Forward Looking Action

In the 1980s I was appalled at the commercials on television by our local electric utility company. The bombardment of advertisements encouraged energy conservation so the utility would not have to build additional capacity. This made absolutely no sense to me. The forecast for electric use going forward was a sharp increase. But following their strategy you would have demand and not enough supply. I think the real goal of the utility was to siphoned revenue that should have been used for construction to meet demand and use it for increases to investor dividends. At that time the electric utility was still regulated. The government should have mandated increased capacity. We were paying for it already supposedly in our authorized rate increases.

Today the major international car manufacturers are rushing to market electrical vehicles. There is a problem with this offering in America. The national electric forecast for America is “not enough electricity to meet demand”. They anticipate rolling “brown outs” will become common place. Now add electric cars in the mix and things only get worst.

The electric utilities can hardly wait for this scenario. They will lobby for rate increases to build increased capacity to meet demand. The residential rates will dramatically increase. At the same time they will lobby that electric vehicles must only get their power from authorized arrangements. You will not be able to charge your car off your home power supply. The utilities will charge a premium for the power you use to charge your electric vehicle at these special arrangements. This will negate any personal savings over petroleum. The only saving grace is the supposedly better environmental impact.

If I can see this coming, why not our governments Local, State, and Federal? The optimal answer, like healthcare, is to remove it from the private sector. This includes both the electric generation and distribution. Only government can make the long term investment based on a larger good. You can bet this is what the economies of Asia and South America plan to do.

I keep going back to the fact that our plunging situation in this country is due to our system of government. It fails in adequately allocating resources for the national good over individual and parochial initiatives. This failure did not just start. It has been going on for nearly a century. It has taken this length of time for enough critical piece parts to fail and cause attention.

A case in point is the military round table held earlier this week. The Pentagon is now publicly stating the ordinary soldier needs to speak the language and understand the customs of the nation he is combating. They were specifically referencing challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan. The answer is obvious. Public education with a foreign language and cultural focus. Try getting a doubling of the national education budget. It would be easier getting a new sports stadium in every major city.
The problem is system of government. The nation has out grown the American form of democracy.