Why Georgia Power is our friend, NOT!

I was sitting in my van today, waiting to pick up my granddaughter from school and got bored. I started reading the insert in my Georgia Power bill envelope. They were letting me know that they were increasing rates by 10% in order to pursue greener technology, improve delivery, and blah, blah, blah. They went on to say that, even with the rate increase, their rates were still below the national average so it was ok. Guess what? Our salaries here in South Georgia are also below the national average, so it does impact our budgets negatively. We aren't getting 10% raises anytime soon, either. They are an industry pretty much unaffected by the recession and their employees make good money with plenty of benefits, too. Further down in the article, they go on to say they are also adding an average 3.5% to pay for construction costs related to 2 nuclear power plants they are building for the next 4 years. So, we basically are getting a 13.5% increase in our bill. Another item in the newsletter was a program they started to help us get rid of our old refrigerators and freezers sitting in our garages and basements. Their theory is that each one uses about $100 per year. They will pick up the old fridge and pay $35 to boot! They are partnered with an appliance recycler who does the actual pickup. I have several problems with this. First, if I have an extra fridge in the garage, it's holding beer or fish bait or something. It's not empty. If it was, it would be for sale on Craigslist! Second, Georgia Power stated they don't pickup non-working appliances. If the recycler is only picking up working appliances, they aren't tearing them apart. They're selling them to the budget used appliance stores for resale. Sounds like a hell of a racket to me. How stupid do they think we are?