From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2001 - 02:26:17 MDT
Anne Marie Tobias wrote:
>
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> > Business did not force California to ignore its future energy
> > projections and population and energy use increased.
>
> However, business interests from the east colluded with idiots
> in the state capitol to (The Duck and Petey boy), and their plan
> blew up in everybodies face.
>
That is a lot of assertion. Where is the evidence?
> > > What I am saying is that, it must be obvious to anybody with
> > > funtioning retinas, that the collapse of California's energy
> > > balancing act came precisely with the exchange of keys to the
> > > administrative branch of the Fedreal government. That the
> >
> > Correlation is not causation.
>
> Right, like the Ameriacn hostages held in the middle-east being
> released 4 days after Ronald Reagan took office... or Sadam
> still being in power... please... their not even trying to hide the
> bald faced BS any... they figure we're stupid sheep, and even if
> we catch them with their hands in the cookie jar, we haven't the
> intelligence or the attention span to control or punish.
>
Invalid argumentation and strongly vocalized claims with just a
hint of conversational brow-beating does not show causation.
Evidence please.
> > > prior administration had at some piont made it very clear that
> > > it wasn't going to kill the goose that layed the golden eggs,
> > > and that high tech was the engine that drove the national
> > > economy.Were Californians, arrogant? You betcha. Were
> >
> > Irrelevant.
>
> Really? You don't think that Bill Clinton and the West Coast
> technorati weren't snuggling on cold winter nights??? The whole
> E-conomy was Bill Clinton's baby... it's what made him bullet
> proof!
>
More assertions.
> > > Californians stupid not to manage their infrastructure more
> > > wisely? Duh! Were Californians set for a fall? OF Course!
> > > AND it was possible to exist in that vacuum, as long as it was
> > > clear that the FED would do whatever it took to protect it's
> >
> > But that is worse than the illness! The FED does not exist to
> > bail out every moronic entity, individual, corporate or state
> > that cannot project its own budget and will not plan and build
> > appropriately. Attempting to do so is a large part of why our
> > government is one of the largest debtor nations.
>
> It depends on what you determine is the greater good... creating
> an artificial environment in which something brilliant may grow,
> or tweaking with the natural order of things... I do agree that we
> need to put things in their equilibrium state and stop screwing
> with them... it's just that the transition if done digitally... can be
> extremely disruptive and destructive. Dogma should take a back
> seat to common sense.
>
An artificial environment that strips away the profits from
success for being success to prop up what some set of
bureaucrats things needs proping up is not likely to produce
much success. It is not "common sense" to prescribe more of
the same poison to cure the victims of the poison of state
oversight and control and the additional sources of graft and
abuse that often engenders.
> > That was no vacuum, it was cynical and childish irresponsibility
> > and something much worse.
>
> > > golden asset. Change hands, and suddenly we have a FED
> > > that just don't don't care if California eats it... in fact the new
> > > FED loves the energy guys, and if fossil fuel guys feel like
> > > pumping dozens of billions of dollars out of the California
> > > economy... well it's just teach those tight ass envirowackos in
> > > LALA land who really has them by the short and curlies...
> >
> > Your picturesque language has very little semantic content. Go
> > take out your ire on gross human stupidity instead of seemingly
> > whining that the FED doesn't like us anymore and doesn't
> > care. Caring and doing something stupid that fundamentally
> > does not help the problem are not related.
>
> No... I'm angry because the FED threw the baby out with the
> bath water.
>
> Creating a steady and sane path from the rediculous to at least the
> vaguely practical, would have been a great move. Pulling all the
> underpinnings out of the California economy, has been destructive
Please show where they did any such thing. Unemotionally and in
the context of other choices, if you please.
> to California, to the US economy, and to world economy. This
> process could have been handled over a 16 month time span and
> there wold have been nary a ripple. Instead it was decided that
> taking a 2 x 4 to California, to get it's attention, was a somehow
> more desireable stratedgy. There are real people being hurt here.
> There are real businesses, businesses that made a difference that
> are gone now. There are serious repecussions that could have
> easily been avoided by a little diplomacy and foresight. This was
> a terrible way to manage a bad situation.
Actually the governor has considerable powers (much as I
distrust and distain them) to remedy the situation that he
failed to use and continues to fail to use. There is little
reason to involve the FED deeply right now that I am aware of.
