There is a Light that Never Goes Out

Labour and the Greens announced today their plans to reform the electricity sector.

It's not a bad start, and the message that power bills will drop by more than $20 per month is simple and powerful, especially when compared to the likely retorts from National, which will be "bad economics/stalinism".

I read some commentary that this will leave a hole in the government's accounts.  The other side of that coin is that it will leave money in people's pockets; it's kind of like a tax cut.  So National can't really use that line of argument, because they say they like tax cuts, though their actions say the opposite.

In my opinion it is just a start.  Labour and the Greens still appear to believe that electricity is a commodity, whereas it is in my opinion an essential service.  As a commodity the system is run to maximise return on investment, or in simplified terms, profit.

There's a school of thought that says by maximising the profit the system becomes efficient, through competition.  It's a reasonable theory, the practice is somewhat different (the same applies to communism - good as a theory, doesn't work in the real world).

So even with Labour and the Greens plan implemented (and the latest Roy Morgan poll tells us they will get the chance, because National are festering in their own muck), we still have competing electricity generators supplying a single buyer of electricity.

The change of mindset I think is necessary follows on from treating electricity as an essential service is this:
the system should be run to provide electricity at a minimum cost.
The way to achieve this is not by "hoping it will be achieved as a by-product of competition between companies trying to maximise their profit".
It is quite possible to work out, every year, month, week, day, hour and minute, how to run the generation, transmission and distribution system as components of a single system to produce electricity for the lowest possible cost.  It is a complex task and requires clever people, however, the techniques are well known and the data are available.  The obvious question is - "if it's that easy, why hasn't it been done?" and the obvious answer is "electricity is sold on a market, there's no money to be made from changing how we produce and sell it".
Disappointing, really, the money saved could surely be put to better use.

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead, 1986

Rock'n Me

He [took] the issue to the country [] at the [] General Election, he was able to form a government, and he was able to pass the requisite legislation; that's how our democracy works.Inventory2

The trend is your friendJohn Key

May these words come back to bite you both on the arse.

Steve Miller Band - Fly Like An Eagle, 1976

Effect and Cause

It's been obvious for a while now that this whole Kim Dotcom thing will roll on and I'm picking it will be the undoing of the government in one way or another.  If a catastrophic failure doesn't pull the government down (and I reckon it's 50/50 at present), attrition over the next two years will.
Looking at the trends on the Roy Morgan poll out today, attrition will leave a terrible result for National.

This graph, which I copied straight from the Roy Morgan website (go read it) shows confidence in the National Party dropping to levels that it took Labour eight years and a coalition with NZ First to reach.  National have achieve the same dire result in four years and what they claim was a strong mandate from the last election.  Yeah?
Care to test that mandate?  Now, before the next election turns to 2002 all over again with Bill English as leader after Regular John quit while he was behind (because, typical gambler, he forget to quit while he was ahead) and in the aftermath the caucus couldn't choose between Judith and Steve?  Stranger things have happened.

Back on track - the whole "blame the spooks" approach seemed flawed to me.  Here's how Stuff describe it:

Key has lashed the GCSB for a series of bungles over the Dotcom case which have left him politically exposed.

In the same article on Stuff the head of the GCSB, Ian Fletcher, says suggestions that a video was taken of Mr Key mentioning Kim Dotcom before the critical date of 17 September are false.  As proof he says the system has been searched and no such video found.  The suggestion was that the video was recorded on one or more cellphones; in which case it probably never made it on to a server.  However it seems unlikely a video would be leaked as it would be fairly easy for GCSB to work out who shot the video.  Audio is a different story.
If Mr Key had not dumped so heavily on the GCSB he would have not caused nearly as much resentment amongst the rank and file.  But his political nous has deserted him; a smarter politician would have found a creative solution.  But that understanding of effect and cause is absent.  Is the GCSB's pride injured enough to leak the audio?  Again, stranger things have happened.

White Stripes - Icky Thump, 2007