March 28, 2016

Michael Mayo

The Sun Sentinel

RE: “It’s a no-brainer” – Some comments on your brainless column about the scourge of the modern world in yesterday’s unlinkable Sun Sentinel

Mr. Mayo,

“bottom line”?

“record profits”?

“greater good”?

“publicly regulated monopoly”?

You tell a story of one group – the Valencia Lakes Homeowners – pursuing its rational self-interest – lower electricity rates - in conflict with a large heartless company that deep down relishes the drowning of polar bears – FPL – blocking therm.

You don’t need a program to tell who the good guys/bad guys are.

All the good guys – the Valencia Lakes Homeowners Association and don’t you think that an apostrophe is needed somewhere? – need is for the bad guys – FPL – to give up some property rights.

[Forgive me but have you ever heard of Richard Pipes?]

It is indeed a blessing for modern American Liberals to be able to avoid inconvenient truths in pursuit of the “greater good”.

Pray tell but who determines what is the “greater good”?

Certainly not the people because if memory serves, 62% of them voted against same sex marriages. 

You turn the term “record profits” into a four letter word. “Bottom line” is a close second.

Would you prefer using the hugely successful business model that has made the United States Post Office the envy of the digital informationl world?

 Your employer, the Tribune Company, spent several years in Chapter XI. For all Bernie supporters, that’s bankruptcy. On balance was it better for you to work for a company that not only did not have “record profits” but had no profits?

The president just spent some time in Cuba, a country where not only “record profits” but all profits have been outlawed since Eisenhower was President. Too bad that long distance swimming, I mean really, really long distance swimming, is not on the program. Cuba would sweep the field, particularly if they let expatriates compete. After all those years of leading the world in the “Who needs profits”? Cuba still has 3 unsolvable problems: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That’s the best organic way to cure the problem of teenage obesity. As the immortal Big Mike from Bayonne still says, “That’s why you don’t see anyone swimming to Cuba”.

I guess the modern American Liberal aversion to “record profits” does not extend to dinner at Leo diCaprio’s house. The tab for 2, $324,000, does not include tips or valet parking and I think there is a cash bar. Has a section been set aside for the $15 an hour minimum wage advocates? Do all the servants have green cards? 

Enough with Chanel #5! It’s time for NMFMS parfum. For the uniniated that’s the scent that mALs bathe in. “Non-malodorous fecal matter syndrome” ???. Send a SASE.

Progressives, the ideological forebears of today’s Democrats, wept tumescently a century ago when legislatures began to grant utility companies monopolies. What qualified the pre Baker v Carr legislators to pick which company would win and which company would lose is still unclear Maybe some “white envelopes” changed hands. Who know? The trade-off was simple. In return for the state forbidding competition it would get a say in rates. The companies agreed to this quickly because in addition to being free from the travails and caprices of the marketplace a “fair” rate of return was guaranteed. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Utilities always had a disproportionate amount of debt – Think Graham & Dodd – with their equity always leaning to cumulative preferred shares. That made it easier to argue for rate increases because of the rule guaranteeing a “fair” rate of return.

To someone who believes that not only can the horizon be reached but it can be crossed into the land of milk and honey where unicorns prance through the rainbow stew bushes and the balloon juice trees marketplace travails and caprices are alien concepts. 

Look around you

Did you drive your Oldsmobile to the Blockbuster store to return your Beta tapes? When you realized you had forgotten something did you use a pay phone to call home?

Is it time to get a new Polaroid? IBM makes a great typewriter, don’t they? I always bring my Walkman when I fly Eastern Airlines.  I love New Coke. If you were to tell me in 1975 that every overnight package that FedEx delivers, even a mile away, would first go to Memphis, TN I wouldn’t believe it. GOOGLE? Smart Phones? Revlamid? Virtual reality? Fracking? Net-Flix? Drones? Where can I get a cartridge for my Kodak Instamatic? Is Yahoo the “other side of the blanket child” of Yoo-Hoo?

  

Some of the above came and went and were replaced with marvelous things. The “creative destruction” that Schumpeter described has done more for the “greater good’ than all the officers of the local chapters of the Lucky Sperm Club can possibly imagine.

I suggest that “record profits” and concern for the “bottom line” are two of the things that make the dog hunt.

 

“We are not here to sell a parcel

of boilers and vats, but the potentiality

of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”

Samuel Johnson

When asked what was the best way to end an 

economic downturn, the great Lord Keynes said,

“First, cut taxes, then loosen the animal spirits.” 

I thought all libraries were like the one I first went to in Bayonne, NJ. A big granite building with magnificent columns in front made it a place fit for books and for someone who wanted to read them. Carnegie built it. He built 1,000 of them. Doubtless, his concern for “record profits” and his keeping a sharp eye on the “bottom line” made it easier for him to build them than if he had stood on the corner with a begging cup.

Tell me again, do the same people who determine what is the “greater good” also get to speak ex cathedra on what is “fair”? Any public policy that has “robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support is still valid, right?

Here’s a thought.  I hope the Valencia Lake Homeowners Association can get their hands  on some Solyndra solar panels. They will go at a great price because the owners, the Americans, had a stupid agent, the government working for them. Since excessive attention to the “bottom line” is frowned upon in modern American Liberal circles no one dreamed that not only would the fox eat the chickens but he would steal the hen house also.

Kevin Smith

PS – Apropos of nothing, the next time you are in Ft. Lauderdale visit Northeast High School. When the contest for the ugliest public building in America begins it has a leg up. Too bad Carnegie wasn’t here. Isn’t a giraffe a horse that’s been designed by a legislative committee?