The Price of Power

Apparently, Texas lawmakers have no intention of allowing a free market in electricity to work. They thought they did, but having seen it in action, they've realised it's as dumb an idea as you could find in a month of trawling YouTube.

Unfortunately, that's not what they're saying.

What they're saying is things like: "Texans who suffered through days of freezing cold without power should not be subjected to skyrocketing energy bills due to a spike in the energy market" (Governor Greg Abbott). Or "This is WRONG. No power company should get a windfall because of a natural disaster, and Texans shouldn't get hammered by ridiculous rate increases for last week's energy debacle" (Senator Ted "plenty of power in Cancun" Cruz).

Price spikes happen in every electricity market. Usually they don't matter to users, because retailers sell power at a fixed price. When they do that, the retailer forms a buffer between the market price and the consumer. That's - part of their function. How the retailer sets its contracts with suppliers, how it insures itself against spikes - those things are, literally, its business.

In a free market like Texas's, there's nothing to stop them selling power at a price that's indexed to the spot price. And most of the time, these deals look good for the consumer. It is possible to offer a contract with a "ceiling" on the spot price, but that's like insurance - it means paying more for the added peace of mind. And if you were the sort of person who believed in insurance, you wouldn't be buying those plans in the first place.

Apparently, a whopping 25% of Texans thought they could do without that insurance. Of course, many of them will be right: for them the occasional $5000 bill is a nuisance, but they can handle it. (Although my guess is that many even of those people won't pay it, because why should they? - the bailout is coming.) But others are not so well heeled.

The theory goes, when the price spikes, generators will bring more capacity online. That's what prices are for. However, that assumes the capacity is there. If - for whatever reason - that capacity fails, there is no price that can instantly create more.

It also assumes that the price charged will be paid. If the Texas market is anything like those I know, the retailers will have to settle their accounts promptly at the beginning of next month (i.e. next week), so they have until then to raise the money from somewhere. Since lawmakers have already forbidden them to disconnect people, clearly it's not going to come from deadbeat customers. It'll be coming from taxpayers.

So Texan politicians have already vetoed the "conservative" way of resolving the crisis. Prices, it turns out, can't be allowed to control the market after all. Who or what will?

The answer depends on who foots the bill for the present debacle. It could, of course, be dumped on Texan taxpayers. But that would invite hard debate about the future regulation, and it's hard to see how anything good can come of that in the age of Twitter and Facebook. More likely they'll take federal money, which would sidestep the whole messy business by inviting federal regulators in. Then there'll be a handy scapegoat for all the changes people won't like.

One way or another, regulation is coming to the Texas market. And not a minute before time.

Reality TV claims more victims

Today's headline: Trump "mulls" quarantining New York.

If you were "mulling" something like that, what exactly would be the point of trailing it in advance?

The history of "quarantine" is long and storied and very, very unhappy. There are some constants that always happen: healthy people and sick people locked up together leads to bad things. And one of those bad things is, when people get warning that they're about to be quarantined, they run for the hills.

Taking the infection with them.

The bigger the area, the more people covered, the worse this effect is. When the rest of the world tried to quarantine "China" at the start of this outbreak, we saw how well that worked. Quarantining New York won't go any better. People who can afford it have either already fled, or are packing up to do it now - and some of them will carry the disease with them.

Is that what Trump wants? Is he just giving a heads-up to his well-heeled friends in the city to make sure they can take care of themselves? Well, partly, perhaps, but mostly I think this is just what he does. He made his name on "reality TV" (an oxymoron if ever there was) by publicly mulling and teasing and trailing what he might be going to do next, so tune in next show to find out - and he's done exactly the same as president. And that's what he's still doing. He doesn't have any other tricks.

The other likely effect, which I'm reasonably sure he has thought about because it plays directly to his strength, is that it will help to stoke fear and resentment - if not outright hatred - between the city and the rest of the country.

And if a few thousand more Americans die from it, well, that's a price he won't even notice. What's a few strangers' lives, compared to his ego?

It's far too late to quarantine a whole city. The disease is already firmly embedded and spreading in every state - where New York is today, it's likely Massachussets, Michigan, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee will all be there by Easter, quarantine or no. Lock down the city by all means - but as I understand it, the governor has already done that. But quarantine? - at best a desperate attempt by Trump to make himself look like he's trying.

