We didn't need Enron - our idiots were perfectly able to be stupid without outside help.
Actually, the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power sold electricity during the crisis. They weren't involved in the state's plans for deregulation, nor were they required to separate their production from distribution - as were the private companies.
Of course, you are entitled to have your own idiots.
America wouldn't be the same without them.
Harry
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Karen wrote:
Amazing, Harry, that you have managed to overlook the critical role that a fake energy crises generated by Enron and her playmates made to the debacle that was the California summer of blackouts but in reality, was a broader Western power crisis and higher energy contracts, which now have been legally recognized to have been initiated by corporate malfeasance. Oregon had some ripple effects there, too, as we sent you our surplus, threatening our own supply at home. In addition to the OTHER bad news on our front pages this week, we're reading the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is still struggling with a financial sinkhole that opened up when it offered new contracts to its customers just as the "Western power crises exploded in reaction to California's market cataclysm." This story is not just about 1 Governor and a bad decision regarding deregulation. - Karen The Bonneville Power Administration is ensnared in a financial sinkhole By Tom Detzel, The Oregonian 01/30/03 WASHINGTON - The bad news just keeps coming for the Bonneville Power Administration as it struggles to climb out of a chronic financial crisis. During the past six months, the federal power-marketing agency that supplies nearly half the Northwest's electricity has struggled to pare back a $1.2 billion budget deficit only to have a meager winter snowpack add $250 million more to the problem. The agency's utility customers, still smarting from rate surcharges that will reach 50 percent this spring, soon face the prospect of even higher rates that Stephen Wright, BPA administrator, is expected to propose as early as next week. "We're not talking about a 1 or 2 percenter here," Wright said. "We're talking about a significant number." - Precisely how significant, Wright would not say. But many customer groups are expecting a double-digit addition to the current surcharge, with some analysts estimating it could grow to 60 or 70percent. The rate decision presents a delicate balancing test for Wright, a BPA veteran who managed the Washington, D.C., office for eight years and took over the agency's helm at the apex of the Western power crisis in November 2000. Every 1 percent boost in the BPA's rate means a $20 million hit on the Northwest's economy. Wright will have to weigh the impact of a rate increase against Oregon's highest-in-the-nation jobless rate and longing for a regional recovery. Yet the BPA's financial condition is so dire that the agency is at risk of running out of cash to operate. For the second year in a row, it might not be able to make a $736 million payment on debts owed to the U.S. Treasury. How high to raise rates is as much a political decision as a financial one. "This is such a precarious time," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who with other Northwest politicians has urged Wright to minimize the increase. "Just look at what people are faced with in schools and layoffs and the fact that agriculture is hit so hard." BPA power -- drawn from 29 federal dams in the Columbia River system and one nuclear plant in Washington -- is sold at cost to the region's public and investor-owned utilities, aluminum companies and large irrigators. Another BPA rate increase would accelerate a historic shift in the economics of Northwest power in the past two years. Since the BPA's creation in the late 1930s, the region consistently had some of the lowest electricity costs nationwide, a big competitive advantage for backbone industries such as timber, aluminum, aircraft and high-tech. But since the power crisis, the average cost of electricity has risen sharply. Oregon and Washington now rank solidly in the middle among states, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. (end of excerpt)http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/10439324161426 0.xml Harry wrote: When our present idiot became California governor four years ago, he inherited a $12 billion surplus. It is now a $35 billion deficit (it was much less until he was elected, whereupon they found how large it was). So, they are now fiddling around, cutting educational and hospital outlays - the less important things. Neither Wilson, the Republican idiot, nor Davis the present Democratic idiot, noticed that the population increased by 20% over a decade without any increase in power supply. When we were in deep trouble they lately built a couple in ten minutes - or at least pretty quickly. Then, of course, they "deregulated electricity". They were as good at this as they are with most "privatization" schemes. They freed wholesale prices but kept retail prices fixed. Wholesale prices zoomed, but the local distributors were unable to raise prices. This meant they began to go broke. This led to a rash of rushed and thoughtless legislation - and chaos. Then, the normal action of the price mechanism took over and wholesale prices dropped to their lowest. Not that this made any difference because the idiot entered into a long range contract for power at the top of the market. Now, it's pretty cheap - but we are stuck with that high priced contract. (The governor is now trying to void it, but I'm not sure how much luck he's had. They are all pals together, after all) I no longer blame the inept and venal CEOs for their antics. I see now that they are merely trying to get the same treatment as inept and venal politicians.
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 ******************************* _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
