POWER OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB IN WHITE HOUSE -- Palast

POWER OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB IN WHITE HOUSE --- The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights
WebLog

Friday, August 15, 2003

by Greg Palast

I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers.

To pull off this grand theft by kilowatt, the NiMo-led consortium fabricated cost and schedule reports, then performed a Harry Potter job on the account books. In 1988, I showed a jury a memo from an executive from one partner, Long Island Lighting, giving a lesson to a NiMo honcho on how to lie to government regulators. The jury ordered LILCO to pay $4.3 billion and, ultimately, put them out of business.

And that's why, if you're in the Northeast, you're reading this by candlelight tonight. Here's what happened. After LILCO was hammered by the law, after government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk and dozens of other book-cooking, document-doctoring utility companies all over America with fines and penalties totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, the industry leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called it "deregulation."

MORE.......................

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=257&row=0

Great minds think alike (and at the exact same time, apparently)...

:hi:

:evilgrin:

GMTA!

PaDUer beat us by about 13 minutes.

Damn...I don't post that many dupes. Sorry about that mods!

Fair and Balanced is Fair and Balanced. :evilgrin:

Really, no tin foil hat needed! I'm reading Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," and I just started Chapter 3, "California Reamin'."

Remember folks, when the deregulators come to your town with promises of electric rates almost too cheap to meter, attach a couple of electrodes where you think it will do them the most good, hook up a battery, and smell the piggies fryin'.

I have a very low record for dupes. I hate it when I do that.

KHephra, you are fast! :D Anyway, I hope this blackout brings the deregulation issues back to the spotlight. It couldn't happen at a better time with the CA circus in full force now.

They beat us all to the punch. I think I missed the original post because Palast's name wasn't in the title. :shrug:

The most telling turn of phrase in this brilliant and timely piece of work. Thank you very much, Mr. Palast.

OK, let's get those e-mails flying off across the Fruited Plain. America needs to know this story, especially the Northeast and California.


"Oftentimes, we live in a processed world--you know, people focus on the process and not results."
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003

This is a good opportunity to make this a teachable moment, because we might just have a couple-three persons' attention!

this is a good one.

If you like his writing, and investigation, you will enjoy his book.

Just do not get too over stressed about finding out what is REALY happening, it can be depressing. Especialy when you start noticing that no mainstream media outlets carry the REAL news.

What we should do to all the miserable bastards responsible for this de-regulation mess.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=180370



I am locking this one.


NYer99
DU Moderator