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More or Less, you're right on one count: It is stupid to blame Davis for the energy crisis, if you're saying that he was the CAUSE of it. The problem was a sloppy, half-assed deregulation and a lack of power plants when demand went up, as well as out-of-state resellers raising the prices. However, the way Davis handled it was completely stupid and ignorant of history. You see, while the whosalers could raise the prices, the resellers couldn't. There were smurfing PRICE CAPS on the resellers. When the resellers started hurting due to the fact that they couldn't raise the prices, Davis REFUSED to remove the caps. Knee-jerk idiot. I guess he didn't want the greedy power companies to screw the common joe, even though those greedy power companies were declaring chapter 11 because they couldn't make any money. Read your history, Davis. Price caps DON'T smurfing WORK. That is why Davis catches heat on the power crunch. He didn't cause it, but he sure as hell exacerbated it.

The New Guy, the Bush/Gore debacle was based on about 1,000 votes. It was really close. This is based on a massive majority. With Bush/Gore, it could have gone either way. This is quite obviously the will of the voters.

yeah,

but don't forget WHO RUNS the energy companies [republikans].  also, the locals were MANDATED to sell off generation, to participate in the market - so the caps were in place for them not to profit twice versus the cpuc ACTUALLY respecting the fact that consumer shoud not be raped.  the 13% (or whatever it was) yearly cap was in the INITIAL legilation, so i have no sympathy.

and again, Pete Wilson [R], is to blame.  what was Davis supposed to do, since you don't like what he did?  and yes, i know a little too much about this issue..

outside state generation, forced off-line generation - a total and complete example of how free markets don't work, because of the fact that greed conquers the public interest EVERY time.

borus, your suggestion is that the consumer should have been shafted.  smurf that, i say.

oh, and maybe Davis should be to blamed for the 49 other states that are in the red as well....???

smurf that, RECALL BUSH.  or get the few republikans in the california assembly out of the way so we CAN RAISE taxes.  i'd rather pay sacramento that the likes of Enron and Haliburton et al

oh yeah, that would then mean i place the budget crisis SOLELY on the need of the republikan minority, who refuse to accept reality.

Odd that 'more or less' doesn't mention actually building some more power plants in their precious  smurfing state instead of holding them up with enviromental concerns and being forced to buy out of state power.
As Californians are so proud to point out. They are the 5th or 6th largest 'national' economy in the world. How about sustaining your own ass' for a change.

Gee More or Less, the consumer got shafted both ways! Either the caps are removed and power companies raise prices, or power companies go under (like they did), rolling blackouts occur and the consumer gets shafted anyway! You talk about power companies raping consumers, but the resellers themselves got raped! The caps may have been put into place to "protect" the consumer, but Davis failed to see that it was killing the resellers and he didn't seem to care. He was utterly blind to the fact that the resellers were dying in his desperate effort to "protect the common man." (He didn't say that, it's just a useful phrase). Yeah, rolling blackouts really helped the common man. Pete Wilson shares some of the blame for his half-assed deregulation (he could have done it right), but he's only a piece of the puzzle. I'd also like to see you show that energy companies are run soley by RepubliCans. Steve Jobs is a Democrat and a capitalist, and I'm sure there are plenty of CEOs that are similar in their economic views. Despite what you may think, you don't have to be a RepubliCan to be a greedy bastard.

Don't feed me that bullsmurf that the free market doesn't work. You have to be totally smurfing blind. It's not perfect, but no system is. However, it seems to have worked pretty damn well for the past 200 years or so. It has been adopted (to varying extents) around the world. Read the book Commanding Heights. It's an excellent book that examines history to see where economies have been and where they are going. It also shows why, again, PRICE CAPS DON'T WORK, and why free markets DO work. The world is going toward a free market, like it or not. What would you suggest in its place? Overregulation of the market may work for a decade or two, but it leads to high inflation and unemployment.

It's also interesting that California's deficit is over 30% of it's total budget. Alaska is the ONLY OTHER STATE with such a high percentage. Now, taking that into account, it was the Democrats that made the budget crunch worse, wouldn't you say? The voters are also to blame. Lobbyists are wrecking the CA government, initiatives have put spending caps, limits, and a seemingly infinite number of other rules and regulations into the law. In fact, running an initiative can be much more lucrative than running for office, seeing as how there are spending limits for office campaigns but not for initiatives. It's a collectivist mob rule over there. I'm also pissed off at the Repubs stonewalling the budget. It's obvious that cuts alone aren't going to balance the budget. What they need to realize is that the cuts and tax increases shouldn't be viewed as permanent.

Funny, that consumer advocacy group doesn't show a damn thing to back up their claims. Also, if the power companies took the money and ran for the hills, then why the hell were they going bankrupt? And that AP article supports a previous point: Lack of power plants in California. If you don't build more power plants as demand rises, you're going to have a power crunch. Plants have to close for repairs every now and then. If the power grid couldn't keep up when that happened, then there sure as hell weren't enough plants. And while there had been blackouts before, it wasn't as severe until the crunch hit. And who got shafted? The people who lost their jobs due to the caps. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I'm talking about after the power crunch hit. Before, the resellers were making enough money with the caps to pay employees and make a profit. However, when wholesale prices went up, they could no longer afford to do business. People lost their jobs.

Funny, that consumer advocacy group doesn't show a damn thing to back up their claims. Also, if the power companies took the money and ran for the hills, then why the hell were they going bankrupt? And that AP article supports a previous point: Lack of power plants in California. If you don't build more power plants as demand rises, you're going to have a power crunch. Plants have to close for repairs every now and then. If the power grid couldn't keep up when that happened, then there sure as hell weren't enough plants. And while there had been blackouts before, it wasn't as severe until the crunch hit. And who got shafted? The people who lost their jobs due to the caps. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Reuters
California, Arizona lead West in new power plants
Thursday May 29, 20?? 5:37 pm ET 

LOS ANGELES, May 29 (Reuters) - Several major new plants are slated to come on line in the U.S. West in time to help meet heavy air conditioning demand this summer, with California and Arizona the leading states for new construction.

Source: http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:7l … /rc/030529
utilities_west_generation_1.html+power+plants+in+California&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 (sorry this is long, but I don't know how to compress urls so they aren't so long - if could someone tell me,  then I will edit this post)

This article was cached, so I suspect it is over a year old, but I think it proves a point. It takes a long time from proposal to completion, so I think most of these plants originated in Wilson's tenure. Also, when it became obviuos that there wasn't going to be a quick fix to 'the energy crisis',  Davis fast tracked several power plants that were in the works for completion.

Gray Davis still gets my vote. 

me:"bullsmurf, we need better higher paying jobs, more education.  and how about some rent control?"

actually, rent control leads to housing shortages.  Supply goes down while demand goes up.

Unless I live in California, for what possible reason would I care?   

Rent control? Price controls DON'T WORK. How many times do I have to say that?

Until California and NYC get the point.

the "re-sellers" cap was to protect, or more correctly to earn the votes of, the ratepayers.

thus edison, pg&e were heading for bankruptcy.

i don't get too upset when corporations rape each other.  but the intentional with-holding of generation was the "real crisis" - and it was a fraudulent scheme by Enron.

its called collusion.

Oh for Christ's Sake, I'm not deciding anything! Read history!!!! Price controls stagnate the market and can drive companies bankrupt. Generally, it's the market that decides the prices.