Fresh evidence in the California power "crisis"

[techweenie]

Enron West Coast traders caught on tape discussing manipulating power market.

Can't wait to hear Fintstone's spin on this:

http://www.knx1070.com/knxframe/knxframenodis.html?url=http://cbs2.com/topstories/topstories_story_153210913.html

[Superman]

Electric power deregulation. It's one of the very most asinine ideas I have ever heard and yet, I will be surprised if the "powers that be," the folks who are holding the puppet strings in this "great country" do not find a way to make it happen. Kinda like re-electing the greedy mean-spirited idiot currently sleeping in Lincoln's bedroom. It makes no sense, but I expect the American public to go for it. It's all perception and advertising, and greed and fear. Yes, we liberals think America is being brainwashed and fleeced. Let me rephrase that. We NOTICE that America is being, in a sense, drugged and fleeced. It's about money and power. Those of you who think I'm nuts, are not paying attention.

[rammstein]

Those tapes aren't flattering.

[lendaddy]

Wait, are you saying Enron was corrupt? Well I never!

[widebody911]

libera treehugger media bias. we need to give the power companies (ie enron) tax breaks to encourage them to build more plants (and refineries) and eliminate all environmental controls. Oh, and tax breaks for the owners, too. Did I miss anything? Did I mention the tax incentives?

Originally posted by techweenie
Enron West Coast traders caught on tape discussing manipulating power market.

Can't wait to hear Fintstone's spin on this:

http://www.knx1070.com/knxframe/knxframenodis.html?url=http://cbs2.com/topstories/topstories_story_153210913.html

[turbocarrera]

I don't know a whole lot about electrical de-regulation(and I'm an electrical technologist) but from what I've read it has driven up prices in every market where it's been applied, with a reduction in system reliability. Great for big business and horrible for the average consumer - but what else is new..

While I haven't read it in it's entirety(what I have read is scary to say the least), the Bush Energy Bill "greases more wheels than a Nascar pit-crew" - and that from the WSJ of all places. Maybe we should be glad it's been stuck in congress so long?

[Staylo]

Originally posted by techweenie

Can't wait to hear Fintstone's spin on this:

Just a few bad apples, I'm sure
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2004/06/02/national1130EDT0564.DTL

[island911]

Originally posted by Staylo
Just a few bad apples, I'm sure

So what are you guys saying? Are you saying these (hey lets gouge grandma, and feel great about it)-guys are some how representative of all business? . . and now, you have proof?

I've got news for you, crooks are in big-business and big government, small business and small government. . .no- business and no government.

There are dishonorable individules everywhere. Yes, they seek money & power, and get all giddy when they get to screw the rest of us. . . whether it be thru a private or government program.

[Moses]

Lots of folks need to go to jail over this one. Actually, jail may not be the best deterrent. Why not treat them like drug dealers and seize ALL their assets? Then put their butts in jail.

[singpilot]

Betcha those guys are now somewhere in the Kerry campaign. If not, they should be. They could structure the future return to re-regulation; after all, they knew how to manipulate the deregulated system.

That is, if Kerry had a chance of ever being elected.

[Staylo]

Originally posted by singpilot
Betcha those guys are now somewhere in the Kerry campaign.

yeah, right......

http://dystopiarus.homestead.com/fake.html
"Based in Houston, Enron was the nation's largest natural gas
supplier --and one of George W. Bush's key supporters and closest advisors.
Its president, Kenneth Lay, gave $500,000 to Bush, his largest single
contribution for the 2000 election. James Baker III, George Bush Sr.'s
former Secretary of State, is a principal at Reliant. According to Public
Citizen, Enron, Dynergy and Reliant gave in excess of $1.5 million to Bush's
campaign and inauguration committee, and to the Republican National
Committee.


In all, Public Citizen says nine power companies and a trade association
with substantial Interests in the California energy market gave more than $4
million to Republican candidates and party committees in the 2000 campaign.
Bush's new Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, was the energy industry's
largest single campaign recipient during his failed US Senate re-election
bid in Michigan."

Yes Island, there are crooks everywhere. Starting right at the top.

[lendaddy]

This got me thinking, there was a grocery chain up here that got caught fixing the scanners. Do to this I feel we should turn over ALL food services to the government. I cannot think of one thig more important to the people than food, it is simply too important to leave open to this type of gouging. Can I get an Amen?

[widebody911]

Originally posted by lendaddy
This got me thinking, there was a grocery chain up here that got caught fixing the scanners. Do to this I feel we should turn over ALL food services to the government. I cannot think of one thig more important to the people than food, it is simply too important to leave open to this type of gouging. Can I get an Amen?

+1 trollbait

Big difference; there are a lot of grocery stores. Not many electricity providers, which are a thinly-veiled monopoly.

[turbocarrera]

I buy almost all my food from the farmers market. Prices are comparable and I know how it was grown/raised - not to mention you're supporting people like yourself instead of some corporate food-industry *******s.

[island911]

Originally posted by widebody911
+1 trollbait

Big difference; there are a lot of grocery stores. Not many electricity providers, which are a thinly-veiled monopoly.

Yeah, Thom is right, electricity providers, should all be a part of a thickly-veiled government monopoly. Because people in government are always beyond reproach.

