Anyone Else Sin Luz?!

[camberiu]

But, realistically, you can only blame good old private industry, rich investors, and capitalism for the fact that the substations and the power infrastructure has not been improved enough to handle the loads of all those new 7 story buildings on every block.

Exactly. Evil bastards. Never mind mind the fact that they can't set their own prices, and therefore have no economic incentive to increase supply to match the increased demand.

 

[Alicia karr]

Thanks for all the replies folks.. But IMHO there is no safe zone. I live one block from a school, two from the comiseria, one from several upscale hotels, and one from village shopping. Plenty of incentive there to keep lights on. Nonetheless, it didn't matter and it looked like the affected area was large. When in my apartment I can roll with it if it gets turned on before I need to shower. But having been trapped in the elevator already once, (and I live on the sixth floor of a building with high ceiling floors) I've been a bit traumatized.
I appreciate people's intentions to be helpful but comments advising moves aren't very practical. We all know what it can be like to look for a good long term place to move to without a garantia! And it's personally irrelevant as I own my apartment. I love its location, my expenses are very low, etc. If I do move it would only be back up Notth where I won't have nightmares of being stuck in elevators anymore....

 

[Noesdeayer]

Ries:
This time you have left me totally aghast,in shock really! I lived 13 years--1979 'tll 1992--- with the electric,gas, and telephone companies under Argentine state ownership.It was one nightmare after another.Have you EVER spoken with anyone even better a local who remembers those years?
One of the worst was the electric co.(it pains me to try and remember its name) .
Since it relied basically on hydroelectric power generation if we didn't get enough rain the result was something out of Kafka.Its union was something close to permanent extorsion.As the Argentines say,"It's better to laugh than to cry".So,many times they made jokes about the horrendous "service?" rendered.I lived in Congreso at the time and we always used to send an "abuelita" down to ask the repair"cuadrilla" when to expect light to be back on.She would always ask them in sweet grandmotherly terms."Muchachos,para cuando la luz ?". and she always got a correct answer.
There was a favorite TV show "El Groncho y la Dama"-- "The Greaser and the Lady".The lady would always complain about the different services and at the end she would cry in desesperation,"Cuando vienen los Gallegos?!".
Anyone who thinks that was a better situation needs to see a mental health professional.

 

[Ries]

Ries:
This time you have left me totally aghast,in shock really! I lived 13 years--1979 'tll 1992--- with the electric,gas, and telephone companies under Argentine state ownership.It was one nightmare after another.Have you EVER spoken with anyone even better a local who remembers those years?
One of the worst was the electric co.(it pains me to try and remember its name) .
Since it relied basically on hydroelectric power generation if we didn't get enough rain the result was something out of Kafka.Its union was something close to permanent extorsion.As the Argentines say,"It's better to laugh than to cry".So,many times they made jokes about the horrendous "service?" rendered.I lived in Congreso at the time and we always used to send an "abuelita" down to ask the repair"cuadrilla" when to expect light to be back on.She would always ask them in sweet grandmotherly terms."Muchachos,para cuando la luz ?". and she always got a correct answer.
There was a favorite TV show "El Groncho y la Dama"-- "The Greaser and the Lady".The lady would always complain about the different services and at the end she would cry in desesperation,"Cuando vienen los Gallegos?!".
Anyone who thinks that was a better situation needs to see a mental health professional.

I did not say Nationalized Power companies were better- I simply pointed out the truth- that the current lack of investment is not the fault of Christina.

Since 1992, that is, for TWENTY FOUR years, Edenor has been a private company.
I dont think you can say everything that happened in those 24 years is the fault of the nationalized company that was in power in 1979.

24 years is enough time to realize that your 100kw substation is serving a barrio that draws 200kw.
Its math. Pretty simple math.
Thruout Buenos Aires, there are areas that clearly have a certain number of electrical services- you can count the number of customers. Its not that hard to multiply the number of customers by the average usage, and come up with a demand level.

There is not enough distribution infrastructure in Buenos Aires. We need more transformers, more trunk lines, more circuits.
And whatever might have happened before 1992, 24 years is enough time for them to have figured this out.

