That is a pretty safe bet since you know what the price you pay is going to be. This Griddy deal was more like a commodity bet. You are not sure how much it might cost you if you guess wrong.
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3 years ago
why frozen gas
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3 years ago
I guess it's too much to expect that regulators in a Republican state would prevent utilities being marketed as utilities when they are actually commodities that can skyrocket by a factor of a hundred overnight. BTW, I have never seen any commodity do that, increase by two orders of magnitude in a day or two, not even in a month, ever. Nothing even close. If you have an example, I sure would love to see it. I guess that's because the commodities market is regulated and shysters can't easily pull such a stunt.
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3 years ago
Bear in mind Bill Clinton signed the legislation that treated the derivatives markets as commodities so seeing disasters happen is not unprecedented. I don't know of a commodity in particular that has had that much delta in a day but I don't play the commodities game., It is certainly possible tho.
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3 years ago
[snip]
Obligatory callout to the Hillary haters so they can talk about her cattle futures windfall:
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3 years ago
It's never happened, nothing even remotely close and the TX electric disaster has nothing to do with the commodity markets, derivatives, or Clinton. It has to do with a lot of stupid in TX, including some really glaring things, like the four ERCOT board members, the regulators, who resigned. They didn't even live in TX. Or was it 6? But heh, according to the Republican governor, it was wind mills that were the problem. According to another Republican, windmills cause cancer. Stupid is as stupid does.
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3 years ago
Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to play the electrical wholesale game. There were plenty of normal utility options open to these people but they just got greedy. There are 3d party options for who you buy your power from all over the country. It just comes with a warning that this is not a regular utility deal. A few people ignored the warnings. Sometimes you just have to let the baby touch the stove.
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3 years ago
Yes, no surprise you have no empathy for consumers, including many elderly, and people of modest means who don't know any better. that were just ripped off by totally unethical shysters. Screw them, they should have know their bills would go from $100, to $10,000. That's the new America, where lies and shysters prevail, screw whoever you can. Next you can defend the companies collecting, putting the people out on the street, becoming welfare cases so the taxpayers wind up paying for them. More good Fretwell public policy.
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3 years ago
Some cases were even worse, like this one.
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Lights Stayed on During Texas? Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.
?My savings is gone,? said Scott Willoughby, a 63-year-old Army veteran who lives on Social Security payments in a Dallas suburb. He said he had nearly emptied his savings account so that he would be able to pay the $16,752 electric bill charged to his credit card ? 70 times what he usually pays for all of his utilities combined. ?There?s nothing I can do about it, but it?s broken me.?
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3 years ago
If these people got to be elderly and decided to take that gamble, they didn't learn much in all of those years. When people want something for nothing they often end up with nothing. They could have got their electricity from a conventional utility if they wanted a safe contract.
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3 years ago
This is far beyond not safe. I'm sure many of these people knew there was a risk but there is no justification for $100 bills becoming $10,000 with little or no notice. None. Totally immoral.
Show me where this has happened and where it would be considered "normal risk" or even a high risk.
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3 years ago
If the rates had gone up maybe 5 times it would not be too bad, but for electricity to jump 100 times without warning is just not right.
AS mentioned, I do not know anything about the TX system. Are there several kinds of options such as paying a flat rate per KWH or like the natural gas where you can take out contrct to pay so much per unit at a certain time frame ?
It is often posiable that many do not read or know how to read the fine print in many contracts. Just as I have been trying to find out how much cable and direct TV is. They show big numbers whre you can seen them, then at the bottom of the page it usually just says 'for 6 months' or whatever but no price after that.
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3 years ago
Sure the average is something like 11.6 cents a kWh but it jumped to $90
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3 years ago
I think it is capped at just $ 9 and hour instead of $ 90 per KWH from what I read into that artical.
However even that is crazy. I could see it maybe jumping to close to a dollar but not about 75 times as much.
Where I am at in NC I think my power is fixed at around 11 cents an hour and that is including tax.
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3 years ago
Correct, i got an extra zero there but the wholesale was $9000 from generators for megawatts
According to Reuters, the wholesale rate before this week?s storm was only about $50 per megawatt-hour. On Wednesday, Texas?s Public Utility Commission moved to cap wholesale prices at $9,000 per megawatt-hour, or $9 per kilowatt-hour.
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3 years ago
So what? They wanted to be independent and they didn't want any stinking regulations or anyone's opinion from east of Galveston. Like I said to Trader. It is none of our business. My bet is they still won't want any regulations. Don't mess with Texas
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3 years ago
That bank is making their money on your money. They are not a charity.
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3 years ago
There is something wrong with that $9 an hour cap story. That is $216 a day, You don't get $16,000 bills for that.
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3 years ago
Sure, no empathy as expected. The elderly fall prey to all kinds of scam artists, dialing for dollars too. Call them up, sell them some dried food for the coming civil war, $100 for a can of freeze dried bananas or $500 for a silver coin really worth $5. Take their life savings. Nothing wrong there either, it's just the new American values. Making America great again! Great for shysters, that is.
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3 years ago
He's nuts to have paid it, certainly at this point. On TV I say a similar case on TV where they had it linked to their debit card and the money was pulled automatically, all cleaned out before they even knew it. In fact it might be the same one, he could have had his savings account linked to a debit account and they got the story a bit mangled.
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3 years ago
Follow the money. Where did it all go? What were the facts? We all know that the actual cost to an energy generator could not be 100x the normal rate. So who got it and how much of it was profit? They go after some mom and pop gas station that raises the price of gas by $1 after a hurricane or a bodega that doubles the price of a gallon of water from $1 to $2 using the gouging laws. I've defended businesses being allowed to do the doubling kind of thing if they want to. It encourages supply, motivates them to be open 24/7, extra hours, to look for more supply. It encourages small entrepreneurs to load up a truck and drive it to an area hit by a storm. I will defend that, but screwing electrical customers with 100x bills, where they didn't even know what they were being charged, is absurd and beyond anything within reason. Amazing that anyone would defend it, but this is the new America. Stuff your pockets, screw everyone else.