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Texas power
A few years ago Texas was talking about leaving the US. Maybe we should have let them. They wanted their own power grid to stay away from the Federal regulations. Now I don't really understand all the ins and outs of this, but seems they can not keep the lights on with out a big money problem with a week of ice. How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? I don't know who will be left holding the bag for this situation. Bloomberg) -- The largest power generation and transmission cooperative in Texas filed for bankruptcy in the wake of power outages that caused an energy crisis during the winter freeze last month. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative filed for Chapter 11 in Texas after racking up an estimated $2.1 billion in charges over seven days of the freeze. Last year, it cost cooperative members $774 million for power for all of 2020. |
Texas power
On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 4:08:04 PM UTC-5, Ralph Mowery wrote:
A few years ago Texas was talking about leaving the US. Maybe we should have let them. They wanted their own power grid to stay away from the Federal regulations. Now I don't really understand all the ins and outs of this, but seems they can not keep the lights on with out a big money problem with a week of ice. How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton |
Texas power
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Texas power
On 3/1/2021 4:52 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. I read that under certain circumstances there is a legitimate huge price jump that comes into play, the idea is to get people to cut use. I've not follow it closely though so don't know the details. Why have electricity prices increased in Texas? As the storm caused temperatures across the state to plummet early last week, the utility commission ordered ERCOT to allow prices to increase to reflect the lack of supply. As a result, electricity prices skyrocketed. ... Texas utility regulators allowed that price to rise to $9 per kilowatt-hour. |
Texas power
On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 5:11:50 PM UTC-5, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/1/2021 4:52 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. I read that under certain circumstances there is a legitimate huge price jump that comes into play, the idea is to get people to cut use. I've not follow it closely though so don't know the details. Why have electricity prices increased in Texas? As the storm caused temperatures across the state to plummet early last week, the utility commission ordered ERCOT to allow prices to increase to reflect the lack of supply. As a result, electricity prices skyrocketed. ... Texas utility regulators allowed that price to rise to $9 per kilowatt-hour. The obvious question is who got all that money and how much profit did they make? If it's 2x, 3x the usual price, I can see that as the consequence to get more power, but 100x? The power sure didn't cost the provider anything like that to generate it. It's funny, there are laws and regulators that jump on some poor SOB selling a generator for double the price or gasoline for double, but this apparently they had nothing to prevent. Guess the windmills did it. |
Texas power
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery
wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. |
Texas power
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:07:58 -0500, Ralph Mowery
wrote: A few years ago Texas was talking about leaving the US. Maybe we should have let them. They wanted their own power grid to stay away from the Federal regulations. Now I don't really understand all the ins and outs of this, but seems they can not keep the lights on with out a big money problem with a week of ice. How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? I don't know who will be left holding the bag for this situation. Bloomberg) -- The largest power generation and transmission cooperative in Texas filed for bankruptcy in the wake of power outages that caused an energy crisis during the winter freeze last month. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative filed for Chapter 11 in Texas after racking up an estimated $2.1 billion in charges over seven days of the freeze. Last year, it cost cooperative members $774 million for power for all of 2020. An emplyee in a 2019 review stated "Will pay better than any other job in the area. If you can get a job here the likely hood that you will be laid off is very low. You will get many hours, especially during outages." Another: "The Jack county plant is not the best place to work. There are so many people quitting due to poor management and employee will be forced to work you will have no personal life and management does not care at all. As long as current management is there People should be very cautious when applying and ask questions About why so many employees have left the jack county plant in the past 2 years." and another: "Jack County plant is struggling to keep people they are leaving faster than they can hire them. There has been tons of turnover over the last few years. People are tired and wore out. Management doesn't seem to worry very much about losing experience or multiple people at a time. They just work the employees that are left pretty much every day. The pay is OK and benefits aren't too bad either. But if you have a family think twice before accepting a job here. You will not get time with your family and it will eventually harm your relationships. Stay single and make lots of money." and: " This place has gone down hill in the last 2 years. We use to have people that were very experienced, but management has managed to drive them away. Everyone tells you go talk to management if you have a problem like you should. But when you do you are painted as a trouble maker. There is no reward for doing anything out there. There is no consideration of what you have going on in your life. Like many people have said on here if have a family stay away. At least till Waco can wake up and see that management and a certain person in waco is the cause of all this drama." No wonder they went bust - - - - |
