January 2001 – Page 3 – Brian.Carnell.Com

Profit Is Bad for Utility Companies

CNN is running what has to be the worst story line yet in the ongoing power crisis in California. According to CNN an audit of the largest electrical utility in California, Southern California Edison, made about $5 billion in profits from 1996-2000.

Now, of course, as the price that SCE has to pay for electricity has skyrocketed, while the price it can charge to consumers has remained the same by statute, SCE is in big trouble and is in debt just about $5 billion.

So what is the conclusion from these two sets of facts? According to Democrats such as California Senate President Pro Tem John Burton it is that, “Basically they took the money and ran.” If they’d kept those profits in SCE rather than sending the profits to SCE’s corporate parent, Edison Electric, SCE would have broken even.

Not. If SCE makes $5 billion in profits from 1996 to 2000 and then lose $5 billion from November 2000 through January 2001, it hasn’t broken even but rather has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since the capital sunk into SCE would have been a lot better off spent in some other sector of the market where it could earn a normal rate of return. With the situation described by CNN, SCE doesn’t even keep up with inflation.

This is exactly the sort of talk that makes companies not want to invest in California since what Burton and others are really saying is that it was wrong for SCE to want to make a profit. Instead of making profits, SCE should hold any surpluses it has to cushion the blow when the California legislature screws up again.

Source:

Audit: California utility reaped $4.8 billion dividend before power crisis. CNN, January 30, 2001.

Trust the Government to Protect Your Privacy

The other day a news story hit the media that a Drug Enforcement Agency agent had taken confidential DEA records and was peddling them to a private investigation firm. The DEA agent now faces prosecution.

But according to ZDNet’s David Coursey, nobody ever really gets hurt by government misuse of information and so those of us who point and yell at such government manipulation need to look at the real problem — corporations.

agree. The most serious danger to our privacy doesn’t come from law enforcement, the rest of government, or even from hackers. It comes from companies and the potential for them to misuse the data they gather for other reasons — especially of they can assemble the data from multiple sources into complete consumer profiles.

Imagine what someone would know about you if they could combine your credit card, banking, insurance, and utility bills along with all the UPC scan information from your grocery shopping.

Now let me see. When insurance companies misuse information they deny me that life insurance policy that I wanted. When the DEA misuses information they send 20 or 30 armed men in masks to my house with automatic weapons — and more than likely they’ll send their agents to your house instead, because their informer gave them the wrong information.

So Coursey doesn’t know any victims of government misuse of information? Maybe he should learn about people who have been maliciously victimized by Currency Transaction Reports.

A lot of people realize that anytime they withdraw more than $10,000 in cash from a bank account, by law the bank is required to report that transaction to the government. What very few people know is that it is a crime to take out more than $10,000 in cash over a short period of time in multiple withdrawals.

For example, if I go to my bank today and withdraw $6,000 and then go tomorrow and withdraw another $6,000 that will more than likely be reported as a suspicious transaction and unless I can prove that I had no intention of circumventing the Currency Transaction Reporting laws, I will be charged with attempting to evade them.

According to the Department of Justice, from 1987 to 1996 it charged more than 7,300 people with money laundering based on Currency Transaction Reports, but managed to garner only 580 convictions (though since the rule of law has been repealed, the Treasury Department went ahead and seized the assets of not only of most of those charged, but tens of thousands of more people who were never even charged with a crime).

Unlike Coursey, I’ll take my chances with the insurance company if somebody can just find a way to keep the government’s nose out of my business.

The Future of Copyright Laws

Today ZDNET writes about Bruce Lehman forming a group to defend the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Lehman ran the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a number of years and was one of the folks who helped write the copyright laws. Now he says the anti-copyright forces are winning the battle over the DMCA.

Unfortunately Lehman and other pro-copyright folks such as Jack Valenti don’t seem to understand why the DMCA is despised so much. The DMCA is an extreme piece of legislation that gives far too much power to copyright holders, who have demonstrated that they are more than willing to use this power in ways that many people find questionable.

Most people I know, for example, find nothing unethical about taking a compact discs they own and copying multiple tracks to a cassette to take the gym. It is the position of most of the major content providers, however, that consumers should essentially pay a fee for every single device they plan to listen to music on. The idea that in the future people will be forced to simply license music is one that many find absurd.

ZDNET mentions another absurdity in the DMCA’s ban on even attempting to circumvent copy protection. The Supreme Court has already made it clear that consumers have a right to make backup copies of software, music, etc., and the DMCA’s pro-copy protection stance strikes me and others as a blatant attempt to make an end run around the rights of consumers. It seems to have the same legitimacy as a law that would say, “Well the Supreme Court says we can’t enjoin speech prior to publication and we have no problem with that, but from now on you’ll have to have a license to buy paper and sign an agreement not to print things we don’t like on said paper.”

