FPL Executives are F***ing Stupid

The Miami Herald story makes it pretty clear; the greedy sleazebags that run FPL are too stupid to realize that we actually fully understand why they're seeking a rate hike: it's because they want to make more money than they've made with their record profits to date. They've been raking in the dough while a large percentage of the population are either losing their jobs, or losing wages due to reductions in salaries, fighting foreclosures on homes whose mortgages now exceed the value of their homes, or declaring bankruptcy because of all that, but FPL executives want to add insult to injury by jacking up your rates.

OK, that's not the only reason. They also want a new jet.  From the Herald:

Florida Power & Light, embroiled in a controversial hearing to raise electric rates, says part of the 30 percent increase would pay for a new $31 million corporate jet to replace a 10-year-old jet in its three-aircraft fleet.

A handful of FPL executives are allowed to use the corporate jet for personal use, company officials said. Among them is CEO Armando Olivera, who told regulators that he used the plane for the Tallahassee hearing and often uses the company helicopter to travel between his hometown of Miami and his company's headquarters in Juno Beach.

So, FPL wants to ream us up the wazoo because Armando Olivera is too fucking stupid to move closer to his office.

Their stupidity is starting to hurt their employees:

"Most of my team see this as something of our company's own fault,'' said one FPL manager, who reported being among dozens of employees who were briefed on the plan orally to avoid a paper trail. "We failed to appreciate the plight of customers and yet we still are seeking to raise their rates, all in the name of long-term investment, when it is our shareholders who will benefit from all of this. A lot of my employees are demoralized and embarrassed before our customers.''

I bet.  When I was working for an idiot, I was demoralized, too.

So does FPL man-up, suck it in, and save their unreasonable requests for a time when people aren't losing their jobs and their homes and going into debt?  Fuck, no! 

FPL... has assigned James Ratchford, its director of development communications, to "plan and execute opposition research, media countermeasures and a social media campaign,'' according to an internal FPL document obtained by the Herald/Times.

That's lie, cheat, and smear to those of us who don't speak Sleazebag.

An FPL manager told the Herald/Times that ``under the watchful eye of my supervisors and management,'' Ratchford used computers untraceable to FPL to post blog comments about commissioners and the governor using aliases. Ratchford also conducted, or worked with others to conduct credit, property-records and criminal-background checks on commissioners Argenziano and Nathan Skop, along with Crist's new appointees, David Klement and Benjamin "Steve'' Stevens, the FPL manager said.

You know what?  I think at this point I am willing to pay more - to anyone who isn't FPL.  Let's give these morons the boot.

So here's how to tell if a commenter is an employee of FPL:

• They indicate they support the rate hike.
• They disparage those who don't support the rate hike.
• They claim that raising your rate will save you money.

When you see comments that fit the above profile, call'em out on it. 

FPL's Full Page Lie

Eye On Miami posted an image of a full page add that FPL Group shareholders ran in the Miami Herald on September 14, 2009.

In it, FPL bravely hints that people are opposed to its proposed rate hike because FPL is "too cozy" with the Public Service Commission.

And of course that's a lie; most of us feel that it is the Public Service Commission that is too chummy with FPL. But that's only a minor fib that they glibly pass off in the hopes of making themselves look like a victim instead of a very profitable company that pays healthy dividends every quarter.

Buried in its claims is the whopper:

Our rate proposal would result in electric bills for the typical residential customers and small businesses going down, not up.

Say what? They're going to charge us more, but they claim that's going to cost us less? Maybe in that crazy bearded Spock universe, but in this universe, when you charge more for something, it always means that your customers pay more to get it.

So how can they even attempt to spew this whopping lie with a straight face? Well, here's the very next sentence that follows the quote above:

That's because a base rate increase would be more than offset by lower fuel prices and gains in fuel efficiency.

But that still works out to be a lie; if, as they claim, the cost of fuel going down and increased efficiency means that they won't be buying as much of it in the future so they will be spending less on it, it means that it is the lower cost of fuel and increased efficiency that's lowering our bill, not the rate increase as they claim in their advertisements.

And of course, if fuel costs rise, we, the consumer, will end up paying more, because we're not only paying for the increase, but the nearly one-third increase they are hoping to get.

The smarmy ad concludes:

Let's stop playing politics with our energy future and stick to the facts.

OK. Let's.

FACT: in the aftermath of hurricans Katrina and Wilma, tens of thousands of FPL customers sat in the dark for days, and in many cases weeks, waiting for FPL and emergency teams to replace rotted poles and powerlines knocked down by tropical storm and hurricane winds. People lost money because they couldn't go to work; businesses lost money because they couldn't open. And how much did FPL lose, considering that the lost revenue for weeks on end? Not a cent. They got the state to reimburse them for the lost revenue. They didn't even lose money on the damaged equipment. In fact, that fiscal quarter was a very profitable one for their stockholders.

FACT: FPL has asked for this raise in order to increase its profit margin. Why? To make MORE money. And what that means is that FPL is currently very profitable; they are not losing money. They are making profits. They've just decided that, in an economy where people are losing their jobs and homes and health care coverage, they need to be making much more money than the money they are already making.

The only party to benefit from FPL's proposed rate increase are FPL Group shareholders. This rate increase is to feed FPL's greed, nothing more.