Texas power
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Texas power
Ralph Mowery writes:
In article , says... Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. I lerned a long time ago not to play the game of ups and downs of things you almost have to buy or get on credit. Things usually only go up. That came from the variatable rate morgages of around 1980. It was high at around 8% for a standard fixed 30 year morgage when I bought a house. Some people I worked with had rates near that but variatable. Those rates went way up during that period of time. On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. |
Texas power
On 3/1/2021 5:49 PM, trader_4 wrote:
Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. I read that under certain circumstances there is a legitimate huge price jump that comes into play, the idea is to get people to cut use. I've not follow it closely though so don't know the details. Why have electricity prices increased in Texas? As the storm caused temperatures across the state to plummet early last week, the utility commission ordered ERCOT to allow prices to increase to reflect the lack of supply. As a result, electricity prices skyrocketed. ... Texas utility regulators allowed that price to rise to $9 per kilowatt-hour. The obvious question is who got all that money and how much profit did they make? If it's 2x, 3x the usual price, I can see that as the consequence to get more power, but 100x? The power sure didn't cost the provider anything like that to generate it. It's funny, there are laws and regulators that jump on some poor SOB selling a generator for double the price or gasoline for double, but this apparently they had nothing to prevent. Guess the windmills did it. A bunch went to gas suppliers. I read that wells that were not profitable were suddenly being put on line to grab some money. |
Texas power
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Texas power
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery
wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Anywhere but the "wild west" of unregulated republican Utopia of Texas |
Texas power
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:12:22 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/1/2021 6:40 PM, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. While I'd normally agree with you, this is beyond all ethical and moral business practice. If a normal bill is say $100 and it jumped to $1000 it would be bad, but to jump to $10,000? If I bought Game Stop or Bitcoin and it went to $0. I'd agree but this is far beyond what anyone could ever guess. It is not like buying a risky stock or a poker game. Why not? If you had a short position on a stock that skyrocketed you would need to make good on those shares at the market price. You could be on the hook for thousands in a wink of an eye. |
Texas power
On 03/01/2021 02:52 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. It the state agency that set the spot price at $9000 MW-hour. |
Texas power
On 3/1/2021 8:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/1/2021 6:40 PM, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws.Â* Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. While I'd normally agree with you, this is beyond all ethical and moral business practice.Â*Â*Â* If a normal bill is say $100 and it jumped to $1000 it would be bad, but to jump to $10,000? If I bought Game Stop or Bitcoin and it went to $0. I'd agree but this is far beyond what anyone could ever guess.Â* It is not like buying a risky stock or a poker game. If that is the agreement you have with your provider to normally get lower rates, you'd better have a really good generator that automatically takes over when the spot market goes above some fixed level. |
Texas power
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery
wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. |
Texas power
On Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:50:55 -0500, wrote:
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. There is the VERY RARE occaision where you can have the new financier pay the penalty to get your business and you can end up coming out ahead. It usually involves debt consolodation where you refinance for a higher amount and you are moving from floating rate to conventional fixed rate so all 3 parties are in on the same gamble. Otherwize there has to be a significant rate difference |
Texas power
On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 11:43:44 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:12:22 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote: On 3/1/2021 6:40 PM, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. While I'd normally agree with you, this is beyond all ethical and moral business practice. If a normal bill is say $100 and it jumped to $1000 it would be bad, but to jump to $10,000? If I bought Game Stop or Bitcoin and it went to $0. I'd agree but this is far beyond what anyone could ever guess. It is not like buying a risky stock or a poker game. Why not? If you had a short position on a stock that skyrocketed you would need to make good on those shares at the market price. You could be on the hook for thousands in a wink of an eye. First you brought up commodities and I asked you to show us any example where any commodity ever did anything like what we saw in TX, ie to go up by a factor of 100x in a few days. Failing that, now you want to move to stocks. So show us an example of that then. Where a stock skyrocketed by anything like 100x in a few days. Nothing like it. And if it did start to happen, you would know or should know it was happening and you could get out when it was up 20%, 50%, 100%. Gamestop is the most extreme example of anything like that I've ever seen and that's exactly what happened there. It went up a factor of 20x, over many days. Furthermore, you couldn't maintain the short