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360 NEW CASES A DAY FOR 4 DAYS —478 NEW COVID CASES WEDNESDAY

 WESTCHESTER CREEPING SURGE AT MIDWEEK CONTINUES.

5^TH WEEK IN THE LAST 6 SHOWING INCREASE IN CASES: END OF WEEK: PROJECTS TO 2,500 NEW CASES (360 A DAY)

WPCNR CORONA VIRUS SURVEILLANCE . From the New York State Covid Tracker. Observation and Analysis by John F. Bailey. July 14, 2022:

Governor Kathy Hochul’s  covid report today recorded Westchester County new covid positive persons numbered 478, bringing the 4 day total beginning Sunday to 1,424 persons 350 persons daily.

If total new positives to come Thursday,Friday and Saturday in the county remain the same without going up, the county will top 2,500 infections for the week, the third consecutive week of an increase in covid cases, and 5^th of the last six weeks.

The total new Westcheste covid cases infections since July 1 stands at 4,377.

As WCNR has reported the June 2021 infections of new covid in the euphoria of opening up  and relaxing covid precautions (with complete state legislature approval) produced 450 new infections. June of 2022 has produced 9,991, that is 333 infections a day compared to 15 a day last June.

What did the 450 infections produce last July after it was “anything goes” time?  57 infections a day, a total of  1,724 for the month…starting a third wave in August, a 4^th wave in November and a 5^th wave the largest in January.

The infections in July 2022 right now stand at 4,377 through the first 14 days of the month. That is a 40% increase over what last July social habits of the county population went back to “normal.” 

With 10,000 infections in June working out there and only spread to 1 other person. We will have 10,000 new infections in July.  The evidence of this phenomenon of a demonstrated strong surge every week 2 days after the weekend shows people are coming down with covid faster, and feeling they have to get tested, go to a doctor and get a Lab test and are getting positive.

The after thought I have is that since on lab reported tests are being counted in the state figures and the infections rates of the small tests administered in the county means there is a lot more covid positives out there we do not know about.

Hospitalizations reported by the Center for Disease Control are also filling up County Hospitals. County Executive George Latimer put hospitalizations at 150 in his Monday briefing put covid is putting more persons in the ICU units.

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. From the Department of Justice. July 13, 2022:

ANTITRUST LAWS AND YOU

Many consumers have never heard of antitrust laws, but enforcement of these laws saves consumers millions and even billions of dollars a year. The Federal Government enforces three major Federal antitrust laws, and most states also have their own. Essentially, these laws prohibit business practices that unreasonably deprive consumers of the benefits of competition, resulting in higher prices for products and services.

The three major Federal antitrust laws are:

• The Sherman Antitrust Act
• The Clayton Act
• The Federal Trade Commission Act.

The following information on these laws comes from the Antitrust Enforcement and the Consumer guide.

The Sherman Antitrust Act

This Act outlaws all contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that unreasonably restrain interstate and foreign trade. This includes agreements among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers, which are punishable as criminal felonies.

The Sherman Act also makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct.

The Act, however, is not violated simply when one firm’s vigorous competition and lower prices take sales from its less efficient competitors; in that case, competition is working properly.

The Clayton Act

This Act is a civil statute (carrying no criminal penalties) that prohibits mergers or acquisitions that are likely to lessen competition. Under this Act, the Government challenges those mergers that are likely to increase prices to consumers. All persons considering a merger or acquisition above a certain size must notify both the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission. The Act also prohibits other business practices that may harm competition under certain circumstances.

The Federal Trade Commission Act

This Act prohibits unfair methods of competition in interstate commerce, but carries no criminal penalties. It also created the Federal Trade Commission to police violations of the Act.

Related Offenses

The Antitrust Division also often uses other laws to fight illegal activities that arise from conduct accompanying antitrust violations or that otherwise impact the competitive process, as well as offenses that involve the integrity of an antitrust or related investigation, including laws that prohibit false statements to Federal agencies, perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracies to defraud the United States and mail and wire fraud. Each of these crimes carries its own fine and imprisonment term, which may be added to the fines and imprisonment terms for antitrust law violations.

(Editor’s Note:) The most common anti-trust behavior on the part of businesses is collusion. The Justice Department provides these examples:)

“Most criminal antitrust presecutions involve price fixing, bid rigging, or market division or allocation schemes. Each of these forms of collusion may be prosecuted criminally if they occurred at least in part, within the past five years.

Proving such a crime does not require us (The Department of Justice) to show that the conspirators entered into a formal written or express agreement.