>
> > > It's all a matter of priorities... California was a hot house
> > > garden... and artificial nirvana, and when GW had all that
> > > internet crap ripped out of the whitehouse it didn't that the
> > > power of the Amazing Carnack to figure California's sweet
> > > days were real numbered.
> > >
> >
> > Where on earth do you get this stuff? Do you think California
> > is only about internet or that California only exists at the
> > sufference of the Imperial Fed and its current Soveign
> > Highness? Give me a break.
>
> Yeah, Okay... I'm being hyperbolic... it still doesn't change the
> fact that GW it high tech phobic, and that this state is the center
> of the information economy. GW is fighting his Daddy's war...
I question if we are the center of the information economy or
that shifting of that center would hurt the information economy
much. I am not at all sure what this reference to "his Daddy's
war" is supposed to be about.
Now, in my own paranoia, it does occur to me that those forces
nervous about the possible effects of ever advancing science and
technology could do worse in slowing it down than kicking the
props out from under the inflated stock market and standing
aside while California struggles with its energy mess. It is a
possibility but I don't have evidence enough to claim that it is
*the* explanation.
> and it has more to do with the past that the future, and the last
> thing we need right now with exponential technological advance
> in our face is a group of men who think they can legislate and
> dominate the US back into a time when hard industry was king.
>
Or perhaps think they can and should slow it down as much as
possible.
> > > I mean when that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
> > > acknowledges that what the Western Utilies have engaged in
> > > amounts to highjacking, and extortion... it's pretty fair to say
> > > that things have gotten a wee bit extreme.
> > >
> >
> > So what would you recommend? Have some federal commission
> > determine what is whose fair share and who is going to make what
> > if any profit and toss the market and free-enterprise out the
> > window for the duration of the "crises"?
>
> I would say that if a significant number of people can't afford to heat
> and light their homes, that the power and gas prices have been set
> too high. I would say that if the power industry is seeing an 800%
> increase in profits, and that, the profit results in a state being able to
> provide basic service to it's citizens, that the power company has
> set it prices unfairly high. The whole reason that we regulate
By what standard? In relation to what? There are many, many
factors to consider beyond customer prices.
> folks
> like the power industries is because their product is essential to
> modern life... as in without it... people begin to die... when such a
Without regulation I have no reason at all to believe that
anyone would do without adequate power not to die from its lack
at a reasonable cost. A fair argument can be made (and has been
by those more able than me) that the current high costs are a
result of state regulation rather state regulation being a cure
for high utility costs.
> company has priced it's product or service out of the reach of a
> sigificant percentage of a states population, and begun to cause
> the disentegration of a states critical infrastructure, I say it's time
The producers charging what the market places their product
worth at today are not arbitrary scalpers. If there was a
reasonable way to provide the needed power at substantially
lower costs then competitive price structures would appear
overnight. You have to look for something beyond supposed
hyper-greed to account for the price and you need something
beyond State fiat to reduce the price.
> to say stop... nobody wants you not to make a fair profit... but
> what you're doing amounts to extortion. What you doing amounts
Market determines profit level NOT the State.
> to holding a state hostage and raping it for quick gain. I can't in
> any sense condone that kind of behavior even if it is good business.
If your analysis was right I couldn't either. But I don't
believe it is and I don't find your argument very convincing.
> Even if the state created the situation that made this debacle
> possible in the first place. I would sit down, and talk to the power
> providers. I would say to them, make us a FAIR offer over the
> next 10 years... one that doesn't require that the state populous
And if you are eating up all of their reserves then what would
you suggest is "fair"? They are motivated to give you a price
that doesn't put you or them out of business already.
> learn to give up reading after dark! We are reasonable people.
> Then you say to the state officials... you guys are screwed... If
> you build X number of power facilities over the next 10 years,
> you'll get so many dollars of Federal matching funds... if you
> don't we're gonna nail you with a new Federal tax to support
> the production of plants in the western states, and make sure
> that the cost is building in state is a whole lot cheaper. There're
> amazing ways to motivate people when their butts are in a
> sling. This was not the answer... too much disruption... to much
> harm was done to people who were in no position to defend
> themselves.
>
How about if you say to the state officials to get their nose
out of power production and distribution entirely as they are
proven incompetents? How about if you practice real
deregulation in California? How about telling the groups that
refuse any power plant of any kind in their area that they can
either thin out their population by dispersing so that the
concentration of power is not needed there or they can admit the
facts of life and build the facilities necessary to power their
homes and jobs? Involving the Feds with a threat of new taxes
just takes us further down the rathole. More poison! It
hasn't killed us yet!
