Comments for Musings of the Technical Bard

Comment on Alberta electricity “market” is broken by Cynical Bard

Cynical Bard — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:12:40 +0000

When long distance phone rates were de-regulated the prices dropped dramatically. But the government did not regulate who could get into the business or how it would be priced. But neither of those ideas apply to power. Even after TransAlta admitted to manipulating prices the Minister of Energy still said: “There is nothing we can do.”

Comment on Alberta electricity “market” is broken by Taliesyn

Taliesyn — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:23:37 +0000

The problem is not deregulation. It’s that the market was never properly deregulated. There are still too many points where the government interferes in the market, and they set up the pricing of power such that it could be manipulated by the producers and carriers. The consumer doesn’t have access to the same level of information as the producers. The fact is that power in Alberta should NEVER cost more than about $25 / MWh when gas prices are under $3 / GJ. There should be clear linkage between those values.

Comment on Alberta electricity “market” is broken by Freddy

Freddy — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:55:47 +0000

The Alberta Liberal Party has been saying this since 2001. It only took a dopey Tory like you 11 years m to catch up.

Comment on Alberta electricity “market” is broken by Ken Moore

Ken Moore — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:57:33 +0000

Good presentation. The evidence you dug up to explain the price gap between $MWH sales and $MWH costs for gas-powered generation feels out of scale, not quite enough to explain the large difference. Is there a perverse incentive or policy that’s overlooked?

Comment on The City of Calgary shouldn’t waste time on “sustainable food” by Cynical Bard

Cynical Bard — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:46:29 +0000

Boy are you two guys ever smart!

There was relatively recent news story about Venezuela, where out good buddy Hugo took control of the food distribution business. Withing acouple of months there were reports of warehouses full of food rotting.

Sort of like the guy from Edmonton, who went to Vancouver for surgery, and got the same surgeon who was not allowed to do it in Edmonton. Maybe it’s a program to help out Westjet .

Comment on The City of Calgary shouldn’t waste time on “sustainable food” by Ira

Ira — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:37:40 +0000

I work with a guy from the Soviet Union. He’s in his 60s now, and he’s been in Canada for 10 years, but he maintains that the most important freedom we have is the freedom of food.

While Soviet stores offered food at reasonable prices, they never had any in stock. It’s directly analogous to how the Canadian healthcare system works now. There was a single supplier, and the prices were fixed, and rationing was done with wait times.

Here, he can go into a store and buy whatever food he can afford, but that food is only there for him to buy because there’s an incentive for the growers to get it there, and there exists a demand for it.

Comment on There will be no Deus Ex Machina by Cynical Bard

Cynical Bard — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:47:48 +0000

Way back in the 1960′s, a pair of US Professors, (those deep thinkers in Universities) named Cloward and Pivens wrote a paper advocating a program to get as many people as possible on welfare. Their stated goal was to overwhelm and collapse the system. It was tried in New York City and worked until the city had to be bailed out of its financial morass. Pivens is still active, and promoting great causes like Occupy Wall Street and Marxist Revolution.

I have to confess I don’t really understand the end game, but if the society collapses, who, or what, gets to take over.

My point is that, how do we know that the current financial difficulties in Europe and the US are not part of the same plan?

I have often pondered how anyone, in government or private life can reasonably expect to borrow money, year after year, and not expect to get into financial armageddon. Its not a matter of ideology but mathematics.

Look at the US today. They are marching toward the same problem that Europe already has. A special commission (Simpson Bowles) was appointed to come up with a PLAN. They did so , and it has been summarily ignored.

We have people in Canada today arguing that we need more debt to stimulate the economy, and edge us closer to the problem that Europe already has an The US is marching toward.

Read The Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee, compare it to the present riots about cutbacks in Europe or OWS, coupled with the apparent indifference to financial armageddon, and tell me this is not part of an organized plan .

Comment on There will be no Deus Ex Machina by bertie

bertie — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:00:53 +0000

The world is in a total mess and there is absolutely no solution to this unprecedented crisis..This is certainly not a true comment…All that needs to be done is jail the GW fraudsters and get rid of all this GW carbon footprint fraud payment,s being made to scam artists.Energy costs are the problem and will be the solution to bringing back financial stability to the world.Oil is not the culprit,it is the GW scam that is the culprit..Get rid of the scam and the problem disappears.

Comment on There will be no Deus Ex Machina by emma

emma — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:05:34 +0000

I know they are keeping things up for a reason…I am scared…as most people are I bet.

I subscribe to the FFT guy in Australia over at http://www.forecastfortomorrow.com his economic stuff is killer and scarily accurate too, well worth a look if you have the time.

Comment on Occupy, the Keystone XL non-decision and Mob Rule by Hoarfrost

Hoarfrost — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:21:41 +0000

I thought at first that your essay on mob rule was leading to a disparaging of the liberal media.