And how, exaclty, are consumers to blame for these debts that they should be saddled with repaying them?
California's non-deregulation allows wholesale industrial users to pay market rates for power. Ordinary household consumers were fixed at a low rate (vote pandering). When prices sky-rocketed in the winter of 2000, Utilites were then forced to provide power at prices far below the cost of production, resulting in the loss of billions of dollars.
Had Davis had the political guts to free "ALL" power to market prices, there would have been a little short term pain and it would have gone away quickly.
How 'bout the same way consumers are to blame for paying those massive tobacco judgments with higher cigarette costs.......Those consumers who ran up those debts should have known to "just say no" to using ANY power. Shame on them.... [sarcasm]
Well, gee, didn't they use all that power that they didn't pay for?
How 'bout the same way consumers are to blame for paying those massive tobacco judgments with higher cigarette costs.......Those consumers who ran up those debts should have known to "just say no" to using ANY power. Shame on them.... [sarcasm]
This is the result of politicians in Sacramento meddling rather than letting the market work. If consumers were being billed at market rates last year then they would have reduced electrical use, blackouts would have been less of a problem, prices would not have peaked as high as they did and the debts incurred by the utilities, if any, would be smaller and would be their responsibility.
To me (and I am a consumer of power in CA) it seems only just that we now pay at a higher rate because we incurred that debt. It is leftist hypocrisy to say that we should have the benefits but not the consequences.
Because, as voters, they elected Gray Davis as governor.
There is a direct "cause and effect" involved here...