> > This is not the primary center... blah, blah, blah. The primary
> > center of the computer industry is intellectual (business and
> > technical). If this state continues to be an utter ass then
> > those assets will increasingly move elsewhere. As they
> > should. I would very much hesitate to say that most of those
> > assets are here anyway. Whether they are or are not is
> > immaterial to what is the appropriate response of the Fed to the
> > problem.
>
> Currently California rates as the 7th largest economy in the world.
>
> The list of Number Ones that California is, with respect to the US
> is awe inspiring. High Tech is one of those things. No combination
> of any 4 other states even comes close. What does being even a
> braying ass have to do with the size of the crater you make if you
> drop a rock as big as California.
>
THanks. This is good information. I still don't think it
justifies more abrogation of the market and State control
though.
>
> I'm just saying nobody who is either in his right mind, or hasn't a
> big agenda, does to California what GW has done. That and GW
> isn't exactly known for his tact... he hasn't even wiped the crude off
> his hands for heaven sake.
>
Speaking of crude... :-)
> >
> > This is an interesting mythology. Both parties created the mess
> > along with a lot of very foolish voters, environmentalists,
> > lawyers and so on. But the mess began with the idea that the
> > State should control Energy production and distribution at least
> > in part "for our own good". We are now seeing the results of
> > that fundamentally flawed idea. It has been building for a few
> > decades. The question is how to avoid such debacles in the
> > future and how to defuse this one without creating worse
> > problems than we have already.
>
> I'm not disagreeing with you... read what I said again... all the
> folks you describe are indeed guilty as charged. The problem I
> keep pointing to, is the mistake of just letting the situation go
> critical. It should have been stopped, and handled in a sane and
And our dear governor should have stopped it, not the Feds.
> responsible fashion. To let California spin into a disaster, is the
> worst possible idiocy. It also points to a callus, and thoughtless
We are not helpless.
> person willing to pave over the welfare of the entire country to
> get what he wants, and you best believe what he wants is just
> what the people who put him in office want.
>
No, it doesn't necessarily point to any such thing. This is
supposition.
> > >
> >
> > Means that suspend the constitution are NOT in his charter.
> > Period.
> > Or don't you believe in government officials upholding their
> > oaths of office? These are not merely "philosophical ideals".
> > They are the political and ethical principles we are supposed to
> > be governed by. It is precisely in emergencies that such
> > fundamental guiding principles are most important.
>
> Where in the Federal or State Constitution does it say that a public
> utility has the right to charge it's customer into poverty or operational
There should never have been any "public" utilities in the first
place. They are not part of the Constitution at all. That was
the first mistake. There is nothing anywhere in the
constitution that says a business cannot charge whatever it sees
fit and sink or swim accordingly except in certain times of war
and when the State exercises its strange supposed right to
simply seize what it wishes supposedly for our own good.
> collapse. There are laws that also protect consumers from greedy
> privateers... The utilities have gone beyond reasonable business.
Really? Except for fraud and so on, I am not aware of any such
laws.
Nor do I concede we are being victimized by "greedy privateers".
>The
> act of driving a state in disaster, businesses into bankruptcy, and
> citizens into dangerous lack of service... far and away exceeds any
> business' right to make a profit. Especially when it is clear that there
I am not talking about a right to profit as such. I am talking
individual rights which include properties rights and the right
to trade your goods and services by a contract you agree to
rather than one forced at the point of a gun.
> is no fair competition (the power producers have been caught red
> handed... and regulatory agencies are already looking into charges
Really? Looking into charges, blah,blah,blah and so on is not
"being caught red-handed". It is being accused. Let us at
least remember "innocent until proven gulity". Of course we
have a long history of not really applying that to businesses.
> of price fixing and collusion), and those companies are dealing with
> something that can mean the difference between life and death.
>
Sounds like you are whipping up a fine State scalping party.
Don't expect me to cheer.
