NYT Shocked By Economics

The NY Times ran a piece today expressing a bit of shock that prices have not declined in the market for electricity, despite deregulation, in proportion to declines in the deregulated prices for other commodities (ie: phone service). This would seem to be ignoring two things: 1) electricity is competitive practically nowhere in California and this is mirrored in many other states, 2) new capacity is difficult to build and therefore hasn't, and 3) demand for the commodity has skyrocketed. Hardly surprising that these pressures have failed to reduce prices and indeed put upward pressure on them . . . Full story