Flutterby™! : JP Morgan screws California

Oh, look, California's energy consumers have been further funding the leeches on Wall Street: LA Times: Manipulation of California energy market gives consumers a jolt:

What's worse, it shows that we haven't learned anything from Enron's bogus energy trading, the disclosure of which helped destroy that firm in 2001 and land several of its executives in jail. To the extent it was designed to exploit loopholes in energy trading rules, experts say, the scheme allegedly perpetrated by JPMorgan Ventures Energy Corp. is cut from the same cloth as Enron's infamous "fat boy" swindle, which cost the state's ratepayers an estimated $1.4 billion in 2000.

(Via MeFi)

I've been thinking recently about why I'm no longer an Ayn Rand quoting Objectivist libertarian. One of the reasons is that I've found precious few examples of the independent capitalist innovator who doesn't vote Democrat nor embrace an engagement with an economic system, the other is that most of those successful are simply leeches on the system. Seems like this is yet another example of that.