position, without having sufficient capital to continue to cover it. Unless you had the margin account capital to back it up, you'd have to cover it or the brokerage would close the position without your. It's nothing at all like a consumer in TX being unaware of what the electricity price they were being charged today is and it going up 100x in just a few days. Factor in that life experience for consumers, many of which are elderly and/or not too smart is that utility bills can vary, but not by 100x in just a few days. But I'm sure most of them know the futures markets or shorting stocks can have a lot of risk and you need to be very careful. This is like walking into a coffee shop, asking for a large coffee, drinking it and then when you go to pay the bill, they say your owe $175 instead of $1.75. I suppose that would be OK too, it's the customer's fault for not checking the price first? There is your correct analogy. |
Texas power
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. |
Texas power
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 21:26:30 -0800, Bob F wrote:
On 3/1/2021 8:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote: On 3/1/2021 6:40 PM, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws.Â* Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. While I'd normally agree with you, this is beyond all ethical and moral business practice.Â*Â*Â* If a normal bill is say $100 and it jumped to $1000 it would be bad, but to jump to $10,000? If I bought Game Stop or Bitcoin and it went to $0. I'd agree but this is far beyond what anyone could ever guess.Â* It is not like buying a risky stock or a poker game. If that is the agreement you have with your provider to normally get lower rates, you'd better have a really good generator that automatically takes over when the spot market goes above some fixed level. We agree again Bob. The apocalypse must be near ;) |
Texas power
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 06:24:23 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote: On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. We would call that an " Open " mortgage - it helped me pay off my first house 1981-87 by putting $ 50 - 150 against the principle on payday, whenever I could. Standard mortgages would allow a paydown once-per-year on the anniversary - and it was often limited to a given % of principle. 10 - 20 % iirc ? "Open Mortgages" were available but not common then - the rates were higher. The stiff penalties were introduced during that crazy era of interest rates in the early 1980's I was at 18.5 % for a while in 1982 The olde standard, to get out of a mortgage was a 3-month interest penalty - in the early 80's new mortgages quickly became ALL the remaining interest ! That same terrible era also saw the advent of short term mortgages ; eg. 3 month ; variable rate mortgages ; weekly payments ; etc John T. |
Texas power
On Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:50:55 -0500, wrote:
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. I have refinanced a few times before. It really just depends on whether you have an early payment penalty written into your mortgage. Some do, some don't. You need to read before you sign or maybe spend a couple hundred and have your lawyer read it. Personally I would never sign a mortgage that I couldn't pay off early if I came into some extra money. You also want to be sure additional payments come off the principal and not just credited as future payments made early. The faster you can knock down that principal the cheaper your property ends up being. Even cutting a hundred bucks a month off the principal really makes a big difference on the back end. You get that lawyer money back many times over. OTOH if you are just a person who makes the scheduled payments and makes no effort to get out from under the debt, it really doesn't matter. |
Texas power
On 3/2/2021 12:50 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Maybe. I refinanced a couple of times years ago. The original mortgage had no penalty after 1 year. There were some closing costs but the payback was very quick on that too. That was 1981 when I relocated and was fortunate to get a low 15% compared to others paying 18%. |
Texas power
On 3/2/2021 9:24 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. I know of one but it is a commercial mortgage in the $1 million range. |
Texas power
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 06:20:25 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote: On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 11:43:44 PM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:12:22 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote: On 3/1/2021 6:40 PM, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. While I'd normally agree with you, this is beyond all ethical and moral business practice. If a normal bill is say $100 and it jumped to $1000 it would be bad, but to jump to $10,000? If I bought Game Stop or Bitcoin and it went to $0. I'd agree but this is far beyond what anyone could ever guess. It is not like buying a risky stock or a poker game. Why not? If you had a short position on a stock that skyrocketed you would need to make good on those shares at the market price. You could be on the hook for thousands in a wink of an eye. First you brought up commodities and I asked you to show us any example where any commodity ever did anything like what we saw in TX, ie to go up by a factor of 100x in a few days. Failing that, now you want to move to stocks. So show us an example of that then. Where a stock skyrocketed by anything like 100x in a few days. Nothing like it. And if it did start to happen, you would know or should know it was happening and you could get out when it was up 20%, 50%, 100%. Gamestop is the most extreme example of anything like that I've ever seen and that's exactly what happened there. It went up a factor of 20x, over many days. Furthermore, you couldn't maintain the short position, without having sufficient capital to continue to cover it. Unless you had