Regulator finds TransAlta breached rules in power price-fixing case

hum no surprise there....

I love the game that regulators play:

If your price is too high it's predatory pricing.

If your price is too low it's .

If your price is just the same as everyone else's then that's monopolistic price fixing.

No matter what you do it's wrong if the government wants it to be.

The first thing you mention doesn't exist.

Predatory pricing is when the price is set artificially low. Specifically, deliberately selling at a loss in order to force out smallest competitors.

The only time gets you get in trouble for pricing too high is when you are a virtual monopoly or price fixing, as you mention.

The game Transalta is playing is to cause an intentional shortage in order to raise prices. Since they are a monopoly, that's a no-no. They could have taken plants down for maintenance during off-peak hours so as to not cause an artificial shortage. Which they usually do.

Incidentally, Transalta also was convicted of price fixing in California, to the tune of $149m. So, you paid too much too.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology ... story.html

I always knew Klien's experiment with deregulation would fail, now the failure is complete.

And this was during the California electiricity crisis when Enron and others were scamming the state and causing rolling blackouts.

It seems that electricity deregulation has laregely not been a success in North America.

Well, even BC Hydro had to pay 3/4 of a million dollars out of court for it's role in that affair.

Chump change in penalties compared to what all those friends of Dubya ended up making when they made their way back to Cali. The real prizes were in all the retirement plans they were able to successfully loot.