So what if immediate deregulation is what they say they want? It isn't good for the people and businesses of the State of California in its current condition.
But your stringing method churns out disinformation.
Then refute it point by point.
But because others may be duped by you, let's review:
You said:
Power companies will accept a predictable return as long as they know that they won't get screwed later. There isn't a lot of difference to them between a moderate profit for longer and a wild profit for a few years followed by cutthroat competition (the usual pattern in deregulation).
Do you really expect anyone to believe such a ludicrous statement?
To illustrate how power company perspectives contradict your wild assertion, look at the following excerpt (dated TODAY):
http://www.amtddj.inlumen.com/bin/djstory?StoryId=Cp4T0WaebqLqWmdu0odG
Most at risk are units that aren't under contract to sell power to the state's utilities or aren't considered critical enough for the grid operator to make capacity payments to keep them available.
Absent contracts or capacity payments from the ISO, up to 10,590 megawatts of power plants in the state could be retired after 2004 for economic reasons, generator West Coast Power estimated in a recent filing with the California Energy Commission.
There are plants now that exist that can provide power, yet California does not want to pay its bills. To replace those plants with state-of-the-art environmental friendly facilities requires cashola. You see the asses in California want it all, they want state-of-the-art yet they are unwilling to pay for it. For a power company to replace or upgrade its existing fleet, it has to seek board approval by selling one and only one parameter, ROI. That is why it is damned ridiculous that a know-it-all as you claim yourself to be states that ROI does not matter, that a predictable return is all that matters. There is no return!!! These companies are on the verge of bankruptcy because California shafted them and then played victim. These companies tried to shut their plants down on any pretext to stop the hemorrhage of cash, and California accuses them of gaming the system. What an Orwellian nightmare.
Your "customer base" did not want to pay for their Utopian wet dream. And don't kid anyone, that customer base is claimed by the State of California, not the energy companies.
Remember what you said when I asked in "Who's customer base"?
And you said:
Power companies, obviously.
Anybody with a modicum of mind left would know that if they do not negotiate price of product or service to a recipient, that recipient is not a customer.
The "Customer" to energy companies doing business in California is the State of California itself, not the residents and businesses of that state, except in instances where commercial companies gained approval to negotiate their own contracts.
Which brings us to another refutation:
I said that some businesses signed long term contracts that they are very happy with.
to which you responded:
As negotiated by their hand picked boy working for Davis. There's a reason Edison International and John Bryson donated over a quarter million for Davis' election.
Was the Kroger-Dynegy contract negotiated by a dweeb from Davis?
And if you referring to the pinhead who got a kickback from SOCAL Edison, that was for $200 thousand on two contracts, not 65. It was an isolated event like the Enron west coast sales rep who decided to get back at California's bullshit.
The bottomline is that California decided several years ago to have a little energy party and invited all those nasty energy companies to join them. After those evil Ken Lays invested millions in purchasing and developing energy assets, California decided not to pay them and went bankrupt, and cried it's all their fault.
Because California was playing parent to its population, it decided what was best. And now you're proposing the samething! You want California to be the protective parent again.
What does a person or business do if the bills are unpaid and the lights go out? They pay their bills and if it is high, they seek subsidy and a different competing source.
California needs to offer tax breaks to businesses, energy assistance payments to low income indigents, and more importantly, they need to stay out of the way of the market. They are out of their friggin minds if they think they can control prices in a capital intensive free market. Else they stagnate until they are replaced.
And then you contradict yourself:
My guess is that within two years, the State could be ready to initiate a fully free market on the model of Texas. There probably will still be a bump in prices when the system releases to open market pricing...
So you're predicting a shock yet you are setting up for regulated pricing to avoid a shock. Which is it? You need capacity yet the Energy Companies will have nothing to do with it, so you're stuck. There is no free lunch.