State motto should be “Welcome to Hell.”
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When you create an account with a utility, aren't you creating a contract with them? What happened to contractual duty?
“We are altering the terms. Pray we do not alter them any further.”
"Well, in the land of the fee, your level of freedom is directly proportional to your wealth, and the corporations have... an ungodly amount of wealth... but you... you're a peasant... you understand?"
I don’t think it works that way in Texas. There’s a layer of energy resellers who customers create an account with. Those resellers buy energy from the main utility companies and offer different plans. So, there’s no contract between consumer and generator.
Ah yes more middlemen with do nothing jobs ment to reduce corporate liability. The American dream.
Dont disparage what they do. They also add to the price so they can profit. Clearly, added value.
It's a separation between power generation and power delivery. We have the same thing in New York. Someone has to own the actual delivery infrastructure, which in NYC is generally this company called ConEdison. They'll also provide the generate power for you, but you have the right to switch to other providers. For instance, I could switch to a provider that generated all power from renewable sources, though it is naturally more expensive.
Maybe it works that way in NYC, but here in Indiana, I get one option for a power company. Power, gas, water, sewer, trash collection, all single option. And no, that single option is not a government one because I live outside city limits. Until they laid fiber in this neighborhood last year, I only had one option for internet too.
Someone has to own the actual delivery infrastructure,
Do they, though? I hear there's this neat thing called "public ownership" that works wonders for basic necessities like utilities. And that way you don't have someone scheming to profit off the things you need to stay alive.
During the Great privatization scam we are promised that the free market would somehow be magically more efficient but it turns out it was a just so they could show profit Hearing in the middle of stuff that had previously been free of it. Worst service and higher prices were universally the result because those profits have to come from somewhere and that'somewhere is you
There are lots of examples of private companies working well as regulated monopolies. The key word is "regulated", though.
that and how many of their customers can afford (or have the spare time) for a contract lawyer?
Ok, then sue the middlemen for failing to withhold their side of the contract.
They can deal with recouping the costs from their shitty suppliers.
They'll either pressure the suppliers into change, or go out of business handing the liability back to the suppliers.
In my experience contracts are one-sided. The big corpo end of the contract basically has no real power over them but they sure can use their contract to fuck you little guy over. All the contract does is allow a corporation to use state power against you really. No contracts that's not between equals never truly be fair unless we were to have a public defender system for civil court
Remember when Texas was threatening to secede and then everyone realized the state just falls apart when they have any kind of weather besides 90 and sunny.
Texans sure must love being abused by their GOP rulers.
And Texans should have no legal responsibility to pay taxes.
Texas is a 4th world shithole.
All this really means is that the life insurance companies won't be able to transfer their financial liability to the power companies.
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