The Deregulation/
Privatization Scam By Norman D. Livergood
The
secret cabal, that group of American and European
Trillionaires who have already bought and paid for the
U.S. President and most Congresspersons, is busily
destroying our nation. Their political lackeys make sure
that their military-industrial-telecommunication
corporations receive taxpayer subsidies and contracts.
And they're been hard at work destroying our election system: first by rigging the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections in Florida, Ohio, and other states and now through their recall plot and their rigging of the 2006 Busby/Bilbray election in California. And much of their political and economic mischief has been done through their deregulation/privatization schemes.
The cabal has taken most of their manufacturing to lower-wage countries, through NAFTA, WTO, IMF, and other globalization scams.
But, historically, federal, state, and local governments have managed certain businesses and industries which the American public thought best kept in public hands: prisons, schools, forests, parks, military bases, retirement funds, utilities, etc.
And American citizens have also wanted their government to regulate certain businesses and industries which the citizens felt could only be scrutinized by public agencies, not privately-owned enterprises.
So, beginning in the 1960s the power elite's front organizations (Cato, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Committee on the Present Danger, Free Congress Foundation, Council for Inter-American Security, Council for National Policy, etc.) began to raise a loud outcry that governmental regulatory agencies had been "captured" by the industries under regulation. Of course, the allegations were largely true--their political puppets had made sure that the public regulatory agencies such as OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), were either crippled or co-opted.
But many Americans, made unaware by the cabal's subversion of American education for most of the twentieth century, can't see that the groups claiming to be watching out for citizens' interests are actually fronts for the American ruler group. They eat up the catch slogans of: "get the government off the backs of the people" and "consumer choice." So they stand still when the elite's political puppets put through legislation which is creating their dream state: deregulation and privatization of public institutions.
The power elite's political puppets broke up some of their large competitors, such as AT&T, IBM, Savings and loan institutions, and airlines, so the cartel could increase its holdings in the telecommunication, computer, banking, and air travel industries.
Then, the cabal began its deregulatory experiments with the opening of access to networks. Under this approach, the physical infrastructures of the networks (such as airports, cables, pipes) remained regulated natural monopolies, but access to these networks was opened so that the remaining elements could be submitted to competition: airline traffic, telecommunication services, gas and electricity production, etc.
From
1998 to 2000, Southern California Edison (SCE) and
Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) paid out $7 million to
California politicos to deregulate the state's
electrical power sytstem. State Senator Steve Peace, the
point man for the deregulation scam, received $179,409
between 1994 and 1998. SCE and PGE got their money's
worth: they made more than $6 billion in profits after
deregulation began and they have combined assets of
approximately $71 billion.
In 2001, these political hacks in California completed the biggest deregulation/privatization scam of all time. They first repealed the 1996 state law that sought to boost competition in the state's $20 billion electrical power industry, pretending that the purpose was to pass on the phantom savings to customers.
Under California deregulation, private utilities were required to sell off their power plants and open their markets to electrical resellers and buy power on the open market, paying whatever price the electricity producers demanded from day to day. For San Diego Gas and Electric Co. customers that meant a 300 percent increase in their electricity bills!
The scam the cabal created in California is not precisely deregulation of the electricity market, but "restructuring." The generation of electricity is partly deregulated, but additional regulation and controls have been placed on the rest of the system. The result is not a market, but an admixture of semi-markets run by a government body--the Independent System Operator (ISO)--so complex that no one fully understands what's happening.
California's electricity "deregulation" law violates most of what are laughingly called the "principles of deregulation": it discourages entry into the market, it restricts expansion of capacity, and it sustains the old systems and rules that hinder competition.
Meanwhile, the power elite made it appear that certain steps would be taken to lessen the burden on the beleaguered taxpayers. They pretended to freeze electricity rates at pre-restructuring levels, but this only confirmed rate-payers' worst fears--California power isn't a deregulated market at all, it's a hybrid that only the insiders know how to manipulate. Unlike genuine deregulation where higher prices would spur more competition, the cabal's political hired hands built in hurdles to ensure that no out-of state relief could intervene.
And
the cabal has made sure that they're not immediately
threatened by new power supplies in California. Their
restructuring law forced California's utilities to get
out of power generation and sell their power plants, so
they're not going to invest in new plants. And although
several groups have applied to build new generation
plants, they're not likely to come on-line any time soon
if at all. Why? Because paid-for politicos built in a
snail-paced regulatory approval process. Regulatory
hurdles ensure that the power elite won't be bothered
with competition within the next decade or two.
The cabal's lackeys left California's existing power supply dangerously exposed by lengthening the regulatory process for repairs and upkeep. The last thing you want to happen during a power shortage is to have existing plants break down. But because of the deal the cabal built into restructuring, power companies must now get regulator approval before doing major repairs or refits. The result -- while San Diego County suffered blackouts, the power supply problem got worse as several plants broke down because regulators took up to a year to approve maintenance expenditures.
Best of all for the power elite, because electricity rates were not uniformly deregulated (only San Diego experienced "unregulated rates") taxpayers upstate had no incentive to conserve power. Hence supply was further diminished and prices pushed higher.
