I'm unhappy with my contract, it must be fraud!

A couple of months ago I read an article in either Business Week or the New York Times about how upset some people on the East coast were. It seems that they had signed contracts for the delivery of heating oil at a fixed price for this winter and that, because of the mild winter, the spot market prices were significantly lower. They felt that they had been cheated.


Of course they conveniently forgot the year before when similar contracts had netted them oil at a price considerably below the spot market price. (Of course some of the more unlucky ones noticed that their neighbors had made out last year and only jumped in on this "deal" this year.)


Of course these folks all wanted out of their agreements because they were "unfair".


Of course big business enters into contracts like this all of the time and you never hear them complaining...well at least not until yesterday.


It seems that during the height of the energy shortages in California last winter the state government entered into long term contracts with power producers to lock in energy prices and now that power is available for about 1/3 the price they are crying "fraud" and want the federal government to declare the contracts invalid.


Nevermind that any novice investor could have predicted this outcome at the time they signed the contracts. (Let's see...the rule is to buy high, sell low, right?)


Hey, I have these shares of Lucent that I forgot to sell 2 years ago. Shouldn't I be allowed to sell them at that price even though I made the mistake of holding on to them too long. Of course I should.


Chuck


(Who doesn't really have any shares of Lucent anymore, but who really did hang on to the ones he had too long.)

Enron manipulated the market. Cheney, and the Bush administration assisted. Rolling blackouts manipulated with the assistance of the executive branch are very distinct from the picture you are painting.

This reminds me of the snow removal insurance deal in Massachusetts about 10 years ago. One of those years the state just got buried all winter long, and snow removal cost the city and state a ton of $$. So, they took out snow removal insurance for the next year, and then of course it hardly snowed at all. They felt they should be entitled to a major refund, but I don't think they got it.

Hey,


If professional athletes can sign a contract and then bag out of it because joe blow's now making more than them, why shouldn't we be able to do likewise? It's like a disease. Nothing's ever our own fault anymore. And as for the Olympics--hell, I'm starting to think maybe I deserve a gold medal. Anybody want to help me with my complaint letter to the IOC? I want to have my cake and eat it too. I made my bed and now I don't want to lie in it. I don't want to reap what I've sown. I don't understand how someone can put their signature to a contract and then back out of it because something better has come along. It doesn't fill me with hope for the future.

Perhaps Enron manipulated the market. According to what I've read, however, Enron was not a party to any of these contracts.


I would love to see the Bush administration take one in the balls for the Enron/energy mess, but that doesn't mean that the Gray administration shouldn't take one in the balls for a knee jerk reaction to a temporary (if painful) disruption in energy prices.


Chuck


(Hmm...I always thought that taking one in the balls would cause a knee jerk, not the other way around...what do I know?)

In America...the needs of the one always outweigh the needs of the many, and nothing is ever MY fault...

There are only needs of individuals. Aggregations of individuals have aggregate needs, but just because there is a group does not mean the group has needs. Morally no individual can be sacrified for the needs of others. Here thopugh, there is no problem that even smacks of "group needs". The whiny individuals had a need (perceived or real) for stable commodity prices. The individuals (corporations are people too) who sell commodities also have a need to lock in prices. Simple. Here, the breaks just went against some of the individuals involved and they're whining about their bad beat. No collectivism required to analyze the situation.


Also, Americans tend to look to "group needs" too much, although less than Canadians or a lot of other countries. But I'm being forced to pay a lot for collectivist programs.

I got a few Wang shares I could sell you

(seriously)