Mike Booth Writes in Defense of Greed

Mike Booth wrote a letter to the editor in today's Augusta Chronicle editorial page in rebuttal to the one I wrote that they published on May 30th.

I will respond to his rebuttal point by point.

In the opening paragraph, Mr. Booth wrote, "I think he has missed a couple of critical points."

Mr. Booth apparently missed the entire point of my letter as evidenced by the following paragraph.

"The utility companies have to go begging to government regulators for rate increases. This involves opening their books and operations to government bureaucrats who do not have a clue about how the utility industry works."

Does anybody besides Mr. Booth actually believe a person appointed to be a regulator for a certain industry has no clue as to how that industry works? The point of my letter that Mr. Booth completely missed was that, in most cases, government regulators of the coal and oil industry are now business cronies who formerly worked within the energy industry. Of course, they know how the industry works, and they help write regulations that are, in most cases, too lax.

Mr. Booth then makes an astonishingly stupid claim when he writes, "Few people are aware that they can purchase power from any other provider of the power, not just the local utility. That's called competition."

What world does this guy live in? He obviously flunks Economics 101. All utilities are monopolies. A monopoly means there is no competition. I get my power from Planters Electric. I can't just go and cancel my service from Planters Electric and ask for Georgia Power to be my utility server. On this point Mr. Booth demonstrates absolute and unbelievable ignorance.

Next, Mr. Booth shows that he misses another point of my letter. He writes, "So is Mr. Gelbart going to manufacture his own solar panels, not state-of-the-art ones from a "greedy corporation? I would hope that he would hire a "greedy" contractor to install his panels. I hope he has an engineering study done by a "greedy" corporation to design the system properly."

Here, Mr. Booth seems to be equating profit with greed. I never wrote that profit should be outlawed. Furthermore, I never wrote a word opposed to capitalism. What I wrote was that corporations should not be allowed to maximize profits by cutting corners that endanger consumers, workers, and the environment. I don't understand why this upset him enough to write his letter. Is Mr. Booth in favor of oil spills, coal mining disasters, and nuclear meltdowns? I looked in the Thesaurus: Greed is not a synonym for profit. Synonyms for greed include such words as avarice, selfishness, miserliness, gluttony, stinginess, and meanness. Apparently, Mr. Booth confuses greed and profit. Clearly, they are two different things, and most people would agree that greed is bad.

Mr. Booth writes "Corporations are not all greedy, and if he doesn't like them, he should buy someplace else. I would suggest buying two sticks to rub together to make a fire for his energy needs."

This kind of simplistic analogy reminds me of something Austin Rhodes would say. He's attempting to make his point by using an extreme, unrealistic example that doesn't really have anything to do with what I wrote. This proves that Mike Booth is just a stupid jerk.

*******************************************************************************

It was a slow week--Mr. Ryan didn't really write anything particularly stupid lately. I do disagree with his editorial "Let's go to the replay," from the June 5th edition.

I think instant replay is ruining sports. Half the time the officials uphold bad calls; the other half of the time they reverse good calls. Even with instant replay, they don't always get it right. Instead, they slow the action down, so that now I can hardly stand to watch an NFL game because the refs are constantly interrupting the action with stupid replays that take forever to resolve.

I also disagree with "A lack of book sense," from the June 6th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

For 13 years students are forced to go through the formality and rules of school. I think the Glenn Hills 2010 yearbook was hilarious.

Mr. Ryan and all those fuddy duds need to lighten up.