the margin account capital to back it up, you'd have to cover it or the brokerage would close the position without your. It's nothing at all like a consumer in TX being unaware of what the electricity price they were being charged today is and it going up 100x in just a few days. Factor in that life experience for consumers, many of which are elderly and/or not too smart is that utility bills can vary, but not by 100x in just a few days. But I'm sure most of them know the futures markets or shorting stocks can have a lot of risk and you need to be very careful. This is like walking into a coffee shop, asking for a large coffee, drinking it and then when you go to pay the bill, they say your owe $175 instead of $1.75. I suppose that would be OK too, it's the customer's fault for not checking the price first? There is your correct analogy. I told you I don't play commodities but I imagine people who do can tell you some stories. As for the options market, just look at those people who were stuck in a short squeeze on GameStop and they bought on a margin. The thought is you can lever thousands into tens or even hundreds of thousands but you also assume the same kind of risk. In real life I don't need a better example of stupid financial decisions than Griddy. It happened. Bob had the right answer. If you are going to play this game, you better be watching the market 24/7 instead of just being happy your lights are on without asking how much that costs. These people could have cut their losses by flipping the main breaker right away. That $10 grand or whatever would have bought a real nice whole house generator and had plenty left over. |
Texas power
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 06:24:23 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote: On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. They do it, particularly when rates are really high. I had to shop to get one that didn't have the early payment penalty in the 70s. They also did not want to let you pay down the principal early. I was fortunate to know a person in the Riggs Mortgage Department (my MIL at the time) who looked over my contracts before I signed and marked them up as to how I wanted them to read before I would sign. We found someone who wanted the business enough to go in their drawer and get the contract I wanted. They usually have them, it is just not their first offer. I suspect a contract with a fixed payment schedule is easier to sell. That was my condo. I refinanced twice and paid down the principal every time I had a few extra bucks. An original 30 year note was paid off in less than 10. The last 15 year mortgage I had was actually a smaller payment than the original 30 year. I was doubling up on them most months. That went real fast. |
Texas power
trader_4 writes:
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. The biggest cost is that you're resetting your amortization clock. So you often end up paying more in interest over the life of the loan, even tho the rate is lower. Far better to just double your principle on each (or even every other) house payment. You'll save much more over the long run. |
Texas power
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Texas power
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 9:47:12 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 06:24:23 -0800 (PST), trader_4 wrote: On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. We would call that an " Open " mortgage - it helped me pay off my first house 1981-87 by putting $ 50 - 150 against the principle on payday, whenever I could. Standard mortgages would allow a paydown once-per-year on the anniversary - and it was often limited to a given % of principle. 10 - 20 % iirc ? "Open Mortgages" were available but not common then - the rates were higher. The stiff penalties were introduced during that crazy era of interest rates in the early 1980's I was at 18.5 % for a while in 1982 The olde standard, to get out of a mortgage was a 3-month interest penalty - in the early 80's new mortgages quickly became ALL the remaining interest ! That same terrible era also saw the advent of short term mortgages ; eg. 3 month ; variable rate mortgages ; weekly payments ; etc John T. So doing the math, if it's a three month penalty and you had a 6% mortgage, getting out would cost you 1.5%. If the new loan is 1% lower, your recover that in 1.5 years. But you'd also have the other associated new loan costs to recover. Bottom line you can still pay off early in Canada to move to a lower rate, but the interest rate differential has to be wider to make it practical. Also timing becomes more important. When you can pay off with no penalty, it makes it easier to shop around for a new loan with low upfront costs that if you have that penalty to contend with. Sometimes here it could makes sense to refinance for 0.5%, typically at 1% it's a no brainer. What happens if you sell the property, same pre-payment penalty? This is interesting because the US is thought of as more of the free capitalism country, Canada more socialistic, buy we have no penalty, you do. |
Texas power
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 11:51:08 AM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote:
writes: I told you I don't play commodities but I imagine people who do can tell you some stories. As for the options market, just look at those people who were stuck in a short squeeze on GameStop and they bought on a margin. The "shorts" who were "squeezed" were mainly institutional investors and hedge funds, and yes, many recorded losses - albeit affordable for them; it was simply a hedge that didn't pay off, part of daily business in a hedge fund. The amateurs who got hurt were, as noted, buying on margin; the same behavior that cause the big crash in 1929. Mostly agree, but the amateurs that got hurt were not necessarily limited to margin buyers. There are likely dummies that bought it at $400, expecting it to go to $1000. Dummies that bought it at $400 and are still holding it waiting for it to go back so they can break even, etc. This is really bad. It's the first time the internet has been used to flagrantly organize a campaign to manipulate a stock price. And if it expands to more stocks, it's the path to using the internet to destabilize stock prices. |
