Diemer, For a Change

I'm don't want to appear prescient, but I am a doomer. I quit the California ISO in 2005 for a number of reasons; the foremost being that I didn't believe in the whole re-engineering of electricity markets. I remember quite clearly, in April 1998 thinking how much I didn't like this 'new world order.' It was a much simpler electrical universe as late as 1997. But I kept with it. They paid well.

That's all it was to me, a job I didn't believe in, but they paid well. No satisfaction. And I wasn't good at it. I wasn't any good at understanding the market myself, let alone any ability to communicate it to others. They only paid in dollars. No pensions, sharing programs, retiree medical. Just like most employers today, assuming everyone is mobile, benefits are 'portable': that is, 401k dollars only. Employers are significantly reducing or eliminating traditional retirement benefits.

So I wound up working in a very limited field that I wasn't very good at. For a doomer, this didn't bode well. So I quit and found my current protection engineer job that is 100% recession/depression proof. Relay engineers are needed in every electric utility. I can work anywhere. In an industry with an aging workforce, with a massive wave of retirements coming in the next 10 years. In a productive capacity. With my doomerish take on our fossil fuel positions, I think that electric production will be something to be expanded, not contracted, going forward. And as people get laid off from work during "tough economic times," they are only going to sit at home...and read the want ads in the dark? Hell no, they are going to consume more electricity.

Compare that against jobs selling hot tubs, pool tables, auto insurance, dirt bikes, car stereos, TVs, or any of the other trappings of suburban living. I didn't mention jobs manufacturing these things. Things aren't made locally anymore, because we all wanted to save $3 on that plastic sno kone machine. And things aren't sold locally anymore -- small distributors are squeezed out because they can't order 75,000 sno kone makers at a crack from a factory in Hangzhou. We accept the big box stores as a result.

20% of England's workforce is engaged in the financial services sector. Twenty percent! Jobs that are invented to service the production of real goods produced elsewhere. I think the percentage in the US is 6%. I view the California ISO as the same-- engaged in the imaginary world of financial settlements, forward contracts, congestion revenue rights, real time decremental bids -- and all for a commodity that was produced elsewhere by others.

Imagine Diemer for president. "For A Change" is my slogan. On the heels of my wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, I'm standing at the podium in Michigan, purposely lying to everyone at my rally. You're jobs are coming back! I don't mention that Michiganonians, like everyone else in the US, also wanted to save 4 bucks on that curler set. So you eviscerated your own $96/day labor productive economies and sent them to Mexico. And when the comparative advantage of hair curler manufacturing between Mexico, at $10 dollars/day labor, and Bangladesh, at $6 dollars/day labor is made available, production will move there. So there will be jobs in Michigan -- the UA theater in Dearborn will be selling tickets and popcorn to Highland Park's Century theater's workers on their days off and vice versa.

I become elected.