Inevitability (US edition)

I think the jury is back in. It's clear that the Democrats have no answer to Trump: he's going to win another term.

I would like to add "assuming he stands", because I've seen it speculated that he'll drop out of his own accord sometime before the Republican convention, but I can't see it. That would expose him to legal jeopardy for all the charges currently being stacked up against him. His best chance of staying out of prison - and I'm pretty sure he's determined to do that, if nothing else - is to remain president.

So with that in mind, and in the hope of coming to terms with the reality of modern America, I'd like to reflect on some of the things I'm thankful for about the Trump administration. After all, he has been the most effective president of this century. (That's faint enough praise, but sincere nonetheless.)

What has he done for us?

Well, first, he's shown us all what the world looks like without American leadership. On issues such as climate change, we used to devote a lot of useless energy to trying to get the Americans on board with this initiative or that. With that distraction removed, now our attention is focused where it should have been all along - on our own governments. In Australia, for instance, the wrath over climate denial is now being (correctly) directed at Scott Morrison - nobody mentions Trump.

In the Middle East, he's shown all parties how foolish it is to rely on American power. (I hope the Israelis, in particular, have taken note. That bastard Netanyahu has taken Trump for a friend, but between the two of them there's a good chance they've doomed Israel: they've politicised American support for it. That's not, in itself, a good thing - but at least the Israelis will have enough warning of the end, they'll have a chance to mend their own relations if they can ever muster the will to do it.)

For the rest of us - well, we've seen the lengths that the likes of Russia and China will go to, and the tactics they may employ in their respective bids for dominance. And we don't yet have an effective answer to either one, but at least we know what they can do.

All of this is ugly, but it's the truth and we needed to know it.

Second, he's stripped away the figleaf of morality that has allowed America to build its empire with a good conscience all these years. When American soldiers are send abroad in future, there'll be no more nonsense about preserving freedom or protecting the homeland: we'll all know that their purpose is to protect the profits of well connected US companies and nothing else. That in turn will help to clarify our (foreign) voters' perceptions toward how our own politicians deal with them. It'll take a while, but we'll get there.

In the USA itself, he has mobilised left-wing factions as never before. There's a publicly-self-identified "socialist" faction in Congress now. Cities and states all over the country have declared their own determination to reach climate goals, ignoring the federal government.

(Paradoxically and sadly, this "mobilisation" of opposition does nothing to weaken Trump. Bringing more and more factions out in protest has the side effect of highlighting how little they really agree on - hence the sorry state of the current Democratic primary, and the growing tension between the traditional and "woke" wings of the party. I'm pretty sure that Trump himself understands this, and is working hard at exploiting it.)

He may have, temporarily at least, cured an affliction that affects British liberals observing their own country, when they are prone to observe that it "needs a written constitution". Trump has shown just how little difference that makes. What you can get away with has much more to do with who is enforcing the rules, than with whether or not such rules are written down.

As for the USA itself - I'm sorry, but there's not much we can do for you. If you can't settle on a candidate capable of beating Trump, or at the very least elect a senate that will stop him from packing the judiciary as well as the executive with his toadies - all we can offer you, at best, is somewhere to run to. Of course running won't solve your country's problems, but it just might solve yours.

The tragedy of inevitability

Some of those who know my views on Brexit were commiserating with me about last week's election result.

In truth, I had given up hope of reversing the referendum decision. I still think that, economically, politically and strategically, Brexit is a blunder, wrapped in a fiasco, inside a catastrophe; but the rift has gone too deep already. Between the EU's disastrous governance - which has grown even worse since the (genuinely) moderating hand of the UK was withdrawn from its deliberations - and the UK's own schizophrenic posturing, the two have already drifted too far apart to simply reglue them and pretend nothing happened.

No, Brexit has to happen now, in the same way as Corbyn had to be given his shot at leading Labour, and - so David Cameron argues, at least - the Brexiters had to be given their referendum in the first place. There's simply no other way to finish it.

One of the stupider takes I've seen on the election - basically from Americans who, I presume, are plugging for someone from the Warren/Sanders wing of their own party - is that "moderation doesn't pay". True, the traditionally-moderate Lib Dem party was crushed - but it was crushed by a Tory party that frankly ate their lunch. The vast distraction of Brexit seems to have blinded a lot of people to it, but on social and economic policy - Johnson's Tories were, by far, the most moderate party on the ballot.

Which brings us to Labour.