Price fixing, bid rigging, and other collusive agreements can be established either by direct evidence, such as the testimony of a participant, or by circumstantial evidence, such as suspicious bid patterns, travel and expense reports, telephone records, and business diary entries.

Under the law, price-fixing and bid-rigging schemes are per se violations of the Sherman Act. This means that where such a collusive scheme has been established, it cannot be justified under the law by arguments or evidence that, for example, the agreed-upon prices were reasonable, the agreement was necessary to prevent or eliminate price-cutting or ruinous competition, or the conspirators were merely trying to make sure that each got a fair share of the market.

Price fixing is an agreement among competitors to raise, fix, or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods, or services are sold.

It is not necessarily that competitors agree to charge exactly the same price, or that every competitor in a given industry join the conspiracy.

Price fixing can take many forms, and any agreement that restricts price competition violates the law.

Examples of Price-Fixing agreements include those to:

• Establish or adhere to price discounts.
• Hold prices firm.
• Eliminate or reduce discounts.
• Adopt a standard formula for computing prices.
• Maintain certain price differentials between different types, sizes, or quantities of products.
• Adhere to a minimum fee or price schedule.
• Fix Credit terms.
• Not advertise prices.

For more information, email antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov or phone 1-888-647-3288

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WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey July 12, 2022:

One supplier Constellation Energy has informed customers in White Plains they could purchase electricity directly from them, bypassing Con Edison but the cost per kilowatt hour would double from about 7-1/2 cents a kilowatt hour to 15 cents a kilowatt hour, a possibility that will start to come true in two weeks.

The only way to control your bill is by conserving electricity, since your new Con Edison will be based on usage

As of 12 days ago, Sustainable Westchester (Westchester Power) turned over its customers participating in it six year energy cooperative of 28 towns and cities to Con Edison which will supply the electricity to them until the Sustainable management can obtain competitive green energy and traditional fossil and natural gas electricity. Con Edison will in addition charge for delivery as it does under the present Sustainable contract.

The first billings from Con Edison to Sustainable clients will be coming out approximately the first of August at the height of the electric demand year, aggravated by the consistent mid-80s and 90s weather.

In the spring Sustainable Westchester announced it could not obtain competitive rates due the raising of electricity prices across the board of its roster of suppliers. The non-profit said it hoped to negotiate competitive green energy rates (using solar, wind and water as power sources) and traditionally manufactured electricity after high energy costs declined.

One supplier Constellation Energy has informed customers in White Plains they could purchase electricity directly from them, bypassing Con Edison but the cost per kilowatt hour would double from about 7-1/2 cents a kilowatt hour to 15 cents a kilowatt hour.

To date no public leader or official, including the administration of White Plains has commented on this shift which will cost Westchester consumers in a Sustainable Westchester community plenty.

The independent energy community of ESCOs as they are known have indicated that increased energy costs for oil, natural gas as well as green sources has caused by what appears to be a unilaterally similar array of rates far beyond what Sustainable Westchester has been able to provide as rates in the past at a fixed rate over the course of two years. Sustainable Westchester has supplied the clean energy and fossil fuel reduced rates through its 27 community consortium of pooled buying power.

If the customer chooses to switch permanently to Con Edison for their electric power, they may not rejoin Sustainable Westchester.

In order to retain the right to Sustainable Westchester rates after the power provider obtains an attractive set of new rates to offer members in the consortium of 28 towns, they must stay in the cooperative.

For the last six months Con Edision has in a promotion aimed at Sustainable Customers, “green Rates” through Con Edison, with a fixed rate of $10.40 for the first month and can flucuate monthly based on energy supply.

The direct marketing promotions of Con Ed made no mention of the impending Sustainable Westchester ‘pause”.

WPCNR has made calls to Sustainable Westchester for a statement and comment on the details on how high the new charges Sustainable was presented with that effectively priced Sustainable out of the ability to obtain discounts even with the largest cities and towns of Westchester, including White Plains, pooling their energy buying power.

WPCNR was interested in the percent of energy price offerings increases to Sustainable Westchester and whether the “high range” was essentially parallel.

Those calls were not responded to. I asked if the price increases Sustainable faced could be construed as a joint, but certainly unintentional effort to make the Sustainable Westchester model of consortium buying unable to work.

No calls were received back from Sustainable Westchester

This week Sustainable announced the following changes as the company resolutely moves ahead to obtain energy savings for its customers

40 Green Street Mt. Kisco, NY 10549 United States 914-242-4725