Hi Vance,
Thanks for the "color" on Burlington Resources. With some embarrassment, I'll have to admit they were below my radar as well. But then.... when you're a mere mushroom..... <vbg>
I found the interview with Jeffery Skilling in the Frontline video to be very revealing. I've got a friend who's worked trading desks like the one in the video, and the things that he told me go on.... Oi! I read yesterday that a lot of sysadmins in the cabal-cos. are spending a lot of time wiping HDs. Hehe. Of course, they won't find any evidence of collusion, these traders may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night.
. There probably is nothing worse than a partially free and partially regulated environment like the power market in California.
Here again, we'll just have to agree to disagree. The present situation is clearly extremely favorable, beneficial and lucrative to the likes of Ken Lay. So, to say there's nothing worse disregards who's ox is getting gored and who doin' the goring! If only we'd elected poor Al.... <g3>
One thing that we'll disagree on is that I think that the free market is better than the old regulated market. Of course, odds are that you won't see a free market in California any time soon.
I agree, to disagree, that is. I'm far more in the Juniper Pierpont camp. Order trumps market chaos every day. Free markets are an open invitation to chaos and anarchy and Morgan loathed them. So do I. Games have to have rules. Otherwise human nature takes over. And as we've seen so viscerally in California, consumers get californicated by bully boys. Just life.
Re: ENE's opacity ~ I have a smell test I apply to business, the less transparency, the greater risk to me as a speculator. So, not only is ENE a "black box" [Can they go the way of LTCM? I sincerely hope so.] but so is Cal ISO and the gold-danged BPA up this-a-way. There's far too much chicanery going on in the power game right now, and every effort needs to be made to bring a little sunshine into this blacked out corner.
otherwise their constituents will realize where the problem really lies--with the silly deregulation law of four (?) years ago
A.B. 1890 was negotiated and signed in mid to late 1996. Effective date was July 1, 1998. Not long afterward, some joker on a trading desk "offered" spot Mwhs for $5,000. The offer got taken, then they tried $9,999 cause they though that was the most the trading software would allow. Sold that lot too. Next minute the price went to $1, as I recall. All this, waaaaaaaaaay before the San Diego stuff hit the fan. Those in the know knew the system could be gamed, but they did absolutely nothing about it. Sometimes paralysis is good, sometimes it sucks. This time is definitely sucked, about an extra $20 Billion out of the California economy.
Nice to chat with someone with a clue, and an open mind. :)
R. |
