You're missing the point, somewhat completely.
Why has the price of power soared? Sure, increased demand, but largely due to manipulation by the suppliers. There has been evidence of deliberate closures of power plants for 'maintenance', hoarding of gas to drive up the price, and tactics used to drive smaller suppliers out.
You're looking at the aftermath of this deliberate act of manipulation by the power suppliers, and inferring the wrong cause. You're looking at the wreckage, not the reason for the wreck. Even if the utilities had the power to pass the extra cost onto the consumer, that wouldn't have changed much. In fact, the shock to our economy probably would have (will?) throw us into the recession that Greenspan keeps denying. Few people could stand a 10-20x increase in their power bill without a great deal of pain (and impact on the economy). And remember: if CA is in a recession, then the whole country is (I apologize to the CA haters out there for this cold, hard fact of life).
Short term or long term contracts have NOTHING to do with the blatant supply manipulation. Face it; the suppliers (equivalent of the market MMs) are using these tactics to get what they want; less regulation and higher prices.
My original point: don't let them do it to you, too. |
