It's beyond simple supply and demand. This was in response to a social media post that had a tenuous relationship with reality (or 'fluid' as the Whitehouse now calls it).
I'm writing this from CT. There are absolutely door to door solar salespeople (they don't work for the manufacturer, they work for a local distributor/installation service), and they absolutely tell you how many people in your neighborhood have bought from them.
Pretty much every time a contractor does something to any of my neighbors homes, they knock on my door and say "2 or 3 other neighbors are doing X (pesticides, windows, landscaping, new water heater, power washer, etc. etc). Your home was built around the same time as theirs. Because all of my crew is already in the area on (date) I'm offering half off if you agree to service".
The fact is that these contractors really do have significant efficiency gains if they can get multiple neighbors to agree to similar work. So it behooves them to do at least a bit of door knocking.
There are a number of companies that specialize in using an in-person, in-home encounter to put pressure on people to make poor purchases decisions, enough so that many states have implemented buyer’s remorse laws.
We don't have any pro-free-speech political parties, nor a written constitution unfortunately.
I mean there are parties that say they like free speech, but it never extends to the sort of speech they disagree with, or by people of the wrong colour/religion/gender etc.
Tried this at numerous companies, small and large.
The engineers get this, or are willing to learn. Some (by no means most) scrum/agile leads get it.
The problem is the 'product class' don't get it, aren't interested and by-and-large don't have the aptitude to understand. Try tp explain cycle time, or cumulative flow diagrams to a Product Manage, Product Owner, Service Owner and they most often just brush it away as 'a technical thing'
The problem only gets worse as the Peter principle begins to kick in and thin out the talent towards the top end of the org.
You see, in any sane world the input box that can answer almost any question in the world should be more profitable than Netflix-for-dogs. But I bet it's not.
Taiwan and perhaps other Asian countries that successfully make stuff don't expose their industries to this, the government sets a fixed energy price for them rather than leaving them at the whim of speculators.
"TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) announced on Tuesday (Nov. 19 2024) plans to subsidize Taiwan Power Company (台灣電力公司) with NT$100 billion to address rising international fuel costs and stabilize prices"
=> over $3bn USD! This is not a small amount of money.
You are right that Taiwan doesn't. But it has consequences, Taipower is forced to undercharge against market prices, but is backstopped by the government.
At the end of the day, it's a global market, and if you want it 'cheap' someone has to pick up the tab. Either it's taxpayers now, taxpayers in the future or consumers now.
I agree that the government should ensure low energy prices for industry, but Taiwan is a remarkably poor example.
Taiwan's energy policy is, as far as I know, the most pants-on-head stupid of any country in the world. As anyone knows, they are a small island at constant risk of a sea blockade and yet rely on sea imports for 98% of their energy. Not only that, but they _had_ more domestic production (nuclear) that they have been phasing out. Writing giant checks to import yet more oil by sea instead of boosting domestic production is a terrible idea for so many reasons.
Nuclear also relies on sea imports - nuclear fuel still needs to be imported, unless Taiwan has a uranium mine on the island. So nuclear doesn't solve the problem, it just kicks the can down the road.
You don't have to, but you make more profit if you do. An energy producer that has the choice to sell energy for a lower price domestically or a higher price internationally will obviously choose the higher price, but you can make laws to make that illegal, if you want to.
