The High Cost to Us of Utilities Deregulation

Many of us have been warning that deregulation allows companies to stick high prices to consumers because in corporate America there is no such thing as a "free market," especially in utilities. Now comes a neutral academic report that those consumers in deregulated states typically have had larger electricity rate increases than customers in states still under regulation.

We are not surprised that the belief that deregulation leads to lower prices is at best mere wishful thinking. But you should keep this in mind in light of NES's bid to hike their rates so that we will pay them almost 10% more than we already do. What we need is more state government regulation (if we can get it) of NES to keep prices manageable for families who will not otherwise be able to afford their inflationary tactics.


HT: PLAN Blog