Tony Blair tried to tell them - and Blair, for all the hate, remains one of only four leaders in Labour's history who have ever won a general election. But maybe this is something that every generation has to learn for itself. Now it looks very much as if Labour's next leader - or at least, its next serious leader - will have to fight very much the same punishing internal war against Momentum as Neil Kinnock did against Militant in the 80s. Which will probably cost the party at least one more election, very likely two - it depends on the calibre of the new leader.

The thing is - success in British politics is inversely correlated to ideology. The more convinced you are of your own rightness, the less likely you are to win. (Before you hold up Thatcher as a counter-example, consider who she ran against.) The most damaging word you can throw at a British politician, if you can make it stick, is "dogmatic".

Johnson is a brash, lying, cynical, self-serving, manipulative, entitled bully. Supporters of Trump, and detractors of Johnson, like to compare the two - but any fair comparison shows up more difference than likeness. Johnson has none of Trump's "aggrieved" schtick, none of his "outsider" baggage, nor his petty vindictiveness, nor his boundless and groundless self-confidence. Johnson is a man who seeks expert advice and listens to it. He habitually follows up rows with charm offensives, and even apologies. His opponents' efforts to paint him as a xenophobe and bigot fell flat, as they deserved to - those are not labels you can credibly slap on a two-term mayor of London with a long record of supporting socially-liberal causes.

Most of all, Johnson has what Trump never had - a plan to govern. I wish him luck.

#MAGA

Simon Jenkins gets it.

There's no real way to stab allies in the back and come out looking like anything but scum. And Trump, to his credit, hasn't bothered to try. He is utter scum and he doesn't care who knows it.

But - with the Kurdish withdrawal - he's achieved something that Obama could only aspire to. He's tied the hands of every US administration to come for the next generation. At a stroke, he's made it vastly harder for the US to intervene in future wars anywhere in the world - because only the very foolish or the very desperate would ally with them. Nobody trusts a traitor.

This may be the Suez moment of the American empire - the moment when everyone, even Americans, are forced to accept that they just don't matter that much any more - because it doesn't matter how invincible your army is, if the taxpayers back home have lost the will to use it. If so, Trump deserves a deal of credit for getting there so quickly. Obama may have hunted bin Laden down, but it takes a Trump to surrender to him and get away with it. #MAGA - Make America Go Away.

Just to be clear - I personally think this is a horrible thing. I think the world was a better place for American intervention. I am aghast at the despicable treatment of the Kurds, and I think this treachery will haunt America. But given a choice between fighting until they were beaten, and simply giving up and going home - it's hard to fault the USA for choosing the second option. Generations of brave, decent and honourable US presidents, trying desperately to do the right thing - "to lead the cause of freedom", as George W Bush once put it - have led the US into seemingly endless wars. Now Trump, who combines in one man the personal courage of a diseased rat, the integrity of Pontius Pilate and the morals of a Bangkok pimp, has shown how to end them.

I hope people elsewhere who are placing their hope in US support - such as in Hong Kong, and Israel, and even some poor fools in Britain - are taking note.

Demotivated reasoning

So, a lot of normally calm people are crowing that Trump is going down.

Like them, I really want it to be true - but based on a lifetime of being disappointed in politics, I don't believe it. And since I have a solid track record of incorrect predictions, I'm hoping this one will prove to be wrong as well (but to bring that about, I have to publish it): "impeachment" is making him stronger.

Now, I'm not claiming he knows exactly what he's doing. He's not some supra-genius level grandmaster who's playing twenty moves ahead of us all. But this isn't chess. What he is, is a past master at opportunism. Let him so much as sniff a lifeline, and he will not only haul himself to safety, but also lash it around his opponents' necks and do his redoubtable damnedest to haul them into the soup in his place. He doesn't yet know what form that lifeline will take (although he has a few contingency plans, obviously) - but he has faith, based on a lifetime of avoiding consequences, that it will come along in time.

To deny him such a lifeline? - would take a laser-focused prosecutorial intellect, a party of unwavering discipline, media who can maintain an attention span of months while retaining detachment and perspective, and two parties that are still committed to pluralistic republican democracy and the rule of law. How many of those ingredients are present in Washington right now?

Failing all that, it would take a more convincing case than that phone call. Because I read the published "transcript", and while it is appalling, it still contains enough plausible deniability to give talking points to Trump himself and his highly-motivated allies in the media and elsewhere. And talking points is all they need. They don't need to be convincing, they just need to keep talking, and Trump's followers will keep listening.

