California deregulation did not fail. The acute Californian shortages of the past half year stem not from deregulation so much as from its opposite. You do not need an economics degree to see what is wrong with that. But the west is supposed to lead the way in such reforms and the failure here is particularly damaging. Surely the US should be able to restore a slice of the state sector to private hands.
Consumers still expect to get their power from a big, reliable, government-backed entity.
The same then held for the savings and loans, traditional banks at which citizens held home mortgages. The thrifts were constrained from giving loans outside the residential property sector. There were caps on loan and deposit interest rates. As with energy, this benevolent stewardship generated enormous and predictable inefficiencies. In the 1970s, inflation brought high interest rates.