You're Too Dumb to Buy Your Light Bulbs!

When I first read the below article I thought it was a joke, but then suddenly realized it was the truth. The truth is that many in powerful positions think we are dumb and must be helped in our everyday decisions and such complex things as purchasing a light bulb must be made by those who are far intellectually superior to us common ignorant fools. Yes, my fellow dumb Americans your days of having to decide what light bulb to buy are coming to an end and those with much greater knowledge of this complex problem have solved this mind boggling dilemma for us. So relax and be thankful and expect such frightful decisions as what to buy at the grocery store soon to be solved by those great thinkers in Washington.
I did the math on the below article and came up with these numbers: First Energy Corp which has 4.5 million customers in Ohio,PA and NJ would realize a profit of $63,000,000 over a three year period on the forced sale of these new light bulbs. Would anyone be willing to bet that these new bulbs are not coming from GE. I suspect all utility companies nation wide will follow suit.


Kevin O'Brien
Plain Dealer Columnist
There was a time when you and I could be trusted to change a light bulb.

In those days, powerful people who made weighty decisions understood that if a light bulb burned out, even the dimmest of us common folk would know enough to remove it from its socket, choose a suitable replacement and install it.

Apparently all of the weighty decisions have been made, because powerful people have now worked their way down to telling us what kind of light bulb we will use -- and even bringing some to us, apparently fearing that even the brightest of us common folk might botch the job.

How is it that an act whose very simplicity spawned a genre of humor, based mostly on ethnic, sexist and sectarian slurs -- "How many (insert your favorite target for tactless, insensitive, mean-spirited, stereotypical humor here) does it take to screw in a light bulb?" -- has suddenly become a complicated, labor-intensive, expensive, public endeavor?

The old jokes have given way to a new one, with a reworked setup for the punch line:

"How many public officials and utility big-wigs does it take to -- well, you know -- every FirstEnergy Corp. customer?"

In just a few days, people dressed in green T-shirts and green caps will begin the rather enormous task of delivering two 23-watt, warm-white, compact fluorescent light bulbs to every residence FirstEnergy serves.

They won't ask whether you want them. They'll just leave them on your doorstep, in a bag that will also contain a brochure called "More Than 100 Ways to Improve Your Electric Bill."

They won't ask for payment, though. As you might expect with an electric utility, that's already wired.

These whiz-bang new light bulbs -- which cost FirstEnergy $3.50 each, and which you could buy all by yourself at any number of stores for even less if you were still trusted to do that sort of thing -- will cost you $21.60 for the pair. You'll pay it off over the next three years, at 60 cents a month added to your electric bill.... source: Cleveland Plain Dealer