Stupid is our name

See the happy moron
He doesn’t give a damn
I wish I were a moron
My God perhaps I am

I'd like to propose we change the name of our county from Niagara to Stupid. Where else could you find a place that produces billions of dollars' worth of a commodity that everybody uses -- a commodity that made them rich -- who signed their rights away for 50 years, exported it at cheap prices, then paid exorbitantly for the same product, descending, during that time, from prosperous to broke? Who elects leaders who -- when their first, bankrupting, 50-year deal was up -- signed another 50-year deal, to lose control of their product for a century?

And, finally, the embellishment: the dunce cap on the pinhead of a fool -- an apathetic, uninformed public?

They don't know, for instance, that the New York Power Authority -- an Albany-controlled "public benefit" corporation, now in the fifth year of a second 50-year license to control the hydroelectric energy of the Niagara – sells Niagara hydro-power to New York City and eight other states.

They don't know that -- as their inexpensive, local power crosses the state to enrich New York City, Rhode Island and New Jersey -- only two places in the USA pay more for electricity than Niagara residents, New Hampshire and Hawaii. According to Electric Power Monthly, 25 percent of the nation pays less than half. A bankrupt people, who have the greatest, natural hydroelectric power in the world, who do not get inexpensive electricity, is one stupendous irony.

It strikes us as bizarrely comedic, with a well-defined stooge: the people of Niagara, when one learns that Niagara residents get their power from burning coal and other inefficient methods, purchased at a high mark-up from a British company called National Grid.

Ironic, isn't it? NYPA takes our inexpensive hydropower and sells it to New York City and elsewhere. We buy expensive electricity to profit the Brits.

Even the denizens here ought to comprehend that NYPA is controlled by Albany and swells rich with "patronage" jobs. Instead of low-cost electricity for this region -- which would create thousands of well-paying local jobs -- the profits from our hydropower pay for high-paying "administrative" and "consultant" jobs, in White Plains (New York City) and Albany.

We get a proportional pittance, a crumb from the table: $5 million per year split between seven municipalities in return for the loss of a billion dollar per year asset.

This is like if I made you a hundred dollars, you gave me a nickel.

Simply stated, a region has to benefit from its natural assets, just as it has to pay for its natural liabilities and disadvantages. To cite an example, we have to pay high heating bills in this region because it is cold. But why are we paying 44 percent more for electricity than the residents of Sarasota, Fla., which has neither the disadvantage of high heating bills nor the advantage of a natural power source?

Niagara Falls lost not one but two of its greatest assets to Albany : tourism (through Albany's greedy management of the state park) and hydroelectric power.

Imagine what your life would be like if you were to lose your best two assets. Whatever it is you do best in life, your two best, shining talents, imagine what life would be like if someone took all the profit you get from these away.

Then imagine that you didn't complain, were hardly aware of it. Then you'll understand what happened in Niagara.

The stupefying, ultimate truth is this: There is no inexpensive electrical power for the people who live where electricity is generated. The people don't use their locally produced power, they don't know it and, when they learn about it, they don't complain.

They don't call us stupid for nothing.