Shame? Sham!: Inside the Electric Power Industry [Paperback]

Jack Casazza (Author), John Casazza (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Mandrill (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931633010
• ISBN-13: 978-1931633017
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,229,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Food for electric-deregulative thought, May 13, 2002

By 

John S. Duckworth (Burke, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Shame? Sham!: Inside the Electric Power Industry (Paperback)

Jack Casazza tells us some details about the rocky road in California's electric power deregulation, but more importantly it's the overall flavor of his history of electric power in this country and his description of the new breed of top brass in the industry that foretells the pitfalls facing this nation in its experiment in a free power market.

It should be obvious from reading "Sham Shame" that there are very few people capable of managing a new for-profit industry who can draw the line between corporate profits and public well-being that will please the customers or the government.

On the one hand the government tells the power companies that it's a bright new world where then can make large profits if they compete well and on the other hand expects that those power companies will forego those profits for public good. Jack makes it clear that the industry is far too complex and has too many opportunities for making profits for the government to oversee. It is also clear that since the government had no idea what would result from deregulation, or at least no ideas it was willing to share with the public beforehand, it is now in the position of having to blame everyone but itself for the claimed unforseen consequences.

The government had the opportunity to look at the predictions of price increases and loss of reliability but chose instead to ignore them and plunge forward with an unrestrained free power market while expecting a trial-and-error philosophy would keep the whole thing from spinning too far out of control.

While Jack's book refrains from naming names and pointing fingers to the maximum extent possible, it is clear from reading between the lines that the profit-seekers who wanted into the market and regulators who wanted them there weren't at all honest the American people about what they knew of the downside of deregulation and what they obviously suspected might be coming.

Jack needs to write a sequel, "They Hear, See and Smell no Evil" about the government's current investigation of the industry for what it knew and what it did that was not in the best public interest. Then he can write another, "Blind Trust," about who should investigate the government for what it knew and what it did not do in the public's interest.

While these aren't the questions Jack Casazza asks, they are the questions that naturally come to mind when intelligent people read "Sham Shame."

While I have read a few more well-written books, I have read none more frank or thought-provoking.

Jack Duckworth, author of "Power to the People - Electric Power Deregulation, an Expose" ISBN 0967911958