Edenor and Edesur quite simply saw this one coming, and chose not to spend the money to fix it up.

plenty of things to blame on Christina that she actually did.
this problem is not hers.

 

[thorsten]

If one creates a monopoly for companies that provide a service that everyone needs, this is the expected outcome. Why should a company make large investments in infrastructure that cost them quite a bit but doesn't lead to more customers? Not saying that I like the situation, but from an economical point of view, it's very rational given how the energy market works here.

 

[Ries]

If one creates a monopoly for companies that provide a service that everyone needs, this is the expected outcome. Why should a company make large investments in infrastructure that cost them quite a bit but doesn't lead to more customers? Not saying that I like the situation, but from an economical point of view, it's very rational given how the energy market works here.

BALONEY.
Every single electrical provider, in every single city and country in the world, is an effective monopoly.
There is nowhere where you have 3, or 5, or 10, competing companies each stringing their own wires.
In every other country and city, the government tries to hit a middle ground, where, in exchange for granting the monopoly of selling electrical power, the company must invest a reasonable amount to serve its customers.
Most of the time, the company tries to get away with the most that is possible, and spend the least.

So, here at least, I guess there is some blame for "the K's" - they didnt force the private company to spend more of its profits.
That would mean, to me, that the previous government was not socialist enough, and didnt muscle business enough.
But, so far, anyway, Macri seems to be getting tougher with the Ede's, demanding they upgrade service to eliminate the rolling blackouts.

 

[thorsten]

BALONEY.
Every single electrical provider, in every single city and country in the world, is an effective monopoly.
There is nowhere where you have 3, or 5, or 10, competing companies each stringing their own wires.
In every other country and city, the government tries to hit a middle ground, where, in exchange for granting the monopoly of selling electrical power, the company must invest a reasonable amount to serve its customers.
Most of the time, the company tries to get away with the most that is possible, and spend the least.

So, here at least, I guess there is some blame for "the K's" - they didnt force the private company to spend more of its profits.
That would mean, to me, that the previous government was not socialist enough, and didnt muscle business enough.
But, so far, anyway, Macri seems to be getting tougher with the Ede's, demanding they upgrade service to eliminate the rolling blackouts.

If you want to broaden your horizon a bit, feel free to look up the current situation in Europe, which has large parts of the energy market liberalized. For my house in Germany, I can choose between more than a hundred companies where I want to purchase energy from - which doesn't sound like a true monopoly to me. Obviously it's not necessary that each company builds up a new line to each house, you just need to make regulations for it as it happened about 20 years ago in Europe. The same is true for the telecommunication market, where the former monopolist still provides most lines to end customers, but needs to provide access to them to any competitor for a capped fee. So yes, it is possible to create competition in markets even if they are commonly seen as natural monopolies.

 

[EJLarson]

BALONEY.
Every single electrical provider, in every single city and country in the world, is an effective monopoly.
There is nowhere where you have 3, or 5, or 10, competing companies each stringing their own wires.
In every other country and city, the government tries to hit a middle ground, where, in exchange for granting the monopoly of selling electrical power, the company must invest a reasonable amount to serve its customers.
Most of the time, the company tries to get away with the most that is possible, and spend the least.

Sorry, but you're not just a little bit wrong here, you're totally wrong. I just Googled the number of electricity providers here in Houston. I knew there were several, but was astonished to find that there are several dozen! - in my zip code alone! In spite of the recession, Houston's still growing but, to my knowledge, has never had a demand overload outage, and all the thousands of new houses get electricity when they need it. The fact that they all don't string their own lines doesn't preclude healthy, non-monopolistic competition.

The baloney's not on Thorsten's plate this time.

 

[Rich One]

The other alternative is to follow Ceviche's suggestion and move to BETTER buildings....

 

[Alicia karr]

The other alternative is to follow Ceviche's suggestion and move to BETTER buildings....

What has that got to do with it? It's not the building its 20 blocks! And move?! Gimme a Break!