> > > Spike... there's this wierd place... where economic reality
> > > crashed headlong into economic theory. It's the job of our State
> > > and Federal government to say... OK children... here's a reality
> > > call. It's also their job to make sure that the hienas don't rape the
> >
> > No, it is not. It is not the job of the government to abrogate
> > the rights of the people but to uphold them. They have been
> > getting away with raping all of us across the board for over a
> > century by waving the needs of the people and ripping away the
> > wealth and rights of the people as a cure. It was their
> > abrogration of our rightful decision making ability (free market
> > without regulation in energy) that largely allowed this mess to
> > flower in the first place. To call now for more of the same
> > poison as has so sickened us is a fatal mistake.
>
> Corporations aren't the people, and they have no rights afforded
Corporations are people, legally. Business interests are
voluntary associations of people trading their labor and
services jointly in a voluntary fashion. That is very much
people and human rights. To say an association of people has no
rights but the people do is pure sophistry.
> them by the Constitution. Corporations are a legal invention, and
> their power is great because they circumvent much of the laws
> pertaining to personal accountability.
>
This is highly biased. They are a legal invention. Necessary
or not they are the chief means of forming reasonably large
associations of people producing goods and services. Therefore
the freedoms of people must adhere in some manner to such an
assemblage regardless of its form. What its accountability is
and is not is a quite separate issue from the rights of
businesses existing generally.
> What I propose is that Goverment insure that people simply get
> what they need to live, insure that the business of producing and
> delivering energy makes a fair profit, (and we have historical
> record we know what a fair profit is...) and that we require that
> the people who have planned so poorly now right their wrong.
>
I did not know the government was in the business of producing
goods and services. I thought that is what we have businesses
for. Historical record is not exactly relevant when that record
leads straight too underproduction of the needed commodity and
bankruptcy of some of the most important producers. Obviously
there has been something wrong historically.
Why let the incompetent (or worse) rascals that got us into this
mess have another chance to increase their power without really
curing the problem at all? Why let them do this while blaming
largely the producers and treating them as near criminals? Why
should Atlas Shrug under such treatment?
> You can't cure a problem of this magnitude by flicking a switch!
> It is not digital. Human lives are at stake... you can't go around
Yes. And the politicians have their blood on their hands. Do
not blame those lives on the producers. Blame them on the true
parasites - the ones you call for more powers for when their
policies screw you.
> turning cities off because somebody screwed up and didn't get
> around to buidling a power plants... having elderly people freeze
> to death in their homes... or people killed because the stop
I don't think anyone is likely to freeze for quite some time.
Rolling blackouts are going to be a damn nuisance but I hardly
think the crisis is as deep as you paint it.
> lights were turned off... because somebody wanted to make a
> killing in the energy market is simply criminal!
>
I am tired of your yellow journalism. Learn a bit of fairness.
> Letting millions of people suffer and damaging the infrastructure
> of a critical economic engine justifies doing ANYTHING you
> have to do in the short term to get through the crisis. Then, you
No, it doesn't. If it did then any savvy political gangsters
could cook up some emergency affecting millions and then use the
call of their suffering to line their own pockets and increase
their power to run the same racket again and again
substantially.
We have a problem. Blaming the producers and GW and giving the
foxes the keys to the henhouse while claiming all the hens are
no good extortionists for not laying more eggs is not a
solution. The infrastructure includes sound law based on
respect for and enforcement of the rights of all parties
involved.
> look at the cause of the trouble, you plan a sane path to solve
> it permanently, and you write on the state capitol building in the
> blood of state representatives... I will never screw up like this
> ever again 10,000 times! But first, you stop the carnage! This
What, by creating more carnage? How many more power companies
need to say "screw you ingrates that make it impossible for us
to do business" before it sinks in that your purple prose is
part of the problem?
> is not an experiment in economics... not when people die and
> millions suffer. None of this had to happen... not a single bit
> of it. It would have been so easy to have worked around this.
>
It is not an experiment in economics. It is real life economic
reality. Don't ignore it and act as if you can suspend reality
to get what you want.
> >
> > We may or may not need some emergency measures but they MUST NOT
> > increase the power of government to fuck us up like this or much
> > worse in the future. That is crucial and far more of a danger.
> > We must see clearly the HUGE and primary role of runaway
> > government power in our current troubles instead of blaming
> > everyone and anyone who is not as poor or in as bad a shape as
> > we. We can't fix this by claiming the Great Lie that our
> > problem is the fault of Big Business or the machinations of GW.
> > That would be hopelessly inept and disasterous.
> >
> > WHATEVER YOU DO DO NOT GIVE THE GOVERNMENT MORE POWER AND
> > AUTHORITY. Your life and all you hold dear depends on it.
