http://www.malcolm-x...d/malcolmdetroit.ram

but good news, there are things called emergency backup servers: http://www.wikileaks...tegory:United_States

http://www.theonion.com/content/atlas/

“So, when privatized, jobs which were only there because of subsidization, will be temporarily lost. It’s economics “
-this is a great argument! The only problem is that it makes it sound like the poor citizens were shelling their hard-earned money into the pockets of cushy bureauocrats/whiney union workers. New Zealand is an oil producing country, the rest of its electricity (all on the decline now except crude petro) is from geothermal and some hydro/wind – and you’re trying to convince us that the state-owned electric company was running a DEFICIT? That’s funny. No, those unionized workers were paid from the profits made from their product. They weren’t even paid a decent percentage of that. The externalities of the industry are obviously things such as resource depletion, industrial waste, fresh water depletion and other eco. factors. At least with a state owned company profits went back to the departments that had to clean these externalities up and in (hopefully) not raising the price of electricity to consumers (citizens) plus other benefits like other profits going towards the gov’t budget, regulation, fair union negotiating, so overall the money produced off the land that “everyone” owns stays in the country. Now it’s just siphoned off to the States to pay for oil lobbying and allah knows what else and the citizens are left with the cost of corporatism externalities (http://www.cowlesgal...nsky/oilfields2.html)

oh, and I’ve never been in a blackout. I’ve had the power beep out for one minute (so annoying! NOOO – the clocks!) or so, but that’s about it. My power comes from a provincial company. I hate them but it would evoke my pathetic wrath if it were privatized.

I don’t think you should be forced into anything either, but I think everyone deserves everything their labour had created, I don’t think you deserve more just because your great-grandad liked to kill natives (exterminate/cause extinction in new zealands’ case) so you have some inherited capital. I do think that resources belong to the community (a definition to which I include the surrounding ecology), they all have equal rights and a vested interest in maintaing sustainability, and therefore would entire in voluntary contracts of what to do with (such as schools) and everyone can come to agreements based on the knowledge that everyone has a right to liberty and freedom (im a pareconist. I like bakunin and some bookchin and in the past considered myself an anarcho-syndicalistbut I dont really get what all these names REALLy mean enough to adopt one to define myself (such as “revolutionary anracho-socialism yo)

man, .(dot)fuckingcom rocks my socks, the line in Hesitation where she screams out “corporate ass kisser” reminds me of you, asshole and sorry if this is long, suckers. Here’s an early “Happy Louise Riel Day!” fer ya’lls.

It’s simple really. Humans are social animals. We live in societies. We all depend on each other to some extent for our survival. The libertarian world you desire is entirely cut throat, where it is considered a virtue to only look after yourself. To the extent that you could even call this a society, I certainly don’t think it’s the best way to get the most out of our short time on earth. And I can’t imagine too many people yearning to go back to the days when life was “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Furthermore, Marx’s predictions of capitalism would indeed come true w/ unfettered free-markets. I don’t necessarily think a “worker’s revolution” would ever come to fruition, but i can easily see a return to quasi serfdom with a few monopolies owning everything.

Bits, you are right, jobs were lost. This comes as no surprise. These jobs were propped up by government subsidization, at a cost to the citizens. It is uneconomical. So, when privatized, jobs which were only there because of subsidization, will be temporarily lost. It’s economics, if there is no benefit to a job, it shall be lost. Unfortunately, when the government sticks it’s nose in, this balance is lost. And the inefficiency is paid for by us, through taxes. You only have to look at what happens when privatization occurs, you can get the same job done, but without any of the waste. Ideally, this should mean cut taxes, but the government in the 90s decided to reallocate funds instead. Bastards.

Now, for sure you can say ‘but those workers need thier jobs, you can’t just throw them out on the streets if we don’t need them’. But it’s madness. Why don’t we pay all our homeless people $50k a year, to pick up street litter? You can’t go around taxing people so that you can provide someone with an unnecessary job. It’s 100% theft.

As for the rising costs, I think it’s a good thing. Instead of government subsidies creating artificially low prices for electricity, the market showed us how much the energy was really costing the country to produce. This is a perfect example of free market environmentalism. If people pay the REAL price of energy (not a government issued price), then people are obviously more careful about how much they consume.

I live in Auckland. The ‘horrific blackouts’ were remarkably ordinary. You get blackouts no matter where you are in the world.

To be honest, I’m not a total libertarian. I think that even some institutions mostly rejected by true free-marketers should be state owned. I think that primary (or I believe, it’s called elementary in north america) education should be publicly funded, for example, as there isn’t a person in the world who doesn’t need to know how to read and write. I guess some hardcore libertarians would call me more ‘liberal’ than libertarian. I’m not one for being labeled though.

The whole Ron Paul staunch stance against the Iraq War and military interventionism in general momentarily piqued my interest in Libertarianism, but the more i learned the more i kept asking myself how any sane person could advocate for it.

I think the Chomsky interview i posted above really exposed Libertarism for the pure horseshit that it is.

“After the privatisations, many more workers were laid off as maintenance and other areas of work were contracted out. Many full-time employees were forced to become self-employed contractors.
The end result of subordinating electricity production directly to the dictates of the market, firstly through corporatisation then outright privatisation, has been job losses, rising prices and calamities such as last year’s lengthy electricity blackout in central Auckland, as a result of cost-cutting and lack of maintenance.”

not to mention ECNZ was not, nor even close to, the lead competitor in electricity distribution so it’s not like there was a huge monopoly that was sucking citizens dry. They did own a big proportion of electricity PRODUCTION (a whopping 30%). Considering an interest for the government is long term stability and at least marginally satisfying citizens, ownership of the means of energy production for the government (or The People, as you seem to be such a frothing Adam Smith-ite) isn’t nearly as bad (think unionized jobs, some environmental accountability, and I hate to say it, but security, and a slightly better ability to have citizens concerns voiced). In contrast, as we all know, the major interest of a corporation is profit increases for shareholders (mainly US citizens in this case and apparently a handful of albertans, amoungst others).
It seems to me that you can go ahead and believe in unfetterd freemarket capitalism. you can hope that after 40 years with a company they will benevolently provide for you, will care enough for you (as its become so hard to find cheap labour) to provide benefits, a good wage, will care for the environment, will not raise costs, will applaud your forming unions to stand up for what you believe in, pay for your childrens education and health, blahblahblah. i myself will believe they’d skull-fuck me and leave me for dead if it would earn them a cent.

why dont we talk about how to move away from energy dependence and take production more into our own hands instead? I say that as tomorrow’s the 16th, a.k. in north america as the day against the SPP: it s a good time to discuss not only how to prevent/prevail against such travesties of the land and people, but how to move to a place where the communities that use the power can create and maintain it themselves.

now, i have to get back to my friday afternoon cartoons and prepare for the saturday morning ones.