Electric costs see biggest increase in 25 years; government sits on ass

Aw shit, not this horsecrap again! This isn't even the first entry like this here in the past month or two, but the situation is just so out of control that it's crying out for some government intervention.

The Energy Department said today that the average cost of electricity soared by over 9% last year - the biggest increase since 1981, when Reagan seized power. This announcement comes only days after the government gave Social Security its smallest increase in several years. (Still think it's not a benefit cut?)

To the surprise of few, the worst jumps were in states that removed the caps on electric rates. In fact, it's probably to the surprise of nobody, because I can't imagine anyone who claimed that deregulating price caps would make electricity less costly actually believed this bullshit. That's exactly like saying a ball won't bounce higher if you remove the ceiling from your house.

And there isn't any more competition either. Our power company here is still a monopoly - as is the case in most of America. If competition was allowed, there's no way power companies would be able to charge 9% more than the previous year - unless of course they were illegally colluding to fix the prices.

Also, for years I've noticed that any time some utility company proposes raising its rates, a company spokesperson always claims it would be the first time since such-and-such year (usually randomly picking a year from 5 to 15 years earlier) that the rates have gone up. The problem is, this claim is usually made right after the rates just went up. I can't even count the number of times I've caught utility companies in this lie.

Write your congressperson. Better yet perhaps, write your state lawmakers. Better yet perhaps, write your county commission. Better yet perhaps, write your city council. Do it today and help rein in spiraling energy costs, which have become a rip-off and a racket.

(Yes, I'm sure the "regulation for thee, not for me" crowd is going to get on my case about this. Oh well. Let 'em lose another argument.)

(Source: http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/22/news/economy/electricity.ap/index.htm?postversion=2007102214)