Yesterday some kind of whacknutty tropical like squall came zooming through Israel. My 16 month old son got a bit scared, and a friend dropped off her baby as she was doing some errand or other. The two babies sat in my wife’s lap huddling with her as I ran about shutting windows.
The power went out, but we have one of those emergency LED lights. On may way to the gym this morning, I saw a car smashed in half by a downed tree. But otherwise, Karnei Shomron has been pretty good with electrical issues, as monopolies go.
So in times like this, I do check the main stream garbage media for safety reasons. On the front page of Ynet, one of the absolute worst news sources of any country, I see this pathetic headline. I don’t click on these things, just check if there’s anything I need to know.
Here’s the headline:
רבבות עדיין בלי חשמל: “מדינת עולם שלישי”30 אלף משקי בית עדיין ללא חשמל מאז אתמול בבוקר. לני, אימא לשניים מרמת השרון: “חברת החשמל כל הזמן אומרים שעובדים על זה. בינתיים, חייבים למצוא סידור לילדים”. אלפים חתמו על עצומה לתביעה ייצוגית. ראשי הערים של כפר סבא ורעננה קוראים לנתניהו להתערב ולהקים ועדת חקירהאלישע בן קימון, שחר חי ורענן בן צור
Here’s a quick lesson in economics. When an entire industry is monopolized by tax funded state-privileged talentless fattened lazy ass jerks who can charge you whatever the hell they want for electricity but whose “workers” get free electricity and all competition in the entire country is outlawed, your service is going to suck. And the only thing you’ll be able to do, instead of switch electric companies, is to sign petitions like a chump. Just thank God these schmucks are not given a monopoly over the food industry, or we’d all have starved to death long ago.
And you can save Netanyahu the trouble of spending my money to put together a group of politicians meant to “investigate” this amazing occurrence. The reason it happened is because the electricity industry is a giant State cartel. There. Investigation finished.
Solution? Sell off the infrastructure to private companies, return the proceeds to taxpayers, and let the private sector fix it. Whoever fixes it first gets the most money, and we can all stop signing petitions and begging Netanyahu to “get involved”.
And the next time there is any prolonged power outage, you can switch electricity providers, just like you can switch internet providers or cell phone companies now if there are any outages. What an ingenious concept.
The Jewish Libertarian 
How would it be cost effective for multiple providers to each build their own infrastructure? In Gush Dan, perhaps multiple companies would find it worthwhile (i.e. profitable) to operate their own partial power network, even if we ignore how ugly the streets would be when lined with redundant cables. But who would find it worthwhile to provide power to Karnei Shomron, or other smaller yishuvim? Wouldn’t electricity/infrastructure usage costs be much higher for more rural areas?
The market organizes prices in the most efficient way possible by definition. Otherwise a service would not exist. I am not an entrepreneur, but I would guess that one company would own the infrastructure, or a group of companies different parts of one infrastructure, working out usage by renting from one another. Other companies would provide service, much like internet works today. Yes, electricity would be more expensive in rural areas. That would be compensated by the less expensive land and real estate.
Even in the monopolistic system we have now, the amount I pay for electricity is tiny. Introduce competition and it will get even tinier. Many would opt for solar panels and stay off the grid altogether. There are those who do that in my neighborhood even now.