[singpilot]

Island!

I miss the Who, me? tag line.

[lendaddy]

Hmm, good point. Perhaps we should establish a complex formula to determine when an industry should be absorbed by Big Brother. (need/competition)* Pi+ inverse of demand and ecomnoic impact. Hmm That might work! I've always found my service at the DMV to be fantastic and I cannot wait until they are running my cable company! Do you think we can setup a government propane loan and grant system where if you don't repay no one cares? This is sounding better by the keystroke!

[island911]

Originally posted by singpilot
Island!

I miss the Who, me? tag line.

. ..yeah, it does "belong"

[Overpaid Slacker]

There is no monopoly on graft, payoffs, contributions or corruption on the right side of the aisle:

Texas Democrats received more Enron contributions than Texas Republicans.
Source: CBS Affiliate KTVT in Texas

Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered the destruction of documents, which Enron is now accuse of doing, of four files in 1988 from her work on the failed savings and loan that's now at the heart of the Whitewater affair.
Source: NewsMax.com

During the 1991-92 election cycle, Enron gave $28,525 to the Democratic party while former Clinton Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Enron gave $42,000 to the Democratic party in the 1993-94 cycle.
Source: PublicIntegrity.org

According to internal Enron documents and the recollections of former employees, Chairman Kenneth L. Lay had the ear of top Democrats in the 1980s and '90s. He and his colleagues used that access to promote the company's interests with the Clinton administration and key congressional Democrats.
Source: Washington Post

According to another Enron memo, Lay met with former Clinton Energy Secretary Federico Peña to urge White House action on electricity legislation favored by Enron. Peña "suggested that President Clinton might be motivated [to act] by some key contacts from important constituents."
Source: Washington Post

Ken Lay was one of 25 business executives on Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development.
Source: Washington Post

Enron's political action committee gave $10,000 in 2000 to the New Democrat Network, which was co-founded by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential nominee that year, now chairs the Senate Government Affairs Committee, which is leading an inquiry into Enron's collapse.
Source: Washington Post

Several senior Enron officials spent election night at Vice President Gore's headquarters in Nashville.
Source: Washington Post

Enron backed Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in his successful 1998 campaign to oust Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato. Schumer's views on electricity deregulation dovetailed closely with Enron's.
Source: Washington Post

Two years later Schumer, who has advocated deregulation as a way of reducing New York state's high power costs, co-authored a bill to restructure electricity markets along lines favored by Enron.
Source: Washington Post

Former employees say Lay's friendships with other Democrats were based as much on rapport as pragmatism. This group includes former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), whose brief 1992 presidential bid had Lay's backing, and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), with whom Lay served on the Eli Lilly Co. board of directors in the 1990s.
Source: Washington Post

In 1996, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stocked with Clinton appointees, helped Enron with a series of orders that weakened the monopoly of nuclear and coal-burning utilities. In July of that year, Enron gave $100,000 to the Democratic Party.
Source: Washington Post

In 1992, a Democratic-controlled Congress approved a major energy bill that set the stage for a new wholesale electricity marketplace. Trading companies such as Enron could use the transmission lines of regulated utility companies to sell blocs of electricity to private customers.
Source: Washington Post

Some officials in Enron's Houston and Washington offices backed Gore and Lieberman in the 2000 election.
Source: Washington Post

From 1990 to 1994 Enron gave 42% of its donations to Democratic candidates.
Source: The Center for Responsive Politics.

Enron also cultivated relationships with Democrats, however. Lay played golf in Vail, Colo., with President Bill Clinton, and Enron gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaign committees and Democrats in the House and Senate, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Rep. Martin Frost (Tex.), the ranking minority member on the House Rules Committee.
Source: Washington Post

Enron, Lay and other senior executives contributed $1.7 million in soft-money donations to politicians in the 2000 election cycle, two-thirds of it to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Source: Washington Post/Center for Responsive Politics

Nothing in this thread, of course, details the fault of Gray Davis et crew in running CA's system into the ground, and their barefaced lies about it afterwards.

If Enron employees (or anyone else) manipulated markets against the law, they should be severely penalized (on the order of securities law violation penalties) and brought up on appropriate criminal charges. If they were engaging in sharp business practice, so be it. It's not like CA (or any other state) doesn't use its considerable muscle in its actions/negotiations.

FWIW I was in the Legal Dept. of Niagara Mohawk for a while as a NUG-buster (non-utility generator). NY's enactment of the Federal PURPA legislation allowed -- Hell, it invited and then turned a blind eye to -- massive fraud on the part of the NUGs and was finally ruled unconstitutional; but not until NiMo went from the 5th (?) cheapest power producer in the country to one of the top three most expensive b/c of these costs. The government is not a solution to market issues. History is rife with examples to that effect, and very few (none leap to mind) to the contrary.

JP

[turbocarrera]

When I worked for the gov't utility we lost an autotransformer and smoked alot of peoples personal appliances. Wrote alot of cheques for it too. De-regulation removes this onus as well as a lot of the safe and reliable delivery clauses. Electric utilities were regulated for several good reasons. The managers I've talked to blame the big blackout from last summer on de-regulation.