The Importance of Regulatory Regimes in Energy Supply

The idea that the market can't supply goods that are essential is manifestly not true. You only have to look at companies like Bristol Energy, where local authorities have set up their own retail company. So you can't convince me that government-owned retailers would have handled this crisis any better than some of the poorly run private the only ones have. The model that we have allows shareholders and management to make significant amounts of profit when they are well run. When there is market failure, we're dealing with such a significant utility when we're talking about gas and electricity that the state has to step in and bail it out. so the taxpayer bears the downside, the shareholder enjoys the upside.