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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Theophile who wrote (1726)	1/13/2001 10:34:25 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 46821

Martin, Your post inspires an aura that is quite reminiscent of the S&L debacle. Will there be hearings? When do they begin? FAC

To: Theophile who wrote (1726)	1/14/2001 1:18:48 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 46821

Hi Martin, Thanks for the views from the Central Coast. You've stated as succintly as anyone I've read, exactly what is afoot in the California energy market. This whole "mess" and "crisis" was predicted by the good folks at TURN (Towards Utility Rate Normalization) in 1996 when the enabling legislation for the de-regulation was approved. Of course, TURN was completely disregarded, except in publications like the Bay Guardian, because their views were so extremist and Leftie. Guess what? Their views were right...... Yeah, the Big Boys were dumping the old generators, but more significantly, they are dumping any responsibilities for Transmission and Distribution, areas that are highly regulated and highly unionized. They're getting a twofer, and they have the media to grease the skids for 'em, as always. Hell, it's the same cabal that owns the media and prints whatever propaganda fits. When the faked crisis was promulgated on Dec. 14, the IPPs in California had a way of using existing CARB and EPA law to shut down massive capacity with repair tags flying everywhere. The truth was that they were faced with firing their gas turbines with gas that hit a high in the spot market of $62/Mcf. That is no mere doubling or quadrupling. That is fully 2,500% higher than the price one year prior. So, the reality was that the IPPs were unwilling to lose $50 or more per Mwh, as they would have with the manipulated gas market. The media was reporting terribly cold temperatures in the Pacific Northwest as part of the reason for the gas price spike. Huh? Temperatures were above normal. I know, I live here. The fact that these Big Boys can lie through their teeth, get the media to pass it along and get the politicians to fail to do what needs to be done, i.e. curtail the profiteering, leaves me really cynical about this whole situation. Fortunately, my electricity is provide by a co-op that has stable a long-term contract with the BPA. We'll get a rise in rates in October, but it is promised to be no more than about 10% or so to the residential customer. We'll see. [[Aside: Today marks a black day for the Internet. AOL-Time-Warner is going to be a monster of indescribable malice. The AOL crowd are no strangers to lying to inflate their stock price, misrepresenting their service as "the Internet" and now with the entertainment empire in tow, they will truly take any sense of the free spirit of the Internet and hide it behind their "garden walls" so deep that none of their 120 million subsribers will ever see reality again, except through the corporate filter. And the public buys it. That's the truly scary part. ]] So as far as kitties go, I'd recommend a St. Bernard instead. Way more BTUs per unit of generation.... Best, Ray

To: Theophile who wrote (1726)	1/14/2001 4:05:40 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Funny thing about the natural gas doubling in price at the very moment the power shortages are in vogue... Well, why don't you take a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and tell our outgoing president that most people don't think the joke is that funny. A combination of NIMBY (not in my back yard) public attitudes, p*ss-poor governmental economic inftrastructure development, and illogical environmental radicalism have converged "in spades" in California. And unfortunately, CA represents some 18% of total US GDP. This is what happens when they don't build a new power generation facility in over 10 years, require that current ones convert to natural gas or shut down, and fail to progress towards stable sources of power such as Nuclear. And the same can be said of the natural gas industry. You can't tell everyone to build gas-fired plants and not permit exploitation of the hundreds of trillions of cubic metric feet of proven natural gas reserves currently locked up on Federal land. This whole situation is a classic case of public market failure. And regardless of what the market currently thinks, it will require a federal bailout on the $12 billion in debt that Clinton's policies have created. This is going to require years to straighten out. And it will likely ruin any chance Gray Davis had of running for President in 2004.