July 30, 2025
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.
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Callaroga Shark Media from New Jersey, where our electric bill
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is so high we must just start mailing you. The
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text of the podcast, this is Ballot, My bill is
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so high I almost stopped wondering if Trump is in
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the Epstein file. A cat named Leo who's earned the
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nickname Leonardo da Pinci because he's an actual cat burglar.
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And when I say cat burglar, I don't mean he's
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sneaking around in a black mask stealing diamonds. I mean
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he's a cat who steals things, which is somehow both
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more innocent and more annoying than actual burglary. Leo is
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a fourteen month old Tonkinese who has brought home about
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one hundred and fifty stolen items in the past nine months.
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One hundred and fifty items. That's more than most actual
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burglars steal in a year. This cat is running a
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one feline crime spree that would make the Pink Panther jealous.
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His owner, Helen North, describes Leo's criminal methodology. He brings
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home a lot of things, he doesn't do much with
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them once they're inside. He just dumps them on the
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floors and just goes about his business. So Leo is
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basically running a very inefficient theft ring where he steals
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things and then immediately loses interest. That's like being a
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bank robber who breaks into the vault, grabs all the money,
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and then leaves it in the parking lot because something
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shiny caught your eye. Leo's specialty is underwear and socks,
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but he's not picky. North lists his recent hauls a
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really expensive jersey with the tag still on, stuffed toys,
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loads of underpants and socks, gardening gloves, active wear, hats,
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sports bras, shorts, East Coast Bays rugby socks, and all
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blacks jersey everything. Leo is like that friend who goes
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to Costco for milk and comes home with a kayak,
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a sixty pack of toilet paper, and three types of
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cheese they've never heard of. Except instead of Costco, Leo's
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shopping at other people's clothes lines. Apparently, Sunday's Leo's prime
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crime days, because that's when neighborhood clothes lines are most
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populated with easily reachable items. So Leo has figured out
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the optimal schedule for his criminal enterprise. He's basically running
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a data driven theft operation. That's either impressive strategic thinking
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or proof that cats are way smarter than we give
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them credit for. The largest thing Leo ever brought home
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was a five foot long stuffed Chepoday's snake. Five feet
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that's bigger than most actual snakes, and he brought it
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home twice, which means Leo really really liked that snake,
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or he's trying to send a message to the neighborhood
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about his territorial ambitions. North uses WhatsApp groups and Facebook
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to help neighbors reclaim Leo's stolen goods, So there's apparently
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a whole social media infrastructure dedicated to Leo's crime spree.
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That's very twenty first century, using technology to solve problems
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created by a cat with kleptomania. Sources close to President
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Trump say he's never met this cat, which raises important
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questions about Leo's security clearance and whether his crime spree
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represents a threat to national security or at least New
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Zealand's national sock supply. The Washington Post reports on a
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mystery that's been bothering people across the Eastern United States
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this summer. Why did their electric bills suddenly jump in Trenton,
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New Jersey. The typical home bill rose twenty six dollars
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in Philadelphia, seventeen dollars, in Pittsburgh ten dollars, and in Columbus, Ohio,
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twenty seven dollars. Mine four hundred. Most people had no
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idea why their bills were climbing. Vicky Miller, a retired
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secretary in Columbus, summed up the confusion perfectly. I never
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know why it goes up. Well, now we know the culprit,
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and the answer might surprise you. The reason your electric
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bill went up isn't because you're using more air conditioning
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or because energy companies got greedier. Your bill went up
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because artificial intelligence is really, really hungry for electricity. Those
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massive warehouses full of computers that power AI, cloud computing,
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and other big tech services called data centers are consuming
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enormous amounts of electricity, and as companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft,
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and Amazon build more of these facilities, the skyrocketing demand
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for power is driving up prices for everyone. In Columbus,
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households are now paying about twenty dollars more per month,
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or two hundred forty dollars a year, specifically because of
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demand from data centers two hundred forty dollars. That's like
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being charged in annual AI tax for services you might
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not even use. Alicia Tolbert from Columbus, who does merchandising
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for department stores while her husband drives trucks, put it bluntly,
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it's definitely not fair. I really can't afford it. Carrie Killingsworth,
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who works in financial services, was even more direct. The
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big tech companies suck up the electricity and we end
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up paying higher prices. I'm not comfortable with a average
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customers subsidizing billion dollar companies, and honestly, that's exactly what's happening.
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Some of the richest companies in the world are building
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massive computer farms and regular people are getting stuck with
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the electric bill just so some snarkwise ass can use
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AI to write jokes. That's like Jeff Bezos throwing a
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party and sending the catering invoice to his neighbors. Here's
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how this works. Electricity markets are complicated, but in this
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case the math is pretty straightforward. Utilities have to make
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sure they have enough power available for peak demand days,
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the really hot summer days when everyone cranks their air conditioning.
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This is called capacity and utilities bid for it in
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annual auctions. Last year, capacity prices in the auction covering
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thirteen states and Washington, DC rose by eight hundred and
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thirty three percent. That's not a price increase, that's a
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price explosion, and according to an independent monitors report, about
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three quarters of that jump came from demand from existing
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and planned data centers. This year's auction increased capacity prices
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by another twenty two percent, which means more bill increases
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are coming. So not only are you paying more now,
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you're going to pay even more later. That's the gift
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that keeps on giving if the gift is financial stress.
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The states affected by these increases include Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan,
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New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
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So if you live in any of those places and
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wondered why you're electric bill jumped, congratulations, you're helping subsidize
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the AI revolution. And my writing team, I think Jay
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Leno just figured out why nobody likes my show. It
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turns out that instead of making fun of both sides,
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I'm supposed to make fun of neither side. Leno has
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some thoughts about today's late night television, and they basically
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amount to, you kids need to get off my comedy lawn.
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The former Tonight Show hosts called the Ronald Reagan Presidential
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Foundation that current late night hosts are too political and
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alienate half the audience by cozying up to one side
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or the other. Leno's main complaint is that modern hosts
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Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stewart, John Oliver, and Seth
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Myers are giving their political opinions instead of just making
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everyone laugh. I like to think that people come to
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a comedy show to kind of get away from things.
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Leno said, Now you have to be content with half
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the audience because you have to give your opinion, which
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is rich coming from a guy who interviewed President Obama
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on The Tonight Show in two thousand and nine. But
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apparently that was different because reasons. Leno asked, why shoot
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for just half an audience all the time? Why not
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try to get the whole audience? Which sounds reasonable until
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you remember that Leno hosted during a time when the
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biggest political scandal was whether the president wore boxers or briefs.
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These days, political comedy vice itself, because politics has become
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inherently absurd and well. It's written by Ai
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