Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

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There is a reason for this.

The first time I ever went to Beirut over 10 years ago, I asked a partner of a large Civil Engineering firm

Me : "Why does the power go out all the time?"

The response: "There is no political will to fix this."

I didn't understand the reply. Surely there was immense value in economic development in doing this ?

I drew parallels to being in South America, particularly Ecuador, who had the same issue back in the 90's. That caused so much economic loss. I understood the issue was rainfall swings drove hydro power outages. They finally built extra capacity, and now brownouts are a thing of the past. Everyone benefitted.

But lebanon had no such luck. Why?

I didn't understand the undertones of what was being told to me. But the answer was there. It is a political issue, but not a question of will. Its a question of money.

The neighborhood generators now have cartel power over the generation of electricity. They have a vested interest in the government NOT producing cheap electricity for the masses. Anything that disrupts the status quo means their business is effectively over.

Full 360: The market response to electricity production during civil war, gave lebanon electric resilience (via power generators)...but now with regulatory capture, the incentives are only to sustain the broken model.

It happens in the US too. 1br rents are like $2000 in LA. 3 bedroom 1500sqft starter homes are north of $1.5m even in the worst neighborhoods in the city. If you ask why rents and housing is so high, it's due to a a lack of political will to increase supply. It seems backward until you realize the majority of voters in local elections are homeowners, the council members in charge of unilateraly approving or disallowing development in their district are homeowners, and the lawmakers at the state level are also homeowners, all of which have a vested interest in achieving exponential gains on their assets.

I can't help but imagine how different this state would be if the governor of California came from a rental apartment, or from living in their car, and not the latest approved candidate from the old California political machine (Governor Gavin Newsom is a respected SF judge's son, Mayor Eric Garcetti's father was the LA DA for 20 years). Maybe political priorities would actually shift to the working poor rather than the landowning elite for the first time ever in California.

I think we should clarify what we mean by "lack of political will." The stakeholders who don't want (lots of government-supplied electricity | lots of low-cost housing) have plenty of political will. Their opponents also have a political desire, but a lack of political power.

"Lack of will" as a phrase suggests nobody feels like doing anything about it, when in fact, lots of people want to do different things and those with more power are winning out over those with less, regardless of which thing would be maximally beneficial.

This isn't a slight against you or the GP for using the phrase - it's just something that sticks in my craw when I hear it. Don't even ask me how I feel about the word "unprecedented."

Lack of will to disrupt the status quo is also the reason why many new builds in Indian cities like Bangalore/Hyderabad are forced to rely on the water tanker cartels instead of getting reliable piped water supply from the local municipal corporations.

The icing on the cake is that water tanker cartels steal from the municipal water supply in the first place.

as Argentinian , other south American country we have cities without energy next to power generation plants, and subsidizes for sector who don needed (residential downtown) but have political influence, i live in the richest and biggest cities of my country and i have subside transportation while,in the north who have a lot less resource pay the full tariffs only because my cities have more political influence in national elections.

Thanks for the insight. Gives a whole new meaning to the "Bitcoin farming uses more energy than Argentina" catchphrase

I'm not arguing pro or against Bitcoin, just stating reality is nuanced.

Thanks I learned too.

Allow me to contribute a bit and please don't take this the wrong way. I understand why you are using tariff. You are using the spanish tarifa.

The word commonly used to represent bus payments is "fare" (train fare, etc). Hope this helps!.

Tariff in english is commonly used instead to refer to the word "arancel" i.e. the cost to export / import food, etc.

> now have cartel power

Interesting insights. You get most of it right about Lebanon: Yes, you're right its all about money and maintaining the status quo. But its not so much about the neighborhood generators. To be honest, thats a bit low brow for Leb politicians. When we're talking about corruption its usually to the tune of $10s of millions. Case in point, look at the longtime central banker who funneled the nation's bonds through his brother's trading company and pocketed $300 million in commissions. [1] Now were talking real money.

With electricity, yes, its about vested interests - but its also about future interests. Who will control new power plants? New Power grids? New billing systems? Can we make sure that for each Sunni hired in this position we have 1 Christian and 1 Shia as well?

Thats why nothing ever gets done in Lebanon.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/u-s-said-...

Regulatory capture is the long-term attractor for any "free market" system.

The rule of law needs to put its thumb on the scale if you want to get rid of the predatory elements.

seems less like a market problem and more like a government problem

It's more a human nature problem. A perfectly free market is the jungle, and the most brutal jaguar is king there.

Which is exactly why you need to add feedback loops to the system (minimum wage, progressive taxation, etc), to prevent it from devolving into Bioshock.

Yes. When the government is too weak, or is government in name only, or is infected with "free market" true believers, it becomes the plaything of the great moneybags. Policy shifts towards "freedom" - i.e. the freedom to use the brute force of capital for personal benefit, disregarding the larger and the longer term outcomes and the greater good.

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