The cabal bought and paid for politicos in California passed legislation in 2000 to limit the authority of the California Energy Commission (CEC), which is responsible for licensing new plants. Local water boards, air boards and state wildlife departments like Fish & Game may look at power plants individually or on a regional basis, but all the agencies send their assessments to the energy commission, which can ignore or embrace their concerns, as well as those of local citizens.
The power elite's dreams were then realized, their hirelings in the California legislature passed a bill to finance a $10 billion fund to purchase power, with the result that the taxpayers paid twice to provide their gargantuan profits:
1. money to pay for the $10 billion fund
2. increases in electricity prices
And the cabal's political puppet at the time, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, disallowed a cap on prices for electricity. The power elite now feels it can proceed apace with privatizing anything and everything it desires: Social Security funds, prisons, schools, and any activity or commodity it wants.
Adoption services
Municipal water supply
Air traffic control
Museums
Airports
Nursing homes/services
Animal control/shelters
Parks and preserves
Campgrounds
Parking lots/fines
Concessions
Personnel management/recruiting
Data processing
Printing/publishing
Day care centers
Prisons and jails
Dropout prevention
Road maintenance and repair
Employment training
Renewals of drivers'/vehicle licenses
Food services
Satellites/telecommunications
Fire suppression
Schools
Garbage/refuse collection
Security personnel/systems
Hazardous waste management
Social security/pensions
Information technology
Sports facilities/stadiums
Inner-city housing
Street cleaning
Inspection/testing services
Substance abuse treatment
Janitorial services
Tax collections/returns processing
Landfills/solid waste
Telephone services
Landscaping
Toll roads/bridges
Liability insurance
Utilities (electric/gas)
Libraries
Vehicle maintenance
Locator services
Wastewater treatment
Mail/postal services
Welfare (via donations/volunteerism)
Mass public transit
Weatherization
Medical insurance
Wildlife resources
Mental health
Weather forecasting
Everything seems to be working out for the cabal. But they'd better watch out--they've awakened a sleeping giant.
The American People Are Not As Stupid As American Fatcats Think They Are
Average citizens in California who experienced 200-300%
increase in their electricity bills are sure that newspaper
and TV reports fed them lies about the so-called energy
crisis.
Americans know that historically, the U.S. was created on the
principle that citizens own public land, highways, schools,
ports, airports, parks, the airwaves, government buildings
and other assets. The Constitution created a government that
was to serve as the protector of the citizenry, and their
champion when confronted with the predatory greed of
profit-motivated corporations and individuals. But they don't
see anyone in the federal or state government doing anything
but assuring that the big energy producing companies' profits
skyrocket even more. So Americans are beginning to inform
themselves--primarily through the Internet.
Americans are discovering that this is the reality of the
"energy crisis:"
• There is no real shortage of electricity, only a fake
shortage created by the big corporations that produce
electricity so they charge cut-throat prices
• The federal and state legislators, bought and paid for by
the big money interests, created this entire scam to benefit
their "sponsors"
They created legislation which forced utility companies such
as Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Edison
International to sell their power plants to private companies
such as:
▪ Enron (Texas-based)
▪ Calpine Corporation of San Jose
▪ Dynegy Inc. of Houston
▪ Duke energy of Charlotte, N.C.
▪ Reliant Energy of Houston
The legislation set limits to what the utility companies
could charge consumers but did not limit what the power
producers could charge the utility companies, resulting in:
▪ Windfall profits for the power producers
▪ Huge losses for the utility companies, leading to their
bankruptcy (but stock profits for their executives)
▪ Legislation to "bail out" the utility companies, to the
tune of $10 billion of taxpayer money and counting
▪ No legislation to "bail out" the beleaguered consumer
forced to pay huge energy bills
▪ No cap on the prices the power producers can charge (as
dictated by Energy Secretary Abraham)
So Californians and other Americans are mad as hell and
they're not going to take it anymore. They're joining with
groups that are doing something about this scam and the
American plutocracy's war against the citizenry :
• Ralph Nader and the Public Citizen Newsletter
• The Utility Reform Network (TURN)
• Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights
• Consumer's Union
The true horrors of privatization finally hit the world on
May 3, 2004, when pictures of tortured Iraqi prisoners at the
American-held Abu Gharib prison hit the front pages.
The Washington Post and other newspapers report that
employees from two private contractors, CACI International
and Titan, have been acting as interrogators at the Abu
Ghraib prison. These contractors and "independent" CIA
personnel at the prison are at the center of the probe into
the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
When the Bush junta privatizes military activities
(interrogating prisoners, providing security for American
officials, etc.)--as it's doing in Iraq--we can expect the
horrors we're now seeing in Iraq. This unconscionable abuse
has destroyed any remaining support the coalition had among
the more moderate section of the Iraqi population and the
Muslim world at large.
Californians in particular and Americans in general are
seeing through the deregulation/privatization/recall plots.
Americans are informing themselves about what's really going
on in the nation and the world and joining with others to
learn and act in informed ways.
FAIR
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