Impeachment will fail, Biden is sunk, and Warren will lose to Trump next year because (I don't pretend to know why this is, but the polling data is clear) working-class blacks won't vote for her, just as they didn't for HRC. It's time to resign ourselves to a second term of Trump.

An open letter to Greta Thunberg

My son asked me the other week: "who starts wars?"

The sheer anger in his question was palpable. At eight years old, he knows enough to hate and fear the idea of war. Why would anyone do such a thing? What kind of villain would condemn so many people to so much pain? I tried to tell him that people don't, usually, mean to start wars - it's something that happens when things go wrong, and the leaders lose control. They misjudge their enemies - or their friends - and do something that provokes a much stronger reaction than they wanted.

Like everything we tell children, that's only partly true. Of course lots of wars have been started on purpose, sometimes by people who were every bit as evil as the cartoon villains of young Tilly's imagination. But even they were reacting to pressures - trying to solve problems of their own, although these may not have had anything to do with the enemy they chose to fight.

It is our nature to see problems as like obstacles - things to be overcome one at a time, each one letting us make a little more progress to reach the next problem. We seldom give much thought to the issues behind us, that our ancestors overcame to get us this far - they don't seem relevant any more. Nor, when a problem seems very pressing, do we think that much about the legacy our "solution" will leave to the next generation. It's not easy to foresee what the next generation will see as their most critical problem, so there's not much we can do to help them with it - but if we can clear this one out of the way first, they'll be that much better placed to handle - whatever they decide to.

Thus from 1945 to 1991, the first priority for every decent European - politician or not - was to prevent another major European war. Some of those politicians did great things, others - less so, but one thing they all had in common was a cold determination that World War Three should not break out on their watch. Everything they did, they did with one eye on keeping the peace. It was to that end that they made "economic growth" the yardstick of progress: if you can create "more" (of everything), that means less fighting about how to share it.

Now there's another danger: climate change. Which, if we don't figure out what to do about it, threatens to bring about WW3 anyway, despite all our efforts to avoid it through other routes.

Greta Thunberg and her followers are right to be scared. But whether they are right to be angry, that's another question; anger may not produce the reaction they are looking for. Because although climate change is a huge threat to us all, it's not the only such threat. And in demanding that leaders focus solely on this - Ms Thunberg is every bit as guilty of tunnel vision as those same leaders she is hectoring.

What evades everyone so far - and Thunberg doesn't pretend to have an answer to this - is how to fix it. If we just halt all new emission-generating activity now (or, say, phase them out over the next ten years), that means crippling developing economies - leading directly to World War Three. If the elites try to impose restraint from the top down - we will get revolutions all over, leading to WW3. If we make some countries take the lead (on the grounds that they're richer and better placed to do so), then the peoples of those countries will protest because (as they see it) the rest of the world isn't sharing their sacrifice - and you get leaders elected like Trump, and Bolsonaro, who appeal to voters by promising to protect them from this injustice. This may allow us to stave off WW3 for a few more years, but only at the cost of increasing emissions.

None of these options looks particularly good.

Dear Ms Thunberg: I am sorry to break this to you, but that "67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise" is not going to happen. Nor is the 50% version. Those are the real fairy tales, concocted by scientists who have never stopped for a moment to think about politics. If you have a key to untie this knot, then please do share it - but don't imagine you can cut it with a sword, because that we really would not survive.

What you can do, and I think you may have already started this, is to help reconcile the public in the rich world to that poorer future that they will have to face. By speaking so bluntly to their leaders, you have also spoken to their voters. For that I thank you, although I fear what may come of it.

Leaders of the generation of Eisenhower and Adenauer did not foresee climate change - their goal was to overcome the problems of their time, while building as strong a system, with as many tools, as they could think of, to help your generation to overcome the challenges of its time, whatever they may prove to be.

In the same way, you don't know what will be the biggest problems of the 2070s; and if the policies you promote today tie the hands of future generations to deal with those, then it will be your turn to be unforgiven.

To return to Tilly's question, who starts wars? All kinds of people. Some wars are started by rich, strong, evil men who want to get richer and stronger. But others may be started by good, honest, innocent schoolchildren who want nothing more than "a future". There are many roads to hell.