Why your electric bill is so high

Patrick Gutfield exposes a real-life cat burglar named Leo who’s been stealing socks across New Zealand, then digs into why your electric bill is sky-high (hint: blame A.I.). Plus, Jay Leno misses the days when late-night hosts just told jokes and didn’t pick sides. Portions of today’s show were made with the help of A.I. and a very judgmental utility bill.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Callaroga Shark Media from New Jersey, where our electric bill
is so high we must just start mailing you. The
text of the podcast, this is Ballot, My bill is
so high I almost stopped wondering if Trump is in
the Epstein file. A cat named Leo who's earned the
nickname Leonardo da Pinci because he's an actual cat burglar.

(00:25):
And when I say cat burglar, I don't mean he's
sneaking around in a black mask stealing diamonds. I mean
he's a cat who steals things, which is somehow both
more innocent and more annoying than actual burglary. Leo is
a fourteen month old Tonkinese who has brought home about
one hundred and fifty stolen items in the past nine months.
One hundred and fifty items. That's more than most actual

(00:48):
burglars steal in a year. This cat is running a
one feline crime spree that would make the Pink Panther jealous.
His owner, Helen North, describes Leo's criminal methodology. He brings
home a lot of things, he doesn't do much with
them once they're inside. He just dumps them on the
floors and just goes about his business. So Leo is

(01:09):
basically running a very inefficient theft ring where he steals
things and then immediately loses interest. That's like being a
bank robber who breaks into the vault, grabs all the money,
and then leaves it in the parking lot because something
shiny caught your eye. Leo's specialty is underwear and socks,
but he's not picky. North lists his recent hauls a

(01:30):
really expensive jersey with the tag still on, stuffed toys,
loads of underpants and socks, gardening gloves, active wear, hats,
sports bras, shorts, East Coast Bays rugby socks, and all
blacks jersey everything. Leo is like that friend who goes
to Costco for milk and comes home with a kayak,
a sixty pack of toilet paper, and three types of

(01:51):
cheese they've never heard of. Except instead of Costco, Leo's
shopping at other people's clothes lines. Apparently, Sunday's Leo's prime
crime days, because that's when neighborhood clothes lines are most
populated with easily reachable items. So Leo has figured out
the optimal schedule for his criminal enterprise. He's basically running

(02:12):
a data driven theft operation. That's either impressive strategic thinking
or proof that cats are way smarter than we give
them credit for. The largest thing Leo ever brought home
was a five foot long stuffed Chepoday's snake. Five feet
that's bigger than most actual snakes, and he brought it
home twice, which means Leo really really liked that snake,

(02:35):
or he's trying to send a message to the neighborhood
about his territorial ambitions. North uses WhatsApp groups and Facebook
to help neighbors reclaim Leo's stolen goods, So there's apparently
a whole social media infrastructure dedicated to Leo's crime spree.
That's very twenty first century, using technology to solve problems
created by a cat with kleptomania. Sources close to President

(02:58):
Trump say he's never met this cat, which raises important
questions about Leo's security clearance and whether his crime spree
represents a threat to national security or at least New
Zealand's national sock supply. The Washington Post reports on a
mystery that's been bothering people across the Eastern United States
this summer. Why did their electric bills suddenly jump in Trenton,

(03:21):
New Jersey. The typical home bill rose twenty six dollars
in Philadelphia, seventeen dollars, in Pittsburgh ten dollars, and in Columbus, Ohio,
twenty seven dollars. Mine four hundred. Most people had no
idea why their bills were climbing. Vicky Miller, a retired
secretary in Columbus, summed up the confusion perfectly. I never

(03:45):
know why it goes up. Well, now we know the culprit,
and the answer might surprise you. The reason your electric
bill went up isn't because you're using more air conditioning
or because energy companies got greedier. Your bill went up
because artificial intelligence is really, really hungry for electricity. Those
massive warehouses full of computers that power AI, cloud computing,

(04:06):
and other big tech services called data centers are consuming
enormous amounts of electricity, and as companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft,
and Amazon build more of these facilities, the skyrocketing demand
for power is driving up prices for everyone. In Columbus,
households are now paying about twenty dollars more per month,
or two hundred forty dollars a year, specifically because of

(04:29):
demand from data centers two hundred forty dollars. That's like
being charged in annual AI tax for services you might
not even use. Alicia Tolbert from Columbus, who does merchandising
for department stores while her husband drives trucks, put it bluntly,
it's definitely not fair. I really can't afford it. Carrie Killingsworth,

(04:50):
who works in financial services, was even more direct. The
big tech companies suck up the electricity and we end
up paying higher prices. I'm not comfortable with a average
customers subsidizing billion dollar companies, and honestly, that's exactly what's happening.
Some of the richest companies in the world are building
massive computer farms and regular people are getting stuck with

(05:11):
the electric bill just so some snarkwise ass can use
AI to write jokes. That's like Jeff Bezos throwing a
party and sending the catering invoice to his neighbors. Here's
how this works. Electricity markets are complicated, but in this
case the math is pretty straightforward. Utilities have to make
sure they have enough power available for peak demand days,

(05:33):
the really hot summer days when everyone cranks their air conditioning.
This is called capacity and utilities bid for it in
annual auctions. Last year, capacity prices in the auction covering
thirteen states and Washington, DC rose by eight hundred and
thirty three percent. That's not a price increase, that's a
price explosion, and according to an independent monitors report, about

(05:55):
three quarters of that jump came from demand from existing
and planned data centers. This year's auction increased capacity prices
by another twenty two percent, which means more bill increases
are coming. So not only are you paying more now,
you're going to pay even more later. That's the gift
that keeps on giving if the gift is financial stress.

(06:16):
The states affected by these increases include Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan,
New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
So if you live in any of those places and
wondered why you're electric bill jumped, congratulations, you're helping subsidize

(06:36):
the AI revolution. And my writing team, I think Jay
Leno just figured out why nobody likes my show. It
turns out that instead of making fun of both sides,
I'm supposed to make fun of neither side. Leno has
some thoughts about today's late night television, and they basically
amount to, you kids need to get off my comedy lawn.

(06:59):
The former Tonight Show hosts called the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Foundation that current late night hosts are too political and
alienate half the audience by cozying up to one side
or the other. Leno's main complaint is that modern hosts
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stewart, John Oliver, and Seth
Myers are giving their political opinions instead of just making

(07:20):
everyone laugh. I like to think that people come to
a comedy show to kind of get away from things.
Leno said, Now you have to be content with half
the audience because you have to give your opinion, which
is rich coming from a guy who interviewed President Obama
on The Tonight Show in two thousand and nine. But
apparently that was different because reasons. Leno asked, why shoot

(07:44):
for just half an audience all the time? Why not
try to get the whole audience? Which sounds reasonable until
you remember that Leno hosted during a time when the
biggest political scandal was whether the president wore boxers or briefs.
These days, political comedy vice itself, because politics has become
inherently absurd and well. It's written by Ai