Unfortunately, sometimes you see big wealth transfers occur when something becomes scarce.
In general, you have to have a pretty serious market power concern before you go down this road [of price controls], because the chances of causing shortages and causing gas lines are quite significant. Hawaii seems to have designed this so it's much less likely to happen, and Hawaii has a credible argument to be made that they face a significant market power problem.
I think that's a big issue that a bankruptcy court is going to have to confront. What's the ongoing responsibility of the company and what's the legal liability in the contracts.
They continued to build and complete plants after it was clear the market was down.
We're swimming in gasoline right now. But this is not a sustainable level.
It's not like this is a gigantic change in the cost per mile of driving your car. That's why you won't see many people get rid of their cars or suddenly decide they can't drive to work anymore or will take the subway or whatever.
It looked like money down a rat hole. I can certainly see why they'd be cautious now. Just because you're making an extra $35 a barrel doesn't mean you should be pouring that into exploration.
Next year, we'll quite likely have rates higher than this winter. The futures market for natural gas is telling us that these prices are not temporary.
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