Reply To: Wealth of Nations, and Economics of Abundance

[Duke Leto]

I was rolling up profits and economic productivity gains in the same package, Eric. Since the effective econ productivity gain is equal to the drop in cost of all comsumed energy, the question is how much of the econ productivity is translated to profits for the energy prodcuer and how much becomes the cost decrease, and consequent profit increase, of the consumers. To put that somewhat more clearly, the net increase in GDP is more or less fixed, who gets what piece of the now bigger pie is what’s at issue.

As to whether the distribtuion net owners in the US are going to charge a “transition cost” to recoup their investment, I always assumed they would just gleefully accept the role as a markup taking middleman for the FF Generator owners, fire 90% of their engineers working transmission lines, substations and other generators and then live off of a free 25-50 cents per kwh for just running the meters. If nothing else, they have the value of the land where the transmission lines currently are.

But you do have a point, I had never thought of the Blue Chip investment portfolios that have the Power Company stocks. Particularly those that pension plans and 401k mutual funds are invested in. Hmmmm… Oh well, other problems…

I wish I had your confidence that collaborative democratic management were possible, Eric. My own experience is that ships need captains. Democratically elected captains, but still someone to keep everyone from forming their own plan in a storm. The problem with American management, it seems to me, is that it seems to think that management ought to be hereditary and that salesmen make the best managers. (As opposed to the best petty thieves.)