|
|
I'd like to feel sorry for those who have the misfortune to live on the west coast. I really would. But amidst the flying accusations and political spin, one simple fact remains: they brought it on themselves. The power "deregulation" scandal is just the long overdue climax of a drama that has played out over the course of a century, and that, in detail, resembles the incomprehensible plots of the soap operas that have made the California-based entertainment industry so wealthy.
If California was an independent nation, we are told, it would be the world's sixth largest economy. This is just the first bit of misinformation that requires correction. If California was an independent nation, it would not have grown fat on defense contracts, theme parks and motion pictures. As part of the United States, California is an attractive center for all three of these industries. As a foreign nation, it would not be eligible for most of the defense pork that the American government has poured into it. It isn't worth getting a passport to worship an overgrown mouse and his mildly retarded dog. And you know how well foreign films are received in, say, Peoria.
No, for all its airs, California's primary selling point is that it happens to be on our west coast. The size of its population and economy are a function of its attachment to the nation at large, not a testament to any particular heroism on the part of its populace. Having spent a good deal of time in California, from San Ysidro to Sacramento and points in between, I'm inclined to compare that populace to the initially attractive dinner companion who draws the meal out interminably, complains frequently and loudly about the quality of the food, and tries to stick you with the check by ducking out while on an ostensible restroom call. California's "booming economy" has been created, amidst a plethora of counter-productive social and environmental legislation, mainly through parasitism on the rest of the country. The tick, removed from the hound, would no longer be able to suck its blood.
Which brings us to the latest Golden State temper tantrum. Californians, it seems, want electricity. They don't want power plants in their back yards, of course (bad for the ocean view). And they certainly don't want to pay market prices for it. Oh, no. Paying for what one receives is an outdated bourgeouis notion that is meant for those yokels back east. They just want the juice, please, with no consequences, no questions asked, and no silly considerations like cost. And if they don't get it, why, the governor will click his heels three times, call out the National Guard, and make those bad ol' power companies fork it over.
The problem, according to those whose knowledge of economics extends only as far as "I want," is something called "deregulation." You see, once upon a time, the government generated copious quantities of free power by applying its edicts to the windmills scattered across the Mojave Desert. All was well, then, and fair, and Martin Sheen could make pompous pronouncements about the homeless (from the front porch of his mansion, which he notably refused to open to them) without fear that the klieg lights would dim or the cameras cease to roll. It was the height of fashion to waste a few gallons of gasoline going down the highway to protest against the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility, or to burn the midnight 60-watt incandescent bulb while strumming acoustic guitars and wailing about the plight of the salmon.
That was then. This is now. After decades of refusal to allow the construction of new power plants, and nearly a century of three-card monte with the power supply -- regulating on behalf of the power companies' bottom lines, passing it off to the consumer as a "benefit," and taxing the hell out of both, the state of California is in a bind.
Regulating for the power companies, you say? Surely I'm mistaken, you ask? No. It is an inescapable fact of history that the move to impose regulation and "natural monopoly" theory on utilities was backed by the utilities themselves ... because competition between companies drove prices (and profits) down. To this day, the marginal price of a unit of electricity in competitive, less regulated areas averages between fifteen and twenty percent lower than in comparable areas afflicted by "regulation in the public interest."
The supposed "deregulation" of electricity in California is, of course, no such thing. One segment of the industry (wholesale power bidding) is somewhat, although not completely, deregulated. The other end of the equation -- retail sales prices -- remains subject to the whim of the state. The state is caught in the irrational endgame of its own con. It can't admit to the electorate that it's been screwing them for 90 years. The "consumer advocates," who wield great power with the electorate and who have likewise engaged in and profited from said screwing, would have the governor's head on a pole if he were to come clean in public.
On the other hand, the state can't back out of its devil's deal with the corporate interest in electrical power, either. They expect bought politicians to stay bought, and their ace in the hole is the completely viable threat to throw the switch and let California rely on its dormant capacity for candle production.
The consumer, of course, is caught between the greed of the state for continued power and the greed of the corporations for continued profit. The former is never defensible, and the latter isn't defensible when it finds expression in tampering with the institutions of governance. In this delicate balance, the rational course for Californians would be to demand that their government stop protecting the corporations at their expense, and stop "protecting" them at the expense of the corporations. A pox on both their houses -- open up the market and let competitors come in to drive prices down.
I'm not taking odds on this happening. A decade ago, I stood on the shores of the Walker River, 8000 feet or so up into the Sierras, and watched the smog roll up from cities full of Californians who talk the environmental talk, but ultimately want to have their modern conveniences and eat their socialist dogma,too. I've been back since, and the environment in the most environmentally regulated place on earth has only continued to degenerate. Californians, it seems, have an unlimited capacity for self-deception.