>
> I'm not talking about giving the government the sweat off of my
> behind. I'm talking about taking appropriate emergency action to
No, just the sweat off the power producers behinds and the
shirts of their backs and they should be damn grateful we don't
just nationalize their organizations outright as our dear
governor actually proposed.
> forestall a catastrophe. The government already has all the juice
> it needs to stop this problem from becoming a true disaster, but
> the people in charge want the disaster. They want the deaths.
The governor wants the disaster? Because it is he who should
have acted and still should act if emergency powers need to be
welded. But he must act responsibly.
Who are you accusing of wanting deaths? This is a very serious
accusation and requires serious evidence and support.
> They want the people to scream and cry, and beg for help. They
> want the people to hurt, so that when they say... no problem,
> we'll be happy to help you out... just as long as you let us do
> anything we please... anytime we please... anywhere we please...
> forever and ever... and we'll say anything just give us back our
> lights and our warm houses and our jobs... and all it'll cost is a
> bit of our humanity and all the money we've got.
>
Ah yes. Here we agree. But you seem to be saying we should let
them do what they want. Them being the State and it costing us
far more than money.
> I fear the Government. I fear it because it is self interested, and
> stupid, and brutish. The one thing that saves us is that it is so
> wrapped in layers of red tape that it can only move glacially. I
> fear even more, business, which has no moral ground, business
Business has the ultimate moral ground. It must produce actual
value greater than what it consumes in the real world.
Government has no such constraint at all. It's only constraint
is that it must successfully consolidate, increase and
perpetuate its power.
> which is avaricious, and born from a society that at some level
> thinks people are as desposable as the paper wrappers around
> the hamburgers we eat. Where government is slow and stupid,
It is precisely because we don't think that that we created a
country based on individual rights. Unfortunately, we have
largely forgotten that.
> business is fast and smart. We always withold the right to take
Most business are pretty damn dumb too in systemic ways.
> our capitols by storm if they betray our trust. We can always
> at least vote the bum out. What do we do about the grey men
Vote them out for what? Another bum who is merely tweedledee to
the first tweedledum? There is very little room for real
political change or choice in the current system.
> in their $1,000 Armani suits, who plan the rape a pillage of a
> generation of suckers. Men who's hearts sound beat to the
Most of these guys ARE politicians, not businessmen.
> sound of a cash registers charging up another sale... men who
> answer to nobody. I fear this.
>
This is a gross mischaracterization. Mine of poltiicians is not
altogether fair either, admittedly.
> > > As far as ownership... there is a thing called imminent domain, a
> > > critical concept that says yuo may own something, but if your
> >
> > Which has been a hole for government goons to suck away our
> > substance and our lives from the beginning. It is utterly
> > reprehensible.
>
> Imminent domain made things like highways possible. You would
> live in a society where one man could hurt countless others for
> personal gain, with no recourse save murder? The wild west was
> like that and a wild place it was... problem was a lot nasty deeds
> got done... I'm not sure that's the answer either...
>
Highways could easily have been acheived without this and were
in many parts of the country.
> > > singular benefit, harms the greater public, then you have to be
> >
> > It is not a "benefit", singular or otherwise, but my very life
> > and property. BIG DIFFERENCE. Property is not some boon handed
> > out by the omnipotent rulers and subject to their recall. Not
> > in a free country. If my having my rights to my own person and
> > property is considered a harm to the greater public then the
> > "greater public" can go hang. What makes them "greater"?
>
> But that is exactly how it got handed out...
>
Nope. Not in a capitalist society. You are thinking of
feudalism? What I earned with my brain and effort was not handed
to me as a boon.
> We murdered 20 million native americans, and a half million
> spanish american, and god only knows how many blacks, and
> chinese, and european immigrants for the right to kill anybody
> who steps over the line drawn by a piece of paper, and for
> which you rightly paid to own
This is not relevant to the point of individual rights and the
place of property within it.
>
> The government stole it from another government who stole
> it, and it got parceled it out to settlers and miners, and it got
> passed down to ranchers and farmers, and now you have
> it.
>
> Careful
>
> You're standing on a slippery slope... by your words Sadam
> Hussein is a champion for personal freedom, and we're the
> mosters that invaded his home... when does the right of your
This is going nowhere. I'm bailing.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:07:59 MST