Hello Ray,
I thought when I posted that piece that it would fire up the rhetoric on this thread a bit. Swindlers, hypocrites and toadies? LOL!!
I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who believes that the electric utility restructuring that was done in CA a few years ago was anything other than a monumental "f"-up.
I have no direct interest in the matter, as I don't play energy stocks and I left the Peoples State of California some years ago. Viewed from over the state line, I can now laugh at the idiocy of those clowns in Sacramento, taxing and regulating and trying to micro-manage CA into a politically correct nanny state paradise. IMO, Davis is just a bozo, as was Pete Wilson, but I thoroughly detest AG Lockyer.
But, to get back on topic, I have no problem with those who deride market approach solutions to the energy problem. I do, however, strongly object to those who classify the CA fiasco as an example of the evils of capitalism and deregulation, as it was anything but that. More like a hodge podge of ill thought out rules and regs that had nothing to do with a truly deregulated electricity market at both the wholesale and retail ends of the system.
Whether or not true deregulation would work in this environment is an open question, as it hasn't been tried in this situation, but, setting it (true dereg) up as a straw dog and then stridently bashing it as the cause of the current mess is being somewhat disingenuous, IMO.
Regards, JB
(a true running dog libertarian capitalist toadie, LOL!!) |
