Bottom Line
It is critical for Canada and the United States to get to the bottom of what caused the lights to go out last Thursday. At this writing, blame is being placed on transmission wires in Ohio, but no one has explained why the trouble spread so quickly and affected an estimated 50 million people. The issues surrounding the event are complex, given the numbers of states and companies involved. Some power plants are still offline, notably the nuclear facilities, which take longer to restart. It is difficult to tote up the economic cost of the event, which turned out to be a colossal inconvenience for most. In France, officials will have to find out why 3,000 people died during the extraordinary heat wave that griped most of Europe for the past two weeks. In the week ahead, there is a paucity of economic data, giving investors an excuse to enjoy one of the last weeks of the summer.

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