Texas power
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 10:13:03 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 06:20:25 -0800 (PST), trader_4 wrote: On Monday, March 1, 2021 at 11:43:44 PM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:12:22 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote: On 3/1/2021 6:40 PM, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 16:52:51 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... How can there be an electric charge of one weeks of power that exceeds abot 3 times what it should be for a year ? Deregulation. Simply put, as the supply of electricity approached zero, the price of electricity approached infinity. Cindy Hamilton Looks like that should somehow come under the price gouging laws. Where if due to some disaster prices can not rise much above the normal price range. Bear in mind this was only one company offering a very speculative pricing scheme tied to the wholesale price of power with no caps on the top or bottom number. Nobody complained when they were getting electricity for half price or less. There were plenty of normal options for these people. If you really want to play this game, give them an account number with limited funds in it and fight with them before you pay, not after the fact. The guy who gave them access to his life savings was a moron. While I'd normally agree with you, this is beyond all ethical and moral business practice. If a normal bill is say $100 and it jumped to $1000 it would be bad, but to jump to $10,000? If I bought Game Stop or Bitcoin and it went to $0. I'd agree but this is far beyond what anyone could ever guess. It is not like buying a risky stock or a poker game. Why not? If you had a short position on a stock that skyrocketed you would need to make good on those shares at the market price. You could be on the hook for thousands in a wink of an eye. First you brought up commodities and I asked you to show us any example where any commodity ever did anything like what we saw in TX, ie to go up by a factor of 100x in a few days. Failing that, now you want to move to stocks. So show us an example of that then. Where a stock skyrocketed by anything like 100x in a few days. Nothing like it. And if it did start to happen, you would know or should know it was happening and you could get out when it was up 20%, 50%, 100%. Gamestop is the most extreme example of anything like that I've ever seen and that's exactly what happened there. It went up a factor of 20x, over many days. Furthermore, you couldn't maintain the short position, without having sufficient capital to continue to cover it. Unless you had the margin account capital to back it up, you'd have to cover it or the brokerage would close the position without your. It's nothing at all like a consumer in TX being unaware of what the electricity price they were being charged today is and it going up 100x in just a few days. Factor in that life experience for consumers, many of which are elderly and/or not too smart is that utility bills can vary, but not by 100x in just a few days. But I'm sure most of them know the futures markets or shorting stocks can have a lot of risk and you need to be very careful. This is like walking into a coffee shop, asking for a large coffee, drinking it and then when you go to pay the bill, they say your owe $175 instead of $1.75. I suppose that would be OK too, it's the customer's fault for not checking the price first? There is your correct analogy. I told you I don't play commodities but I imagine people who do can tell you some stories. In other words you have no example of any commodity that went up 100X in just a few days. That's understandable, because it doesn't exist. As for the options market, just look at those people who were stuck in a short squeeze on GameStop and they bought on a margin. The thought is you can lever thousands into tens or even hundreds of thousands but you also assume the same kind of risk. Like Scott said, those "people" were mostly hedge funds. If not and they are individual investors, then to be shorting stocks it's reasonable to expect that you have some smarts and that you are at risk. And again, even then Gamestop didn't got up 100X, it went up about 20X and that took many days, almost everyone that was short was monitoring their position and had many days to get out. Not so with those TX utility bills. In real life I don't need a better example of stupid financial decisions than Griddy. It happened. Bob had the right answer. If you are going to play this game, you better be watching the market 24/7 instead of just being happy your lights are on without asking how much that costs. These people could have cut their losses by flipping the main breaker right away. That $10 grand or whatever would have bought a real nice whole house generator and had plenty left over. Sure, I expected that would be your answer. Expecting regulators to prevent this kind of absurd ripoff is too much to ask for. And that is exactly what it was. Or are you going to try to tell us that some power suppliers had legitimate costs that suddenly went up 100X in a day? But at least it's consistent with your '**** the Kurds". This time it's **** all the consumers in TX, it's their fault and this kind of abuse of capitalism is OK. Are you living in 1900? Even the barrons of the day back then probably didn't pull this crap. |
Texas power
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Texas power
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Texas power
"trader_4" wrote in message ... On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. Is that how it works in Canada? And in Australia too. Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all Thats not the same thing, most obviously when you sell the house. and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. |
