The Energy Sham Is a Shame
In the belief that Tip O'Neill, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was correct when he said “all politics is local,” I will state my locale: I live in Prague, which is in the Czech Republic, which is dead-center in Europe.
Further, my beef with the energy companies is largely universal, as it largely affects those countries within my purview, the 27 nations of the European Union, Great Britain and the United States.
Enough prologue, here’s the beef
My residence serves as both office and home for both me and my wife, as well as being heated and lighted by electricity. Accordingly, our monthly electric bill is above average. The Czech national currency is the koruna, which trades at the moment at 23 ½ crowns to the dollar.
So, with those details having been taken care of, imagine our discomfort when our monthly electric bill came to 10,000 crowns, up 208% from its already barely manageable 4,800. Each of us have a widely variable definition for barely manageable, it bein…