By Dan Barber
Everyday I read about a new tax or usage fee for any number
of things an imaginative thinking person can dream up. Remember the law school
student who championed free birth control for college students? Can we blame
her…she is just a future lawyer learning to get her professional expenses paid for
by someone else.
Some geographic areas have such gross pollution it has
caused severe lung disease for the people who have to live in those areas. I
will bet that insurance companies calculate how much to add to the health
insurance of individuals who live in those polluted communities.
I recently read that a vacuum technology is being developed
to suck out the pollution from the air. I don’t put much confidence in this
idea, but I’m sure someone somewhere is plotting to add this new technology
development to our utility bills… along with the fees added to those bills to
tear down and clean up all of the nuclear and coal fired power plants so they
can be replaced with hundreds of square miles of solar power fields in the
deserts, and thousands of wind mills dotting our landscapes far from the line
of sight of populated centers.
In California
every summer oil refineries are required to reformulate gasoline to meet
regulations that were set by environmentalists/politicians designed to reduce
the pollution caused by gasoline powered vehicles. This change which
coincidentally, happens just before the Memorial Day weekend, hikes up the
prices on a gallon of gas. The Memorial Day weekend also marks the traditional
“road trip” vacation time for many. Has anyone noticed that this hike never seems
to go down at the end of the summer season?
Bad weather along the gulf coast of the U.S. can also increase the price of
fuel when a refinery is hit by a hurricane… a refinery fire will also boost up
gasoline prices. There are also the cost increases caused by refinery
closures due to scheduled or unscheduled maintenance. To help maintain California ’s roads,
bridges and pollution control standards, this state’s drivers also have the
privilege of contributing a combined 55 cents per gallon for local, state and
federal taxes. Then we have to worry about the gasoline cost increase caused by
the cost of a barrel of crude oil being charged by the OPEC nations, even
though our crude is probably being sucked out of U.S. oil fields.
Yes, I understand that we have to pay for the infrastructure
that delivers a service to consumers. I pay a monthly “ready to serve” fee just
to have water service hooked up to my home… that is in addition to the actual
water I consume. I chose to live in the relatively pollution free Mojave Desert , so my water can be a bit expensive.
All of California
is suffering a water shortage, at this time, so the price will again increase
for everyone. Probably the biggest water utility in California is Los Angele’s Department of
Water and Power (DWP). Currently a court battle is going on between the city of
Los Angeles ,
the DWP and the employees’ union. It seems that officials have lost control of the
oversight of a $40 million fund set up, and paid for, by the customers of the
DWP to “improve relations between the DWP and its union.” Normal people could
view this fund as a “slush fund” normally used to pay bribes to corrupt
officials. The union boss charged with control over this fund has refused to
release any of its accounting records. From what I understand about this mess,
the union contract allows this official to keep those records locked up from
public oversight. No one in this fiasco has yet gone to jail, but if the
customers of the DWP refuse to pay their bill, I’m sure they will have their
water or power disconnected by a union employee of the DWP.
There are many homeowners in the suburbs of Los Angeles who
also pay their Home Owners Association (HOA) fees which is charged with keeping
neighborhoods aesthetically appealing according to the developments theme.
Because of this, many homeowners who would like to replace their expensive and thirsty
water consuming lawns with fake grass are prohibited from doing so because it
would not fit in with the plan of keeping everything the same in the
neighborhood. Those homeowners who have brown lawns from a lack of water can
face the wrath of the HOA officials.
In recent years however, a new industry was born with the
crash of the real estate market in Southern California …
an industry of creative individuals who maintain the lawns and swimming pools
of the many foreclosed homes in those HOA controlled neighborhoods. This
important industry was needed to help keep lawns green, mowed and trimmed and
to abate a potential mosquito infestation in those now mostly empty neighborhoods.
People also now happily pay their monthly entertainment
budget to watch television in their own homes which is fed to them via cable or
satellite dish technology. I too pay this fee so I can watch the 3 or 4
channels I regularly enjoy out of the hundreds available on my TV.
Folks are eager to purchase fragile and expensive portable telephone/internet/email/entertainment
and electronic game devices to carry around with them so they won’t become
bored with not having something to do in their free time. This portable
technology is constantly being improved and updated, so people will camp out on
a hard sidewalk for several days just to have the honor to fork over more money
to buy the latest device with a discount for signing up on a two-year contract.
Yes, I am a proud owner of a high tech cell phone that I can
use to monitor my social media sites, send text messages, check the latest
weather report, surf the internet and to find out where I am located anywhere
on this planet; take video or still photos of the surrounding scenery… In
addition, I can ask the nice robot lady where I can get a cup of coffee or
maybe find the nearest bathroom. However, I’m technologically challenged so I
mostly use my portable device to make and receive phone calls. I would like to
get rid of it and buy an inexpensive “plain old no-frills” cell phone from our
local convenience store, but my wife said no! Apparently she can track my
whereabouts when I’m carrying my “high tech cell phone!”
It is only a matter of time before someone tracks me down
and figures out a way to make me pay a tax or fee for breathing clean air out
here in the desert! Maybe I’m already paying that fee on my electric bill!
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