We all grew up learning how to play Monopoly the board game.  The message of the dice and cards was real estate offered control and control gave you the power to win.  It was early in the game that the luck of the draw and ruthless dealmaker showed the winner.  The manipulation of the weaker players seeking advantage was always clear in the leader’s victims.  And the fun part of the memory was Mom and Dad yearning and guiding that Monopoly behavior.

I always loved Monopoly because it was made by Milton Bradley.  Bradley.  That’s me!  (Now owned by Hasbro.)

But the traditional monopoly game needs to be changed to reflect today’s reality.  

Only one tile is the electric utility while the railroads occupy four spots.  That was true back in the day, e.g. the railroad tycoons were the robber barons of the time and Milton Bradley got it right.  Today it’s SCE, PGE, SDG&E and Con Edison.  Con being the right name.

SCE uses its monopoly power to destroy value and thwart innovation. As a result, the war against climate change, an existential threat to all of us, is being disrupted in California -- gagged and bound with red tape and the entrenched status-quo interests of SCE.

The Sherman Antitrust laws carry something in common with tank of the same name, a powerful weapon that defeated the enemy.  The train monopolies were broken up starting in 1890.  It took until 1946 for the impact to be finally known when the Railroad Commission was renamed the California Public Utilities Commission. 

Before we travel down the break-up-the-monopoly path, we need understand that Southern California Edison (SCE) should have one of the new four utility spots on the Monopoly Game Board and the railroads forgotten like Amtrak.