Back on line
Jul. 12th, 2011 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoWell, as much as we ever are here in the hinterlands. Our power mains came back on at about 4 am, between 20 and 21 hours after they went out. At the height of the outage, the power utility says that there were between 800 and 900 thousand customers without power. At the 24 hour mark, there were still 350 thousand off line, and now at the 36 hour mark, it stands at 300 thousand. They say they will not have power completely restored to all customers until Saturday or later.
Commonwealth Edison has been deferring maintenance on its lines, poles, and distribution system for many decades. They do no inspections, no preventive maintenance, and no improvements until or unless a failure occurs. Their profitability continues to rise, since after all they have a captive market. An incentive to allow customers to "choose their own provider" is a thinly veiled scam, since CE remains the physical provider who gets to charge for billing and distribution, and can raise those rates at will since the state legislature lacks the guts to say "no."
Meanwhile they lobbied the legislature into approving an arrangement to make taxpayers (who may not even be CE customers) foot most of the bill for major improvements to their distribution network. They could have done this themselves just by planning ahead and reinvesting a portion of their huge annual profits into those improvements, but why bother when they can buy a few lawmakers for cheap and get them to pay for it with tax money? Fortunately the governor announced that he will veto this legislation, at least "for now."
It's the American way, of course. Soak the taxpayer to increase corporate profits that go into the pockets of a few wealthy individuals, and pretend it is all for the common good. If anyone questions it, just wave your cigar in the air and promise that it will "create jobs" and they'll shut up. It doesn't create jobs. At least, not permanent ones with real benefits like paid time off and health insurance. Instead it ultimately helps to eliminate jobs or ship them overseas, and further lines the pockets of a few executives and wealthy shareholders. When will Americans wise up and realize that they are being eaten alive by fat cats? Most seem as impervious to this realization as H. G. Wells' Eloi were immune to the realization that the Morlocks were using them as a food crop.
Commonwealth Edison has been deferring maintenance on its lines, poles, and distribution system for many decades. They do no inspections, no preventive maintenance, and no improvements until or unless a failure occurs. Their profitability continues to rise, since after all they have a captive market. An incentive to allow customers to "choose their own provider" is a thinly veiled scam, since CE remains the physical provider who gets to charge for billing and distribution, and can raise those rates at will since the state legislature lacks the guts to say "no."
Meanwhile they lobbied the legislature into approving an arrangement to make taxpayers (who may not even be CE customers) foot most of the bill for major improvements to their distribution network. They could have done this themselves just by planning ahead and reinvesting a portion of their huge annual profits into those improvements, but why bother when they can buy a few lawmakers for cheap and get them to pay for it with tax money? Fortunately the governor announced that he will veto this legislation, at least "for now."
It's the American way, of course. Soak the taxpayer to increase corporate profits that go into the pockets of a few wealthy individuals, and pretend it is all for the common good. If anyone questions it, just wave your cigar in the air and promise that it will "create jobs" and they'll shut up. It doesn't create jobs. At least, not permanent ones with real benefits like paid time off and health insurance. Instead it ultimately helps to eliminate jobs or ship them overseas, and further lines the pockets of a few executives and wealthy shareholders. When will Americans wise up and realize that they are being eaten alive by fat cats? Most seem as impervious to this realization as H. G. Wells' Eloi were immune to the realization that the Morlocks were using them as a food crop.
