Gasbags

In a certain city-state, not so far away, the wise men raised the price of electricity by 21%.

The public representative asked, "Why was this done?"

The reply from the electricity man was, "Because the price of oil has gone up quite a bit."

The public representative said, "But 80% of our electricity comes from natural gas."

The electricity man replied with a perfectly straight face, "But we don't know how to price gas; however, we do know how to price oil. And oil is high, so you will all have to pay 21% more."

A village elder said, "Hey, wait a minute, the gas price is now about 20% of the oil price and hardly bears any relationship to it anyway! It is like monitoring the price of gold and using it to price silver!"

The electricity man said, "In the absence of evidence, we are forced by market forces to charge what the market will bear."

And that is how bears came to the city.