Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935

That's what Congress did with the electrical system.

Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.

They said, this is all just too confusing, so what we're going to do is, because everything was all tied together, across borders of different states.

And the Congress just said, we're just going to chop everything up along state lines.

Nebraska, for example, hasn't had a for-profit utility company anywhere in the state for over eighty years.

And under FDR, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of nineteen thirty-five did this on a regional basis that ended up producing the TVA and the Bonneville Dam, now investor-owned, which provides much of my region's electricity.

If we were to receive the thirty percent federal tax credit for installing home solar and batteries that Louise and I used, and states were to add in their existing tax credits, including Ore- like, like Oregon did recently, uh, it would also go a long way toward making such a program more easily possible.

And it would trigger an economic boom for the whole country.

That got wiped out.

I mean, that's why we have the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1932.

There was a big investment scandal that happened then.

Dotcom.

He fled to Europe, was extradited, stood trial, and was ultimately acquitted.

His story directly triggered the Public Utility Holding Company Act of nineteen thirty-five, which dismantled the very structure he had pioneered.

Now we come to perhaps the most audacious financial fraudster in history, Ivar Kruger, the Match King.

In the nineteen twenties and early thirties, Ivar Kruger controlled roughly two-thirds of global match production and leveraged this to offer sovereign loans to European governments in exchange for match monopolies.

And, um, so we, we had strong antitrust enforcement, um, uh, right through, uh, right through the early 20th century.

We saw in the electricity sector, uh, they actually disaggregated the industry under the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and, um, that's been repealed.

And, uh, but in the electric industry and in other industries as well, I think we, we've seen a gradual remonopolization.

We've seen companies get bigger and bigger.