Posted on 07/01/2002 10:02:28 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Edited on 04/14/2004 10:05:14 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Last year's rate hikes are still in effect, although wholesale prices are lower.
LOS ANGELES -- Blackouts have ended and wholesale power costs have plummeted, but California's energy crisis continues to haunt consumers.
Californians aren't paying any less for electricity even though wholesale power costs one-tenth of what it did when the state Public Utilities Commission approved a 30 percent rate hike 15 months ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
And the consumer wasn't forced to pay that rate?
You're saying they should have had the vision and foresight to pony up more than they were being billed to avoid the power companies' debt load now?
John Robinson was turning some new database function on last night and I just thought there was a system problem.
It sounded like you were on thread and had a conversation going and the system put it on this thread by mistake!
Looks like I was incorrect in that!
I don't believe in paying a utility one penny more than I am billed. However it is inevitable that we will pay for what get one way or another and it is always more expensive to pay later than to pay now. The price controls created this mess, get them out of the way and let the market do its job!
Makes sense to me. I'll get right on it. =;^)
Which Utility do you work for? Enron?
Do you really believe this stuff, or are you just putting us on?
That's right - consumer rates were capped, regardless of the market rate for wholesale power. And where have you been the last year that you didn't know that?
You're saying they should have had the vision and foresight to pony up more than they were being billed to avoid the power companies' debt load now?
Nobody is going to deliver power to them unless they pay those debts. Power companies and natural gas producers will freeze out California until they get paid - that's just business. And, now the bankruptcy courts are involved, they will insure that they get paid one way or another.
Your attempts to impute my motives are misplaced. I am a hardware engineer in the computer business. Why don't you try to think and use logic instead?
I replied, "And the consumer wasn't forced to pay that rate?"
Meaning, 'consumers paying below market rates' is immaterial. That was my point. They are forced to pay that rate. That's what is on their bill.
Do you think they should have paid more than what was on their bill?
Of course not. But now it seems that they are being hosed for not doing so. A total no-win situation.
I agree that it's a no-win situation. I think we can lay the blame squarely on Greyout Davis and the California Assembly-of-Idiots.
With the bankrupcy court in play, the power companies cannot be forced to to spend themselves into the ground, so the users are going to have to pay. Davis could fix things now so that the right people pay, but he's still trying to hide from the whole mess until after the election.
Because, as voters, they elected Gray Davis as governor.
There is a direct "cause and effect" involved here...
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