Re: Too cheap. . .

["D. Kosloff" <dkosloff@ncweb.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Neon John <johngd@bellsouth.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 1:17 AM
Subject: Re: Too cheap. . .


I agree that the remark is widely misunderstood.  I think the major reason
it is misunderstood is that it has usually been presented in a manner
intending that it be misunderstood.

Actually electricity has been considered too cheap to meter by many people
for many years.  Many apartments include utility costs in the rent, with no
adjustment for usage.  Pricing also has a lot to do with what people are
used to paying and what they think is fair.  Discounts to large users are
almost always perceived as "unfair" by smaller consumers, even though they
are fair because of reduced utility costs.

Price has an impact on usage as well.  When I was growing up, electricity
cost was high relative to our family income.  We always turned lights off
when we left a room.  In 1969 when I lived in Portland I was so surprised by
my electric bill (27 cents) that I asked the landlord if it was correct.  It
was, hydroelectric.  The landlord had a meter for each apartment and he
billed the tenants.  I guess he was sensitive to usage.

When the great energy crisis hit in 1973, one of the "solutions" proposed
was to restore individual metering to all apartment houses.

> I think this remark is very widely misunderstood.  It didn't mean
> that electricity would be cheap enough to give away.  It meant that
> electricity would become inexpensive enough that it wasn't worth the
> expense of metering and could be sold flat-rate, presumably to
> residential customers, at least.  Cable TV and local telephone
> service (in most US states) are other examples.
>
> One could certainly assert that electricity has indeed reached that
> point.  Electricity is in many (most?) areas of the country cheaper
> than it has ever been in real dollars, while the cost of the labor
> to read meters, and the meters themselves are going up. Modern
> building codes have houses spec'd down well enough that it might
> make sense to set up a few brackets according to house size and type
> and flat-rate bill within the bracket and get rid of the meters.
> Yes, I know it would remove one tool of the socialists to monkey
> around with behavior modification but that would also be good and it
> sure makes financial sense.
>
> BTW, Don, I really appreciated your note about your 'conversion'.
> There are not many people out there who will admit to being wrong,
> seeing the error of their ways and changing.  Fewer stil who
> publicly admit it.
>
> John
> --
> John De Armond
> johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net
> http://personal.bellsouth.net/~johngd/
> ************************************************************************
> The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
> information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html
>

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html