Texas power
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 12:48:23 -0500, Ralph Mowery
wrote: In article , says... If that is the agreement you have with your provider to normally get lower rates, you'd better have a really good generator that automatically takes over when the spot market goes above some fixed level. How does a home owner in TX know when the price goes up or down ? They know when they get their bill. There is no other form of official notification. A select few might see/hear something on the news and take action to limit their usage, but most would be oblivious until the bill arrives. The large company I worked for would get a telephone call years ago telling them that at a certain time the natural gas was going to another rate and to get on the fuel oil. Does TX do this for each house, or does the rate just go up and the home owner had no idea before the payment statement is sent in the mail ? Playing the power pricing game is much differnet than the stock market game. Most have to have the electricity no matter the cost, but you set your own limit as to how much you want to risk in the stock market, or not even play it at all. |
Texas power
In article ,
lid says... In article , says... If that is the agreement you have with your provider to normally get lower rates, you'd better have a really good generator that automatically takes over when the spot market goes above some fixed level. How does a home owner in TX know when the price goes up or down ? They know when they get their bill. There is no other form of official notification. A select few might see/hear something on the news and take action to limit their usage, but most would be oblivious until the bill arrives So there is no way to know when to limit your power usage or when to switch to your own generator. Sure am glad I do not live in an area where you only get to know the price of the almost necessary items way after you use them. The only other place I can think of like that would be the doctor or hospital but most of the time insurance will cover you after reach a certain ammount out of pocket. |
Texas power
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 10:08:28 AM UTC-5, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/2/2021 9:24 AM, trader_4 wrote: On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:44:39 AM UTC-5, wrote: On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:07:18 -0500, Ralph Mowery wrote: In article , says... On the other hand, those who got variable rates in 1992 when they were starting at 9.25%, made out quite well as they quickly dropped to 7 and later 5%. When the rates drop one can usually negociate for the lower rates even on fixed rates, or go to another bank (lender). You'd need to buy your way out of the mortgage - the penalty is usually the interest they are losing plus a fee for the trouble. John T. Is that how it works in Canada? Not here in the US. I've never seen a mortgage with a pre-payment penalty at all and I would bet that it's probably illegal in many states. I've refinanced many times with no penalty. The only costs are whatever it takes to get the new mortgage, eg application fee, appraisal fee, misc fee, etc. I know of one but it is a commercial mortgage in the $1 million range. I just checked. Since the 80s prepayment penalties have been in illegal in NJ, on fixed rate mortgages, but they are OK on ARM mortgages. |
Lonely Obnoxious Cantankerous Auto-contradicting Senile Ozzie Troll Alert!
On Wed, 3 Mar 2021 05:13:04 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again: FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread -- "Who or What is Rod Speed? Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod Speed is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered he can enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing "the big, hard man" on the InterNet." https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/ |
Texas power
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 09:08:26 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote: On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 11:51:08 AM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote: writes: I told you I don't play commodities but I imagine people who do can tell you some stories. As for the options market, just look at those people who were stuck in a short squeeze on GameStop and they bought on a margin. The "shorts" who were "squeezed" were mainly institutional investors and hedge funds, and yes, many recorded losses - albeit affordable for them; it was simply a hedge that didn't pay off, part of daily business in a hedge fund. The amateurs who got hurt were, as noted, buying on margin; the same behavior that cause the big crash in 1929. Mostly agree, but the amateurs that got hurt were not necessarily limited to margin buyers. There are likely dummies that bought it at $400, expecting it to go to $1000. Dummies that bought it at $400 and are still holding it waiting for it to go back so they can break even, etc. This is really bad. It's the first time the internet has been used to flagrantly organize a campaign to manipulate a stock price. And if it expands to more stocks, it's the path to using the internet to destabilize stock prices. I doubt it is the first time, just the worst time. People have been pumping and dumping stocks as long as there were financial yacking groups. I always considered guys like Creamer were a pump and dumper guys. Back when I was dabbling in day trading I used to put in a buy order for a stock as soon as Jim started talking about it and put in a sell order right away at 10% up or more. I usually sold it a few days later. Seldom did the price get much better and it usually went back to where it was or worse. I did get tricked with SHLD because I got too greedy on my sell order. Then it ended up being a wash for some of my other short term trades when it crashed. I am a tad more conservative now and not much short term. The tax laws make it unattractive. |
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