Energy, Cont’d
California Gov. Gray Davis’ plan to tax ratepayers to pay for a $9 billion acquisition of the state’s power grid is an economic lunacy of staggering proportions. If there’s one thing the California electricity crisis should have taught us, it’s that the politicians and regulators in California haven’t the faintest idea what they’re doing in the power business. It’s as if the state has awakened with a hangover and decided that the best cure is another fifth of Jack Daniels.
The idea that state bureaucrats can run the power system better than businessmen and investor-owned corporations is the same kind of thinking that produced the wonderful power systems of the old Soviet bloc. It’s not just a matter of competency; it’s a matter of the inevitable introduction of logrolling, interest-group favoritism and pork-barrel decision-making whenever politicians manage economic enterprises.
Playing musical chairs over grid ownership will do nothing to remedy high wholesale electricity prices or the shortages caused by the rate caps. The requirement that utilities continue to keep operating their power plants for 10 years and sell that power at cost will also make matters worse, bleeding the utilities further into the red with additional price controls.
The bottom line is that Californians will end up paying for the full cost of electricity either as ratepayers or as taxpayers. Davis’ intervention plan hides as much of those costs as possible but inflates them unnecessarily by introducing the politician’s cut to the entire enterprise.
Jerry Taylor
(Taylor is director of natural resource studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, www.cato.org.)
The Election, Cont’d
An independent report released on Feb. 2 accuses television networks of interfering with democracy and confusing the public on election night by prematurely declaring the results of the election that night.
All of the major networks have since promised not to call a state for a candidate before all polls are closed there and have vowed to examine the methodology of Voter News Service, the polling firm owned by a consortium of TV networks.
But we’ve seen and heard their sleight-of-hand act before. After each and every outrageous behavior they promise us they will do better next time. They try to behave, that is, until next time when they come up with something even more preposterous and unimaginable.
We have a suggestion:
Maybe term limits should apply to TV anchors, news directors and network news bigwigs. Why should some of these guys and gals be in the same position for 30 years or more? Name one public place, corporation or institution where the head honcho, CEO, president, or chairman of the board stays forever.
Guys like Rather, Brokaw and Jennings and gals like Cokie and Katie think they are more important than the news. How often do we have to listen to them prattle while trying to watch and listen to a major speech or inauguration? Their arrogance is so stifling they don’t feel that their interpretations of thoughts and events should be marked as “commentary.”
The anchors will fight to death for their First Amendment rights to the point of paranoia. It doesn’t bother them that they deprived many of us individually, and the nation as a whole, of our aggregate rights to elect the president.
No apologies have been issued. Instead, they smirk, smile, spit and sputter about how they might have made a mistake.
Maybe this is why Americans are using alternative news sources more frequently and why the network news attracts fewer and fewer viewers.
We suggest the major networks reassess their flawed policy of “head anchor until death or disability.” If the president of the United States is limited to eight years, maybe there should be some term limits for those holier-than-thou anchors.
Michael Arnold Glueck
Robert J. Cihak
(Glueck, of Newport Beach, and Cihak, of Aberdeen, Wash., are doctors and writers.)
Bad Times
During the election, Democrats and the national media were touting the best economy in world history. So, who flipped the switch?
Bam! Companies like dominos are having layoffs. The stock market is in the loo, foreign firms are leaving to go home, and industry consolidations leave us with higher prices and fewer choices. Microsoft thinks its time for a new operating system, again. This might mean even more downtime and questionable productivity for industry. Goodness, even football has been dumbed down to tawdry levels reminiscent of ancient Rome.
Is 1984 finally here? Are we being controlled by the media, powerful interest groups and huge companies? Are we now the masses who are being led around by the nose, losing our freedom of choice and quality of life? I pray for our country and I pray we have the leadership to make this blip in time pass without too much pain.
The only thing that hasn’t happened is someone turning out the lights! Oh, that’s right, they might do that, too.
Barry M. Gold
Irvine
