This morning on Jim Gearhart’s show on 101.5, he reported on the results of his airing of a listener’s trouble getting a utility pole repaired. Jim recounted the man’s ordeal trying to get help from JCPL, followed by attempt to get the BPU, who “regualtes” it, to do something. Ten months of frustration get fixed in one day due to Jim’s recitation. Everyone was falling all over themselves to get out of the limelight.
Lessons Learned: (1) Involve Jim sooner in your plight. Maybe eventually he’ll run for guv! (2) Recognize that the cozy relationship between the regulator and the regulated has NOTHING to do with satisfying you the taxpaying consumer. (3) There is no free market in regulated services. Just as we identify a tax by whether or not you can avoid it (i.e., tax unavoidable / fee avoidable), so to we can identify a free market as one in which you have a choice (i.e., any choice no matter how absurd or unpallitable is at least a choice). The interesting question is: If the gubamint madates that I have no choice, is that not in effect a tax? Sure seems that way to me.
Reinke Faces Life 