Why FPL wants a rate hike

The Palm Beach Post's story explains it pretty clearly:

Top FPL Group execs got double-digit raises in 2008

Gotta pay for those raises somehow!


.

FPL: Mere Profits are not Enough

Remember this?

FPL is making money. That's fine. I have no problem with that. The point of being in business is to make money. Business is supposed to be profitable.

But then there's this:

Let me make sure you understand this: FPL is making a very health profit NOW. Their expansions and improvements are already budgeted - and most of those projects are underway now - and they made record profits last year. In fact, they made 1.6 billion last year. This increase will result in profits well over 2 billion, assuming effects from the economy will reduce their record earnings.

What I want to know is: what is the difference between profits, and fair profits?


Right now, you and I and every taxpayer in America is being asked to pony up 700 billion dollars (on top of the 175 billion we wasted on AIG) to shore up banks and investment firms. GM and Chrysler are on the verge of gong belly up. Regional newspapers are laying off staff and many have already shut down, with others expected to follow in the next year. Workers are losing their jobs, so they are walking away from mortgages because they simply can't pay them even token sum, and FPL wants us to pay 30% more, not because they are struggling, but because they want to line their pockets.


Remember Katrina and Wilma? Many of us were without power for weeks; we lost wages from days we weren't working because our business sat in the dark. FPL had to replace hundreds of thousands of miles of cable, and had to make millions in repairs. And guess what? They still posted a profit! How? By pointing out to the PSC that because they couldn't bill customers for service they didn't provide, they stood to lose money. So the State of Florida paid them for the service we didn't receive, because god forbid a company should have lowered profits following a disaster.

I have only three words to say to FPL, and the PSC clowns better start practicing them right now, because if they don't use them, I say we should storm their offices and tar and feather the lot of 'em.

Here are the three words:

GO
TO
HELL

Repeat as necessary.

Remember when FPL asked for a rate increase?

Me, too.

Funny how that works, isn't it?  FPL says it needs more money to cover rising fuel costs, and they are posting a notable profit.  Just like after Katrina and Wilma, when a huge portion of their customer base wasn't getting any electricity at all and FPL had to spend tens of millions to repair the grid, and FPL still managed to turn a profit.  I wonder how they managed to do that?

PSC Assists FPL in Customer Rip-Off. Again.

I'm not sure which pisses me off more: FPL claiming it's not responsible for costs incurred by its own mistake, or that the Public Service Commission is letting them get away with it.

Back in 2006, an FPL sub-contractor drilled a one-eighth inch hole in a pressurized pipe in its Turkey Point nuclear power plant. The damage necessitated a five-day shutdown of the plant for repairs, at a cost of about 6.2 million dollars.

FPL claims that it should not have to pay for the damages, because they followed all the rules required of them for the work that was being done, and in allowing the sub-contractor access to the plant. Just because FPL hired him, and FPL vetted him, and he was doing workf for FPL, they argue that it doesn't follow that they should be resoponsible for the fact that this worker, with a questionable history of criminal charges, damaged their plant.

Such a move is not suprising from a company that collected monies from customers to fund alternative energy plants, but instead spent it on marketing. FPL seems to have a healthy sideline in bilking its customers.

But then there's the Public Service Commission.

Most of us probably think that the PSC is there to protect consumers - aka "the public" - against abuses by the various utilities we are forced to do business with.

And we would be wrong.

Here's the PSC's actual mission statement:

To facilitate the efficient provision of safe and reliable utility services at fair prices.

And just in case you missed the fact this mission statement says nothing about consumers, here's the very first goal they pursue in fullfilling their mission:

To the extent possible, streamline regulatory requirements to provide an open, accessible and efficient regulatory process that is fair and unbiased.

In other words, the PSC's primary purpose is not to protect the consumer, but to remove legislative roadblocks that might impede the utility.

That's not to say that watching over consumer interests isn't in the purview of the PSC; it is. It just happens to be its least priority, according the PSC's own website.

In any other field, if a company hired a contractor to do work on their site, and that contractor damaged the company's facilities, the company would have to cover repair out of its profits. Look at it this way: if you hired a guy to work on your roof, and in the process he knocked out a window, would you think it reasonable to ask your employer to pay to replace the window for you?

But this is hardly the first time that the PSC has sided with FPL against the public's welfare.

Hundreds of thousands of Floridians were without power following Katrina and Wilma, when category 2 winds knocked down rotting poles and excessive overgrowth that had grown around the lines, winds well below the survival threshold mandated for power lines.

And yet, the PSC signed off on FPL's request to lower the pruning schedule from every three years to every SIX! Since trees in sub-tropical South Florida can double their volume in TWO years, THREE years wasn't even fully adequate, but made fiscal sense. But a six year cycle is simply unacceptable. Unless, of course, you're on the PSC.

To add insult to injury, FPL also wanted to be reimbursed for lost revenue. Hundreds of thousands of its customers sat in the dark for days, and some of us went without power for a week or more. The PSC seems to have overlooked that a company should only be paid for the product it delivers, not for the product it can't deliver due to its own negligence. So FPL had record profits during a period when it not only had to replace a significant amount of its infrastructure, but a significant number of its customers went without any power at all!