🚀 go-pugleaf

Tom Keener wrote:
> What I find curious is a market based on the _highest_ price for a
> commodity.

Every business works that way.  There is a market price for potatoes
which is the equilibrium reached in the marketplace between the highest
cost producer necessary to satisfy demand, and the highest price
consumers are willing to pay. 

If you are able to produce potatoes for less, you pocket the
difference.  

> Who are the bozos bidding these prices? And what's to
> prevent them from bidding 100x what the prices are today?

If a single generator bid 100x, their bid would be ignored, and they
would lose the revenue they would get if they bid at a more reasonable
price.  If multiple bidders got  together and decided to boost all of
their bids by 100x, they would be violating antitrust law by colluding.  

> The
> knowledge that the turnip is already bled dry and they won't get their
> money? Do you really want to let an industry bankrupt an entire state?

What is bankrupting the state is the absurd policy of having the state
pay the costs rather than passing them on to consumers, who would then
be a hell of a lot more likely to conserve than they are now (especially
the 60% or so who are below 130%-of-baseline and are thus protected by
law from *any* rate increase).