Fear and money, as these past few years of recession have made abundantly clear, are two very powerful political forces especially when combined. And as we’re seeing right now in places like Wisconsin, powerful political and corporate players are hard at work exploiting fears over money to advance their political agendas. It’s the worst form of cynical political ploys

That’s hardly a formula for economic Armageddon.

But just add fear and a few more dollar signs to the picture and all reason goes out the window. For instance, the Maryland Public Service Commission, while remaining officially neutral on the legislation, helped confuse committee members by offering a scale of potential monthly price hikes that ranged from $1.44 all the way to $8.70.

Never mind that the upper end of that scale was, as wind developers pointed out, gleaned from an offshore wind project in Rhode Island that was far smaller than and thus lacked the economy of scale of the proposed 500 MW Maryland project. The figure was enough to raise alarm, and appeared to overshadow other facts in the minds of some committee members