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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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30 January 2001 - 5:00 pm
I have to admit that I don't really understand the position of the people in California. They are facing the worst energy crisis in state history, during a winter when people all across the nation have had utility prices increased by more than, in many cases, 100%, and there is almost no talk of raising electricity costs in California. In fact, there haven't been any electricity price changes in California in three years, and that change lowered prices by 10%. Now the utility companies say that they need to increase prices by 9%, which would keep prices lower than they were before deregulation 3 years ago, but this is unacceptable to Californians. Why do the people of California think they are exempt from market fluctuations? They deregulated utilities three years ago, but their deregulation only seems to allow companies to lower prices, and not raise them. Now the state is on the edge of a recession; their are rolling blackouts across most of the state, including the tech-heavy silicon valley; and the state is preparing to spend all of the state's surplus, and possibly more, to ensure that the citizens do not have their electric bills go up.
Am I the only one who thinks these Californians are deluding themselves? Someone needs to sign the entire state of California up for some intro level Econ classes. Maybe then they'll realize that while deregulation will cause prices to be, on average, lower than the regulated prices, free markets require that prices occasionally fluctuate. I'm tired of hearing the Californians whine about their energy problem; they brought it on themselves. I just hope they don't take the entire US economy down with them.
Posted by on 30 January 2001 at 5:00 PM
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