No no, the bug is it told you it hid results instead of just secretly hiding them. Hiding them was the intended behavior.

I’d say their example is just an oversimplification to keep it understandable. Ultimately fuel based energy has a lot of the same concerns. That natural gas facility costs money to keep viable even if, hypothetically, zero fuel were being burned in some given week. The power lines need repairs, maintenance, upgrades, and expansion over the potential capacity, not actual usage. You have fixed costs alongside the marginal costs. The marginal costs certainly make sense to map directly to usage based rate, but fixed costs are significantly covered by those usage rates as well rather than bumping up the “basic charge” sort of line item on a power bill.

Seems like in such a case, it should be a different mix of base fixed monthly bill versus usage based rates, to more accurately reflect the cost structure in play.

For example, in my area it’s about $15 a month even if you use absolutely no electricity, that’s just the base charge ostensibly for the infrastructure required to deliver power, should you want it. It might make sense for this number to be increased rather than raising $/kwh rates.

Suppose the counter would be that at least with the rate increase, folks in more dire circumstances can cut back to avoid the increasing costs (which might be a bit of a feedback loop…)

So I had a relative who passed, but saw it coming and tried to make some moves to make sure his only son was set up to take care of his wife, because his wife had never really had to “be an adult” and went her entire life without handling any bills or finances or anything. So when he passed at least his middle aged son would be there to handle things including their house.

So he died and sure enough, she couldn’t handle independent living. So they decided to sell the house and she’d move in with another relative. So the rest of us are thinking “oh good, at least they cashed out in this crazy high real estate market to have a bit of a cushion”.

However, no one thought about how little the middle aged son had to worry about things like housing and stuff. He never had to buy or rent a house, he had a hand me down trailer parked on a relatives land. He always had a used car gifted to him by and other relative getting rid of it. So he had no idea what he was doing either, thought a seller’s agent was a scam to take their money, and they ended up selling the whole house and land for about $50k before any one else had any idea that they were even thinking of selling.

As well liked as he is, so much frustration when everyone has to take on a burden to help them and they make such a huge mistake that could have made things so much easier.

Interesting to have a relatively large family to see all the scenarios play out. Also have a relative that is spending all his money and is mortgaged to his eyes, and another relative who lived like a pauper who turned out to have a couple million in liquidity in her 80s because she wanted her kid to be surprised when they got hit with a big inheritance.

Just as an FYI, sometimes mental health gets special coverage. So I have one of those high deductible plans but a few therapist visits are 100% percent covered before normal insurance math kicks in. I’ve been told this is a fairly frequent feature of employer coverage for whatever reason.

I wonder if a follow up question is in order. Like do they also expect to make even more money than prices will go up.

That’s the only vaguely plausible answer I can think of. Say hypothetically they think prices will go up 20%, but they somehow think they will be getting 40% more so it’s fine and the price increase only serves to further dissuade immigrants or something.

A company offered me a million dollars to work for them, but then I remembered the ping pong table at my current employer and said no way. Totally worth it.