Michael Mayo, The Sun-Sentinel

June 25, 2009

Michael Mayo
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33316

RE: FPL, customer service, and if a greedy company, a company like Florida Power and Light can’t run its business so that its customers are satisfied why do you think the United States Government - Read Post Office – can run health care? A trip to the wood shed review of your column in today’s Sun-Sentinel.

Mr. Mayo,

Logic, unlike Economics, is neither a “dismal science” nor is it a parabolic curve. As an integral part of the Trivium it is one of the essential building blocks of – Dare I say it? – Western Civilization.

Usually it is best to have some decent potables close at hand and in a congenial environment when discussing Logic. Alas, I have found that modern American Liberals, people who substitute feelings for ideas, people who judge on expectations but never on results, are unsuited for saloon encounters. Maybe they lack the congeniality gene.

I’ll write slowly. Try to follow the bouncing ball.

You write that Steven Carbone, a customer of FPL who had no choice in picking them as a power provider, was without power for 17 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. You cite this as a reason to deny FPL’s no doubt rapacious request for a rate increase.

You report, apparently correctly, that FPL reported an increase of profits from $107 million to $127 million. You write that Mr. Carbone thinks that FPL is skimping on maintenance. The proof cited is that he “lived in a lot of places and always saw power crews checking lines and doing maintenance”.

You conclude by saying that Standard & Poor has a “strong buy” recommendation of FPL partly because, as you say, “Florida regulators don’t stand in the way of utilities from making big bucks, even in the toughest of times for everyone else”.

It is like getting an off speed chest batting practice pitch. If I am not careful I’ll over swing.



[Speaking of “tough times for everybody else” I am sure you know that 495 employees of Hav-A-Tampa will soon be unemployed because of the increased tax on cigars. Is there any chance of them hooking up with some Stimulus money to help them pay their FPL bills? How about retraining them to make anti-smoking patches or nicotine gum? Although he would not have uses the above as an example Richard Weaver was right when he said “Ideas Have Consequences”]

Would it be safe to infer that if, by your reasoning, FPL’s profits had gone from $127 million to $107 million Mr. Carbone would not have lost power? If he had lost power and profits were down would his electricity been restored quicker? Do we reach a perfect equilibrium when profits and losses are in absolute balance? Does that guarantee no power outages?

Please tell Mr. Carbone, regardless of how many places he has lived, that correlation is not causation. Further, while it may be truthful in one instance, you cannot construct a universal from a particular. To do so is an invalid construct.

The fact that a Governor of Arkansas becomes President and then perjured himself cannot be used to say that all Governors of Arkansas will perjure themselves should they be elected President.

You conclude by saying that S&P has a “strong buy” recommendation of FPL partly because, as you say, “Florida regulators don’t stand in the way of utilities making bug bucks, even in the toughest of times for everybody else”.

Even though you work for a bankrupt company have you followed through on my request to distribute the paper for free in the poorest zip codes that you serve? It would be like a reverse “red line”. Has your company extended any benefits to the gallant matadors who sell your paper in the busy intersections? “Tough times” would be tougher for them.

Forgive me, but you seem to believe that the biggest problem facing American society is that bad things happen when and if a company makes too much money. I am sure there are some people involved with GM and Chrysler who would have a different view of that. I can tell you that, like Mr. Carbone, I have worked in many places. Two things are empirically self evident. #1 – I have never been hired by a poor person. #2 – If the Boss Man loses money he stops paying you.

Cuba, the paragon of customer service, the paradigmatic template of how to run things, has eliminated profit from running their utilities. The result of 50 years of following the hugely successful Bulgarian model is there is no power on Sunday mornings. At least the people there can console themselves with the fact that nobody has any power. As opposed to, as Churchill said, the unequal sharing of plenty there is an equal sharing of misery.




Am I overreaching with comparison to Cuba? No, not at all. Modern American liberals constantly hector us with tales of “slippery slopes” and “chilling effects”. Samuel Gompers was one of the great defenders of profits. He knew that the more the employer made the more the employee would be paid. Why is that so deuced difficult to understand?

You are “leading the fight” – a favorite term of modern American Liberals – against profits be they obscene, salacious, or ribald. The problem is that you don’t define it. You rail against them being too much without telling us what “too much” is. Are you suggesting that the common weal would be better served if there were no profits, particularly in “tough times”?

I just know that you would be in favor of raising the minimum wage in “tough times”. That way those at the bottom of the economic ladder would be unemployed at a higher rate. That is offensive to Logic. A wage can’t be “living” if it isn’t paid. Further, if profits drop precipitously the last one out the door gets to turn the lights out.

“Hoist on one’s own petard”, a decidedly non-Logical term, would be apt.

All this on one of the anniversaries that modern American Liberals so admire. The noble Red Man did in the Round Eyed Pale Face. Today is the day that Custer died for our sins.

The next lesson will be on Rhetoric.





PS – Is there any truth to the rumor that you will be leading a Clifford Odets symposium? If so, count me in. “All them corn fields and ballet at night”, to quote that legendary British labor leader Fred Kite.