Greene Grocers Inc., and the tale of Good State Folly

Note: No small animals or politically sensitive individuals were purposefully injured in the production of this piece. Any resemblance to any company or individuals pictured herein is purely coincidental, and must be due to the literal interpretation of the reader.

The Greene Grocers Inc., and the tale of Good State folly.

Once upon a time, a new idea to provide “new, clean, and technologically advanced” source of produce for The Good State, is born. The promoters of the idea, and the businesses they form, proclaim its’ produce is “from a clean and free source!” "Greene Grocers Inc." is created.

 

The promoters also claim that it will “reduce the consumption of wicked-bad stuff, the import of bad foreign foodstuffs, and production of harmful byproducts” being offered and sold by other ‘grocers’.

 

Progressive people in the state including environmentalists, elitists and the media love this new idea, and jump on the bandwagon. They want to leave a ‘Legacy’ to the people of Good State.

 

State lawmakers and government know-it-alls fearing a future rise of grocery costs, and purported ‘harmful global effects’ of current grocery consumption, latch onto the Greene Grocers’ idea too.

 

Seemingly unbeknownst to government officials, the produce of existing grocers is ‘clean or super-clean’ already. In fact, according to independent market studies of grocery stores in the region, existing groceries provide clean high quality reliable supply of produce at a reasonable (though high average cost). The studies further say that no new grocery stores will be needed for at least ten years.

 

Nevertheless, new special state laws benefiting only Greene Grocers Inc. are passed. The promoters of Greene Grocery ideas get the state government to order that all the residents must purchase thirty percent (30%) of all groceries from Greene Grocers Inc., or else!

 

These new laws require that Green Grocers are given priority to build their stores, and only their stores. They order a goal of double the grocery store capacity by Greene Grocer Inc. in the state by 2015. Greene Grocers Inc. stores must amount to two and a half times the capacity of total grocery stores in the state by 2030.

 

Even though no new grocery stores are needed, this mandate is so ordered.

 

It is to be enforced by an agency authority within the state called the Public Groceries Commission (PGC) that does not have annual legislative oversight. The PGC has the power to fine or revoke the license of any grocery failing to meet its requirements.

 

The policy makers are misinformed about the fact that clean produce is being provided to their families and friends, and the ‘wicked bad stuff’ is only being used in emergency situations, or during peak demand (less than 5% of the time). Greene Grocers Inc., and their supporters, do not feel the need to tell policy makers the truth, however.

 

For now, all other grocers can continue to sell to residents, but all other sellers of groceries are forced to pay 2% of gross sales to Greene Grocers Inc. annually. It is also ordered that the payment will increase every year by the rate of inflation. This extra cost is added on to everyone’s grocery bills.

 

In order to promote ‘grocery efficiency’ the lawmakers pass an additional tax to fund the new “Grocery Efficiency Trust” and this cost is added to grocery bills as well. Later, it is learned the ‘Trust’ employees appear to have been ‘influenced’ by their political bosses to fund the friends of politicians. This is being looked into.

 

During a temporary spike in grocery costs, Good State lawmakers, approve special law called “The Expedited Green Grocer Law” giving the remote locations and roads to Greene Grocers stores, special environmental waivers. This largely eliminates environmental compliance costs for only Greene Grocer Inc.

 

Environmentalists, such as the Maine Natural Resource Greenies have fought every development of lower cost, lower impact hydro grocery stores in the past, and continue to fight for the removal of such stores from the state. They have become champions for Greene Grocers Inc. despite many citizens showing adverse health effects from living near Greene Grocers Inc. facilities.

 

They actively, and with abject hypocrisy, lobby and fully support Good State mountain top destruction for the placement of Greene Grocer’s new stores in over 1,800 locations. Blasting is beautiful, they say, and for ‘the greater good’.

 

The remote, ecologically important and scenically beautiful, locations chosen by Greene Grocers Inc. for their new stores, require that special new transportation corridors to be built to get their produce to market. Though the ‘old’ system is adequate to handle the existing produce from existing stores, it is unable to handle the new naturally intermittent and erratic produce of the new Greene Grocers Inc. stores remote locations.

 

Adding that people should pay no attention to the hundreds of thousands of birds, bats and threatened or endangered species sliced, butchered and bludgeoned by ‘graceful structures’ whirring blades.

 

The new transportation lines are claimed to enhance 'grid security', however, and have nothing to do with special favors for Greene Grocers Inc. They are speedily passed into law before a new legislature is elected.

 

The machinery, roads and transportation corridors and their maintaince will be paid for by all the residents and businesses in the region, which will also be added to monthly grocery bills. Some estimate those bills could double at least.

 

Good State’s Greene Grocer policies drive more people into poverty programs, weaken entrepreneurial efforts, and scare potential businesses away, and hurt Good States tourism business, but that doesn't seem to bother Greene Grocers supporters.

 

Greene Grocers has also arranged with the Federal Government that all US taxpayers will pay a special cash subsidy only to Green Grocers Inc. of thirty percent (30%) of the construction cost of the new stores--as determined by Greene Grocers--before Greene Grocers has sold a single bag of groceries from their facilities. This cash payment is added to the national debt, amounting to an estimated $100 Billion. Woe to our grandchildren.

