Who is Integrys?

I have a bad feeling about this. Chicago is rushing to hand their electricity to Integrys, which seems like a fly by night company operating in the chronically energy short northeast, instead of sticking with Commonwealth Edison, which has the single most reliable power record in the U.S. They claim it will be cheaper, but Integrys says, hmm, well, it's risky and variable priced. But everybody has a choice to Opt Out. My electric bill under CommEd has typically been under $20 a month in winter and $40 in summer, and I've never had a power outage. Why would we want to sign up with these folks? Something about the whole thing smells fishy. Don't forget the idiots who run finance in Chicago also handed over the parking meters to a private company for 75 years in return for a billion dollars, allowing the company to quadruple prices and effectively killing off half of the small businesses in the neighborhoods. And they've started allowing Wal-Marts into the city after Wal Mart's foundation ponied bup $23 million to charter schools. It just seems like there is a pattern of corruption and criminality in all these decisions which is going to end up soaking us, the end consumers.

• Twenty bucks in winter?! Do you own a refrigerator?

• CommEd wants to raise rates of course, and obviously they will have to if Integrys steals customers, perhaps thereby getting around regulators who have kept them from doing so. But where is Integrys getting this cheap power? Something is not adding up.

• Yes R1. I have a refrigerator.

• You run your whole place -- lights, audio/visual, computers, and appliances -- for $20 in Chicago. Hard to believe.

• No it's not r4. Lived in Chicago as well and unless you are powering a mainframe - you do not pay a lot in electricity.

• It's a fact. But I really wonder if I will continue to do so after we move to Integrys.

• In 2013 it will go up some for the smart grid, but won't Integrys be buying its energy from ComEd anyway?

• During the California rolling blackouts/brownouts caused by Enron and others, LA was unaffected because they still owned their utility. Cities that own their own utilities usually have much cheaper and better run power supplies.

• I looked up the company and city of Chicago with your GAYOR, fellow Rahm Emmanuel, you can opt out if you want to. How dumb must you be. Oh yeah you think Poz Face Obama is not gay.

• Poz Face Obama? Unh? what does that have to do with the topic at hand? That's a topic for another day. Rim Emmanuel is a Gayor? why because he was a ballet dancer or because you know that she's on the downlow? What is the reaction to the parking meter issue there? I can't believe the Chicago government got away with it...in NYC there would be riots.

• oh gawd, Rushish Limpballs arrived

• R9 the point is opting out won't make any difference if CommEd has to jack up rates because they have lost all this business.