a big deal. When I phoned the outage in to the city they told me each household had to call their own electricity provider. The way deregulation works, that could be up to twenty different providers.

Capitalism didn’t work that well under regulation; under deregulation, it’s a plunder-bust.