Smart Business Practices

Last Friday, SoCal Edison Co came through the neighborhood and replaced all the old electricity usage monitoring meters with the highly-touted, new, smart meter. I've been following the letters to the editor from customers whose meters were changed in the past several months, and the response has been consistent: electric rates are skyrocketing. I've resided in my current domocile for a full decade, and I have all my past utility bills (I know, I know). It is simple to see that my usage is consistent, as are my bills for service during the past decade. If my cost suddenly escalates, it will be a function of the new monitoring system, not changes in my electric habits, especially after replacing every darned thing in the house I can think to replace with energy-efficient products and curly-que bulbs.

Therefore, to bypass the public utility commissions' legal inability to increase consumer prices, another way has been found: change the equipment and charge the consumer for both the (new, improved, smart) equipment and the (basically unchanged) service. TW Cable does it by refusing to allow customers to install their own wi-fi router and/or DVR: if you want the TW service, you must rent their equipment, paying quickly for the basic cost of the boxes, but then repaying repeatedly over the time of use in the home. Thus, a $100 DVR retail (and TW does NOT pay retail) is paid for within the first 10 months' of use in the customer's home, and all the monthly rental fees after that are pure profit for TW.

SoCal Edison Co, as well as other utility companies, must be taking notes as baseline usage does not take into account either living space or number of occupants; instead, it is a usage baseline that assumes how much an individual utility each consumer should be allowed and how much to sock it to 'em when they naturally exceed that baseline each and every month.

As every consumer will do because the baselines are unrealistic.

Son is having another issue at his home in the other CA: the internet providers are increasing the revenue stream by charging for excessive usage, using their own definition of excessive in the process. Of course, the baseline is set excessively low to ensure that any and all tech usage will be excessive and generate maximum revenue, just as it is locally. The media push is for everyone to spend the bulk of their days online, using electronic devices in their homes, on the job, and as the focus of their discretionary time. Verizon came on-board and is now selling the I-Phone with the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy alive and well in commerce. Wal-Mart is selling I-Pads, not at a discounted price, but at full retail -- and along with all the "I" products comes the internet connection to support it. And NetFlix is downloading movies directly to your computer and/or TV. They are making their profit margin much, much larger, while diminishing the financial assets of the individual consumer.

Great job, corporate people. But don't YOU also have to pay for skyrocketing costs when you get home? You make decisions to increase the bottom line for the corporation, but forget about the individual consumer. When we cannot pay our bills, we shut down the service, and losing customers eventually can bring down even the biggest corporation.

When I relandscaped every square inch of my property to eco-friendly desert landscaping, my water bill actually increased ... because the water company has a baseline usage and I exceed it every single billing cycle. I shower once a day (and I'm well-known for my 5-minute showers), I do 2 loads of laundry each week (one white, one colors), I handwash dishes once a day (and recycle the wash water outside), and I use an updated watering system that is tuned and timed to the desert. Yes, I do use one of my two toilets several times a day, but they are both low-flow (replaced them, too). With such restricted water usage, how is it possible for me to go over my baseline?

Yes, I'm aware that just one employee earning a base salary of $40,000 annually, as well as an additional $20,000 in overtime, cannot be paid even one year's salary based on my water consumption, much less provide additional revenue to pay for the infrastructure that brings the water to my meter from the aquifer, but ...

where is it going to end?

We all want to live the high life, the American Dream, but we have created a nightmare of costs that we cannot sustain. Increasing the prices to unrealistic levels for the individual consumer reaches the breaking point pretty darned fast, especially when the consumer may be either under-employed or unemployed. There isn't just no money to pay the mortgage, but the other "fixed" expenses on top of that payment tip the scales to giving up and walking away.

All these empty houses? All these unpaid utility bills? "Someone has to pay for them" seems to be the standard response, but I'm darned sick and tired of being the responsible "someone" picking up the tab for all the irresponsible "someones" who have left me holding the bag!