the nuclear fiasco

This intercepted correspondence reveals the true origin and purposes of regulation. Jim Clarkson of Resource Supply Management shares it with you and other Chronicle readers.

From: demon#244

regulation@hades.com

To: satan@hades.com

Subject: Progress Report

Dear Boss,

Before I begin my report on how our efforts are bringing misery to the mortals that inhabit the region in the upper world known as America, I wish to thank you for the promotion making me Chief Demon of state utility regulation. Rest assured that I am doing my best to bring out the worst in humans, keep them confused, cause them to waste their resources and condemn them to a reduced standard of living.

You have given me wonderful tools to work with. The creation of utility regulation is truly a credit to your diabolical abilities. No wonder you are known as the CEO of Darkness. I am honored to have the responsibility to build on your wicked creation and use it to spread mischief, engender greed in men’s hearts and undermine the natural harmony in human relations.

I have only been in my new assignment a short time, but I have already done much to corrupt the souls and insult the intelligence of all the humans that come in contact with utility regulation. Regulation attracts those who seek undeserved power and wealth.

Participants in the regulatory process ask for things they should not have. Utilities want to ensure recovery of their bad investments and wasteful practices while making an above-market profit. Politicians and bureaucrats use regulation to entrench and expand their power to interfere in the economy. Customers fight among themselves to shift costs to others. Environmentalists use regulation to manage other people’s lives.

Recent developments have shown the wisdom of your diverting the drive toward competition and “deregulation” into a system of managed competition, which of course failed miserably.

Instead of actually decreasing regulation, the adoption of a system of mandatory common access and guaranteed capital recovery led to an increase in regulation. Not only did the phony deregulation not work, but it also discredited true free markets which ensures continued unnecessary torment for Americans, at least for a while.

But we are not without our problems. A growing body of economic thought is challenging the very rationale for regulation and savagely pointing out its shortcomings. Additionally, there is evidence all around humans showing that open markets and competition produce many benefits. It is getting harder to keep the people bamboozled about the need for regulation. Wave after wave of criticism is undermining the very foundations of regulation. We definitely need a new top-down authoritarian program to administer as a way to shore up its sagging justification.

Next week: The Boss responds