Wirt Atmar <[log in to unmask]>:


> Ken Hirsch writes:
>
> >  It may be that Enron was manipulating the market,
> >  trying to corner electricity in California, as it were, but I haven't
yet
> >  seen evidence of that.
>
> Let me apologize for that failing, but apparently you didn't have time to
> read the supporting material I included in the various postings at the
time.
> Among the most important of these was the Sacramento Bee's series of
articles:
>
>
>
http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/special/power/050601california.htm
l

I looked through a few of the articles at the time, but I wasn't able to
find anything in them that would count as evidence.  Where is a single
statistic about generating capacity, natural gas storage, pipeline capacity,
etc.  Searching the web tonight, I found more information in just the slides
from a talk by Amory Lovins
(http://www.rmi.org/images/other/E-WorldwatchPPT.pdf) than was contained in
any of the SacBee articles

[...]

> Two months later, individual employees of the Williams Companies began
coming
> forward, telling exactly the opposite story, of their orders to take
> individual California plants off-line or to sharply curtail their outputs
> during specific hours. These whistle-blowers eventually testified in front
of
> Congress, which ultimately slapped a modest fine of a few million dollars
on
> the Williams Companies.

I can't find details about that, but I did find "whistleblowers" about Duke
Energy--perhaps that's what you were thinking of.  Yes, Duke did order
plants taken offline, but, as Duke showed
(http://www.ocregister.com/business/features/2000/power/duke00702cci3.shtml)
, they did that because the agency that operates the electrical grid (Cal
ISO) ordered them to.  FERC did order Duke and Williams to give some refunds
to customers, but on unrelated grounds.

As it is, Duke only controls 5% of the California market, so a change in
their production is not going to have a big effect on the price.


>
> >  What seems to be clear is that the Enron executives lied about their
debt
> >  and their earnings in order to keep their stock price high.  Other
> companies
> >  have done that--e.g. Sunbeam during the "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap reign.  I
> don't
> >  seem to remember them being involved in energy trading or any kind of
> >  speculation.
>
> No, but Arthur Andersen was also Sunbeam's accounting firm, as it was for
> Waste Management, two other very similar scandals to Enron. Anderson
> ultimately paid a $110 million dollar fine to the government for the
> accusations of fraud involved the Sunbeam affair.

Aha! At last we're getting to what's really wrong with Enron.  It now
appears (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/20/business/yourmoney/20EARN.html)
that they never made all that much money, even when they were supposedly
reaping obscene profits.

[...]
> >  Yeah, yeah, more regulation, that's the ticket.  Could you be more
specific
> >  as to what specific regulations would have prevented this?
>
> I can only presume that you're kidding about this. One of the stories I
> remember best from my high-school American history classes was that of
FDR's
> fight against the electric utility holding companies that sprang up during
> the 1920's. During his tenure as governor of New York, he did everything
in
> his power to stop the price gouging of the very few monopolies that served
> his state. Electric power then was inordinately expensive and unreliable,
run
> then by "steely-eyed capitalists (or "major league a**holes", as I wrote
last
> year).

Yes, Saint Roosevelt battling bravely against the big bad capitalists!  I've
heard this story so many times, only the names change from telling to
telling.

We were saved from the evil robber baron railroad tycoons.  And when
transportation was deregulated...well, everything got cheaper, actually.

And cars just got more and more dangerous until Saint Ralph and the feds
stepped in and saved our lives.  Actually, of course, cars got safer every
decade.

So, I'll believe it when I see facts.

Ken Hirsch

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