In Austin, like the former Soviet Union, state control will not die without a fight. Years of monopoly power create deep and vested interests. Such interests are so strong as to defy logic. For instance, although every economist outside of Cuba agrees that competition through free markets creates lower prices and better service for consumers, the electrical oligopoly, surprisingly enough, seems to believe that their little billion dollar corner of the world is the exception. Before reading this study, it is important to remember the importance of this issue to the industry advocacy groups which back the research.
Monopoly profits create a problem that few consumers have, too much money.
As a result, an almost unlimited amount of money can be thrown into defense of their legally sanctioned position. The first claim of the study is based on the sort of thinking that generated this huge, state-controlled centralized monster of an electrical system in the first place. The thinking, distilled to its most basic form, is that bureaucrats in Austin can make better decisions about what you want to buy than you can. But no system of central planning has ever gotten prices below the market. This is because, as we learn in high school economics, centralized economies are inherently inefficient.