In a message dated 10/19/02 1:56:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> So the California state government *did* cause the problem by capping the
> wholesale cost of locally "generated"[1] energy but not the retail price...
> and unable to cap the price external to the state.  It created a dependence
> on outsiders and then whined when outsides took advantage of the billion
> dollar[2] incentive it created. A billion dollars is a hell of a lot of
> incentive.  I don't condone the behavior of those who broke laws to
> profiteer from such a situation, but they're not where the blame
> lies.  Blame must go to those who *caused* the situation and in this case
> (like others[3]) the whole problem came from creating such a incentive.
>
> Do not provide powerful motives for behavior you don't want.  Incentives
> are almost always "money" in some form or another. Quoting James Caan's
> character in the movie The Way of the Gun <
> http://us.imdb.com/Title?0202677 >: "Fifteen million dollars is not money.
> It's a motive with a universal adaptor on it."  He was talking about
> fifteen million dollars in relation to an individual, of course; for a
> large corporation that's not a major incentive but a billion dollars is
> major money to just about any entity, including the US federal government:
> "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real
> money."[4]
>

Very well stated!  About the only thing that you missed was Gov. Davis's buy
high and sell low in vast quantites strategy for bankrupting the California
state government.

Oops! I'm afraid that you also did miss the legal REQUIREMENT for CA utilites
to bankrupt themselves by following the same brilliant business strategy of
'buy high, sell low...'

Wayne Boyer

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