 

And it is also arranged, if Greene Grocers has to get a loan for the remaining costs of construction from a bank, the American Taxpayer will guarantee the loan, if asked. In other words, if Greene Grocers goes bankrupt, the US taxpayer must repay the loan. The only justification for the guarantee is that Greene Grocers Inc. says they will reduce the production of “harmful byproducts” of other grocery producers, though they are not required to prove or document that reduction.

 

These two special subsidies reduce the risk to Greene Grocers’ investors to near zero, but the return to investors becomes almost infinite. When they said ‘clean and free’, they weren’t kidding.

 

Greene Grocers has claimed all along that its produce will 'reduce production of harmful byproducts' by other grocery providers, and get Good State off ‘imports of foodstuffs from bad foreigners' and stop people from ‘consuming wicked-bad stuff'. However, when independent individuals and analysts look into the claims of Greene Grocers, and their supporters, it is found that production of 'harmful byproducts', imports of 'bad foreign foodstuffs', and consumption of 'wicked-bad stuff' was not reduced at all.

 

In fact, studies showed that when Greene Grocers came to town, the production of harmful byproducts increased. And, new traditional producers had to be built, because Greene Grocers Inc’s. produce is naturally unreliable, especially when most needed. And though the residents dully bought thirty percent of 'all groceries' from Greene Grocers Inc., the use of the produce purchased could not be verified or tracked, because Greene Grocers was not required to prove that any of the ‘wicked-bad stuff’ was actually reduced or that their produce was used.

 

It is assumed that Greene Grocers produce was wasted, or lost, or 'exported', though this could not be verified, which satisfied Greene Grocers Inc. just fine.  Perhaps Greene Grocers are about as useful as silicone implants on a boar.

 

It was also noted that the states or countries that had embraced Greene Grocery stores had seen their grocery costs ‘necessarily skyrocket’.

 

The Greene Grocers Inc. supporters and employees now assert they are only trying to provide local greene jobs, and strive to bring us to a bright Greene Jobs Future. This however, is refuted by questioners who quote studies showing at least two jobs were lost for every one greene job created.

 

When challenged about all these facts Greene Grocers Inc. declined comment, not wanting to ruin their ninety percent approval rating.

 

The government employees or lawmakers responsible for this folly did not care any more. Some had already gotten jobs promoting Greene Grocers, or working for Greene Grocers companies, or the law firms or engineering firms that were hired by Greene Grocers Inc. all paid from subsidies, taxes, or rate increases by the struggling grocery buyer.

 

Those people questioning Greene Grocers were labeled ‘stupid backward NIMBYs, ‘in the pocket of evil big oil and coal companies’ and ‘against progress and the common good.’

 

Thus, is the story of Greene Grocers, Inc. in Good State.

 

How will this story end? Will the people of the Good State wake up in time to prevent ecological disaster and economic ruin?

 

Well, hopefully, if we can get legislators and the governor to stop this idiocy now.

 

There is an age old moral to this story: If something isn’t worth doing, it isn’t worth doing well.

 

The End.

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Comment by Paula D Kelso on October 1, 2015 at 8:00pm

I love it. I wish I had read it in Feb. 2011. About that time I was seeing myself as 'neutral' and being the only the Planning Board member to question if Pisgah, LLC. had really proven it had $25 million or so to put up 5 turbines. The other 4 members expressing no doubts soon led me to quit and get myself educated. Well, four and a half years later, Pisgah is now trying to convince the PUC it can get milions of dollars in financing even though the Pisgah principals routinely neglect to pay their own real estate taxes and go to lien year in and year out. And we trust these 'develpers' to cough up $250,000 in taxes to the town each year? I like Mr. Dwight's version of the wind industry fairy tale better than the ones Pisgah tells.

Comment by Frank J. Heller, MPA on October 1, 2015 at 7:29pm

By ecological disaster, you mean the loss of forest and bio mass to turbine pads and transmission lines?  Then say so, and demand compensation BEFORE commissioning.

Comment by Dan McKay on February 20, 2011 at 5:26am
DECOMMISSIONING :
        I think we should consider the reality of turbine shutdown and the numerous factors that would create this occurence.
               1. Costly turbine damage
               2. Lawsuit costs eroding developer bottom lines of profit
               3. Competitive generators pushing wind out of the market
               4. Unpredictable lack of wind for extended periods of time. an interpretation of " force majeure " 
               5. Political changes that would diminish subsidies.
               
                These are a few off the top of my head, but considering abandoned turbines of the thousands stand rusting in California and Hawaii, obviously, never to be decommissioned by the developers, is proof that there is something weak in " decommissioning ", while at the same time, this evidence shows a real possibility of risk and failure.
Comment by Lawrence E. Dwight, Jr. on February 19, 2011 at 1:24pm
Please do. Send it or post it.  The word needs to be spread.
Comment by Dan McKay on February 19, 2011 at 12:58pm
Brilliant, can I post on my facebook ?

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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