From: Michael Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Fri Dec 18 1998 - 08:41:53 MST
Joe E. Dees wrote:
> Date sent: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 18:13:45 -0500
> From: Michael Lorrey <mike@lorrey.com>
> > > , subsidized irrigation to
> > > corporate agriculture, and cut-rate electricity to corporations.
> >
> > Corporations get lower rates because they use more of it. Its called quantity
> > discounting, just like any other business.
> >
> > > You
> > > don't like welfare to the poor, eh? Then why do you favor it for the
> > > already wealthy (enough to lobby for such special treatment)?
> >
> So you rationalize excuses for corporate welfare. Why? Because
> there are no rational reasons for it.
You obviously don't know jack about business or economics. Customers who buy larger
quantities reduce the costs of the supplier because the supplier only has to service
one customer for that large quantity, rather than several, or hundreds, or even
thousands. In the case of industry using electricity, its because the utility only has
to maintain one high power line directly to the plant using the power. It does not
need to invest in a huge distribution to deliver that amount of power to thousands of
homes, so the business does not need to pay for the marginal cost of that distribution
network, just its own single line. Moreover, a large fraction of American industry
produces surplus power that they sell back to the utilities. Plants which use a lot of
steam will set up cogeneration systems to supply themselves with power off of the
steam plant and will sell the surplus to the utility. This dual use saves lots of
money for both the business and the utility, which allows the utility to keep YOUR
electricity rates down. Now, who is subisdizing who?
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:50:03 MST