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For those who care, take a look at http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/10/opinion/10KRUG.html which is an op-ed piece by an MIT Economics prof. describing the California situation in the same terms I have. He cites a paper which in turn cites evidence that artificial shortages were previously created in the UK (1996) and California (1998 & 1999). unfortunately no detail, but it is more than just random conspiracy theory.

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, James A. Donald wrote:

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He describes the california system as "deregulated", but the fact that it takes many years to get permission to build a power plant -- that it takes longer to get permits than to actually build one, is undoubtedly a contributing factor to the crisis.

Ray Dillinger

Odd. If it's "deregulated", why do the power companies have to ask CPUC's permission to raise rates? I don't think deregulated" means what he thinks it means.

What has happened is that we in California have moved from a state imposed and controlled monopoly, to a highly regulated market. This has not worked well, one of the many reasons being that those who now have to decide to build power plants are now the evil greedy developers, rather than the wise and benevolent bureaucrats, and in consequence those who want to build power plants are having great difficulty. Naturally, however, all the newspapers are entirely confident that the problem is capitalist greed. If it was not for those greedy people itching to destroy the environment by building power plants, we would have plenty of power. This is analogous to the US health care crisis. If an evil greedy capitalist health care institution decides not to give an elderly pauper triple bypass surgery, in order to retain ever greater bloated profits, that is an intolerable evil of capitalism. If, however, a rational bureaucrat decides to wisely ration bypass surgery by ensuring that it only goes to those who can truly benefit from it, that is a wonderful saving on health costs. As a result, governmental health care systems really are much better at controlling costs that regulated semi private health care systems. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 90e6UF9IrKiRsj8L3J8wgY3bcw3+zYgljEnNQxpA 4YCLYYMYEDsPsyAdXW3SXlqSzZ/KoouNTW9GP2nx/