RE: [OT]: Involuntary outages may start at 7am PST

[matthew () tycho net (Matthew Kaufman)]

> So tell me, how could PG&E have accurately forecasted the booming
> demand for power back in 1996 and protected themselves

The same way Northpoint could have accurately predicted that the Verizon
deal would or would not go through. Which is to say "they couldn't."

But you don't see the state stepping in to bail that situation out.

This is how business works. You make your bed, then you sleep in it. In
PG&E's case, they asked for much of the situation they have now (true,
certain rules were changed after the fact, but they did make the trade of
"more money now" knowing that came with "fixed rate to consumers"), and made
lots of money off of it. And, in fact, the parent company still has all that
money, and continues to make more from its own out-of-state generating assets.

The "we were forced into running out of money" argument is the PR spin version
of "we made a bet, and we lost... but our parent company is getting rich 
anyway"

-matthew kaufman
 Tycho Networks/DSL.net
 matthew () tycho net