More Regulations Will Not Prevent Future Blackouts
By Harry Binswanger (Texoma Enterprise, August 28, 2003)

Post-blackout, some are calling for even more government regulation. A New York Times editorial (Aug. 16) urges us to consider "whether the government should step in to ensure the reliability of the nation's power supply" because, "the grid is so complex--with hundreds of companies operating power plants or transmission lines around the country--that it is extremely difficult to coordinate actions quickly."

Well, thank God we already have government regulation in the sock industry. A constant team of police, federal agents, judges, and justices of the peace help keep the greed of hundreds of sock manufactures harnessed to the public good. Otherwise, you can just imagine the chaos that would result, given all the complexity: if just one thread in the complex grid of woven sock were to break, a catastrophic failure could rip through the fabric, exposing a toe or perhaps even an entire heel to the unforgiving inner surface of shoe or slipper.

And it is thanks to government's police-presence that a constant supply of socks is available at distribution centers (sometimes called "stores")--even as the public need for socks waxes and wanes, not only with the changing seasons but with other, even less-predictable factors. Only the superior intellect of our government officials could assure the adequacy of the sock supply--with a reserve of socks for periods of acute public need.

You can only imagine, in a nightmare scenario, what kind of sock-shortages and toe-outs would occur if sock-providers were operated as a profit-seeking scheme, with owners out only for themselves.

What's that? The sock industry is a profit-making enterprise? And it is the electrical power industry that's been practically a branch of the government since forever? Oh. Never mind, then.