The main reason that copyright is coming under such withering criticism is that Lehman and others intentionally hitched the future of copyrights to the DMCA, perhaps thinking their Draconian anti-copying provisions would gain some legitimacy by being portrayed as simply an extension of long standing copyright law. Instead, exactly the opposite happened. People rejected the DMCA provisions and then said, “Wait a minute, if this is what it takes to enforce copyrights, maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with the concept of intellectual property in the first place.”

Chris Mortensen on Trent Dilfer’s Dig at Fantasy Football

In his post-Super Bowl commentary Chris Mortensen writes,

Dilfer was also on the mark in his post-game interviews when he basically said that those who follow the NFL get too caught up in the “fantasy football” syndrome. It’s about winning. Dilfer is a Super Bowl winning QB, and he need not apologize to anyone.

Huh? What did Mortensen expect to hear from a quarterback whose numbers are so bad that even after winning the Super Bowl it is unlikely Dilfer will be back starting for the Ravens next year. I’d hate fantasy football too if I were being paid a lot of money to be as inaccurate a passer as Dilfer was in the first half of Super Bowl XXXV.

The Ravens do have some good receivers, and if the defense doesn’t let up it would be amazing to watch what the Ravens might do next season if they ditch Dilfer for Brad Johnson or some other free agent.

On the other hand, if by some miracle Dilfer does end up back starting for the Ravens he need not worry too much about fantasy football fans — he’s not exactly going to be at the top of everyone’s draft list for next season.

Huh? What did Mortensen expect to hear from a quarterback whose numbers are so bad that even after winning the Super Bowl it is unlikely Dilfer will be back starting for the Ravens next year. I’d hate fantasy football too if I were being paid a lot of money to be as innaccurate a passer as Dilfer was in the first half of Super Bowl XXXV.

Fulfilling Terminally Ill Kids' Hunting Dreams

As of January 1, 2001, the Make-a-Wish Foundation — the group that fulfills terminally ill children’s last wishes — will no longer aid children who want to go on hunting trips as their final wish. Rock star and pro-hunting advocate Ted Nugent and the Hunt of a Lifetime Foundation are filling that gap, however, by fulfilling such dreams.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation is certainly free to set up whatever criteria it sees fit in helping terminally ill children’s last wishes, but at least it could be honest about why it no longer grants hunting wishes. According to the Phoenix-based group, it has nothing against hunting per se, but says that hunting is just too unsafe for terminally ill children to participate in. According to Make-a-Wish spokesman Jim Maggio,

When you take into consideration the fact that the child may have been weakened by the effects of that life-threatening illness, and all the treatment protocols and medications that may accompany that — it’s simply to great a risk to the safety of that child than we’re willing to assume.

This sort of half-hearted explanation actually makes Nugent look like a sage commentator when he notes that in the case of Zachary Martin, 16, who Nugent will be taking along with him for a big game hunt in South Africa, Martin’s parents and doctors have all given their blessing for the hunting trip. “Somebody at the Make-a-Wish foundation knows better than those people?” Nugent told Fox News. “I think not.”

Why not just come out and say that the group started feeling the heat of animal rights protests beginning in 1996 after it helped a young man fulfill his dream of hunting in Alaska’s wilderness? Hiding behind alleged medical reasons seems like an extremely transparent excuse.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation still will sponsor fishing trips, but its anti-hunting stance will certainly embolden animal rights activists to go after the group over helping terminally ill children kill fish. As Nugent told Fox,

Last time I checked your tuna salad is dead. Fishing, hunting and trapping are all the same and it is the proper and scientifically sound utilization of natural resources. Hunting is not only honorable and essential, but it’s probably the last pure function that a living being can be part of. It’s birth, life and death. Mankind knows all about killing. We have to eat. Meat is food.

It won’t be long until the activists start making the same argument to the Make-a-Wish Foundation urging an end to horribly cruel fishing trips.

Source:

Young hunters’ wishes can come true, after all. Robert Shaffer, Fox News, January 22, 2001.

We Represent the Lullaby League

I don’t think it’s the best movie ever made (probably not even in the top 10), but there’s no movie I’d personally rather watch than The Wizard of Oz. A few weeks ago I bought a copy of the movie on DVD and watched it with my daughter. And watched it and watched it and watched it some more. I think we’ve watched the film at least 30 times this month.

She’s become a complete Oz addict, the depths of which struck me only this morning. While deeply slumbering this morning after staying up too late watching post-Super Bowl coverage, I felt a little hand patting on my back and a soft voice asking to watch “the movie with the dog in it,” which is code for the Wizard of Oz. As long as she gets dressed first, my wife and I let her watch a little TV before going to her pre-school. Usually she gets to watch up until “Over the Rainbow” before it’s time to head out.

Not on this day, however — I glanced at the clock and realized to my horror that it was only a 4:45 a.m. Oy! Right, I’m thinking even Barney is preferable if that’s what it will take for a break from the Wizard of Oz.