The 0.01% Oppose Renewable Energy Because You Can't Suck Rents From It

It doesn't get much more naked than this (AP):

A political group founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch wants Georgia's utility regulators to reject a plan requiring Southern Co. to buy more solar energy, but an Associated Press review ahead of a vote on the issue finds that it has used misleading figures to build its case.

Misleading figures?  Quel surprise.  Read the piece, the story is particularly egregious in terms of bald and bold lying to the public, claiming a 1% increase in solar energy purchased would increase residential electricity prices 40%. The Kochs are just an extreme case of the general composition of the mega-elite wealthy: Pure rentiers.  They get wealthy by extracting rent via monopolistic power over scarce resources needed by everyone else.  That's really what rents are in simplified economese.  I have stuff you need, and I will extort far more than the normal market value for my goods.  You will pay because you have to.  Every disaster story usually finds some villian charging $100 for bottled water or $5K for generators.  That's pretty much what the Kochs, and the billionaire class do to get and stay wealthy at a larger scale.

In particular the Kochs soak rents from fossil fuel resources.  Hence, they must oppose any move to renewable energy.  Why?  Because they care what price Georgia consumers pay for electricity. Haha, no.  Because the Sun can't be monopolized.  Wind and geothermal can somewhat be, in that particular places are better than others for wind and geothermal power, but there's far too many such places and the power of rentiers would be seriously diluted trying to dominate all the windy places of the planet.  The other problem is that renewables scale down quite well. A home can have solar panels, a wind turbine or a geothermal sump.  It can't have a coal or natural gas powered turbine.

This also explains why the rich are much more amenable to nuclear power than renewables.  Uranium is scarce and no one short of Monty Burns level wealth can own a nuclear power plant.  If they have to ditch fossil fuels, they'd much rather go nuclear than renewable.

Do drug dealers like it when their clients go to rehab?  No. That's why the Koch's and the rest of the billionaire class are either opposed or non-committal on renewable energy and the climate change crisis generally.  They got rich from the current system.  A renewable energy system will democracize energy in historically unprecedented ways. No matter what they won't be as rich as they are today.  We're going to have to do this over their active resistance and should expect little to no help from them, no matter how bad climate change gets in terms of extreme weather disasters.  The Inequality Crisis and the Climate Crisis are inextricably linked and both must be overcome simultaneously.

The Walker prank

There's a lot of great stuff within the call itself, but I also find the meta-issue that this happened at all fascinating and revealing.  We've become so used to the fact that the rich get special access to powerful elected politicians, but it really should be a scandal all on its own that in the midst of the political crisis that will almost certainly define his career, Governor Walker found time for an out-of-state billionaire who holds no office.  No journalist, in state or out of it could get ahold of the governor, nor any ordinary citizen of the state, but he drops everything to take Mr. Koch's phone call.

Take this part from Salon's interview with the prankster, who upon calling the governor's office and identifying himself as Koch was immediately put through to Walker's COS, and to pass that barrier:

I politely said hello, not knowing how friendly Gilkes and Koch may be. He was eager to help. “I was really hoping to talk directly to Scott,” I said. He said that could be arranged and that I should just leave my number. I explained to Gilkes, “My goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I’d have her deported, but she works for next to nothing.” Gilkes found this amusing. “I’m calling from the VOID—with the VOID, or whatever it’s called. You know, the Snype!”

The tactic of pretending to be Koch was singularly brilliant as it exposed and exploited a huge conservative weakness.  Their elected officials really are quite eager to ingratiate themselves to America's owners and despite the absurdity of a billionaire being unable to provide a call-back number, neither Walker nor his COS could stand to risk offending Koch by refusing the call.  Koch can funnel rivers of money and positive press toward a guy like Walker toward some future campaign.  If things go badly, Koch can ensure a safe landing at some no-work-required 6 figure sincecure "think tank."  He's the reigning wingnut welfare paymaster and the mid level help like Walker are thrilled to be noticed by the likes of him.

Also bleakly hilarious is that the line about deporting the maid was apparently believable enough.  We know these people are serious assholes, but shit, that's still a little incredible.

Just ask yourself what would happen if a right wing prankster got through to Obama by pretending to be Soros.  Even if Obama said nothing different from his public positions the right would make a stink about him taking Soros' calls.

This was a rare moment of using a conservative weakness against them.  I hope others can find ways to exploit their desire to suck up to the caviar class in order to trip them up. 

Fake edit:  Lawrence O'Donnell made note of the hilarity of their eagerness to take the call too.  Cool.