It was Al Pacino in his memorable role of Tony Montana in the cinema classic Scarface who came up with the immortal line: ''First you get the money, then you get the power.''
Not in this country. As two of the world's biggest energy generators have demonstrated in recent times, it works the other way around here.
TRUenergy, an offshoot of the Kadoorie family's Hong Kong conglomerate China Light and Power, and the British operation International Power have found themselves in the happy position of being showered with promises of cash from taxpayers simply by threatening to turn off the power.
Put aside for a minute the increasingly shrill debate between climate change deniers and the overwhelming majority of the world's scientists.
For that debate - and the complexities surrounding the proposed emissions trading scheme - has overshadowed a tale of political intrigue and a growing desperation within the boardrooms of our biggest banks that have found themselves up to their necks in billions of dollars of potential dud loans to ancient, coal-fired power stations.
And it has become yet another salient lesson in the potential pitfalls of auctioning taxpayer-owned infrastructure, particularly essential services, to the highest bidder.
Where does the story begin? Perhaps when Andrew Peacock first mooted the idea of carbon reduction back in the early 1990s. Maybe it was with Paul Keating, who raised a similar concern in 1996.
It certainly was well under way by the time Jeff Kennett sold off the Victorian power generation and distribution industry for a whopping $27 billion in the mid-90s. And the story certainly was reaching its climax when TRUenergy and International Power bought Australia's biggest and dirtiest power stations on the rebound in 2000.
TRUenergy paid $1.84 billion for Yallourn power station in 2000. While it was a huge discount to the price paid to the Victorian Government just a few years earlier, it still turned a blind eye to the risks facing big polluters from changes to the law.
International Power bought Hazelwood, Australia's oldest and least efficient generator, the same year. Both power stations are located in the La Trobe Valley. Both rely on brown coal, one of the dirtiest forms of fuel known to man. It is twice as dirty as black coal, in terms of energy output, and three times dirtier than gas.
Both stations are huge. Yallourn alone generates 22 per cent of Victoria's power and, combined, they contribute a large portion to the national electricity pool.
When they were bought, climate change was a hot topic of debate. So it would be difficult for either company to argue they had no idea that within a few years they would be facing a cost increase because of the carbon dioxide they spew into the atmosphere.
Ever since the Rudd government was elected in 2007, TRUenergy and International Power have led the charge to kybosh an emissions trading system. Failing that, they were demanding compensation for any changes to the law.
But it is the financing behind their power station purchases and the subsequent coal mine expansions that provides the intrigue in the current debate.
Both Yallourn and Hazelwood are loaded with debt; with loans that do not ricochet back to their head offices in London and Hong Kong. The loans are secured against the power station assets alone.
As was the fashion in the noughties, banks, as we have recently discovered, were only too eager to splash as much money as possible on infrastructure during those reckless years.
And therein lies the problem. The gearing on these old-generation power stations is just too great to tolerate even a slight hiccup in costs.
All of Australia's big four banks have loans to brown coal generators. On Hazelwood alone, the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ Banking Group and Westpac are part of a $742 million debt facility along with a group of international banks. On top of that, the Commonwealth has an 8 per cent equity stake in Hazelwood.
It shouldn't come as any surprise, therefore, to learn that all four banks have been lobbying hard in the past year to dilute the impact of any proposed emissions trading scheme.
None can afford to have those power stations go broke, particularly after the embarrassing number of bad loans they were forced to reveal during the stockmarket collapse of 2008.
However, the question is this: Should taxpayers once again be asked to cover the folly of our banks?
Professor Ross Garnaut, the federal government's adviser on an emissions trading scheme certainly doesn't think so. On ABC TV's Lateline the other night he succinctly described the idea of compensating major polluters as ''an abomination''.
From a purely theoretical viewpoint, he is probably correct.
But at ground level, the Rudd government figured that the threat of power failures if both companies walked was too big a risk to take. Add to that the reputational damage to potential offshore investors.
The government first proposed a compensation package of about $3.5 billion; a level that outraged the two big foreign power companies and the banks because it represented just a quarter of total impairment costs.
Malcolm Turnbull and his energy spokesman, Ian MacFarlane, then convinced the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, that amount was not enough to lower the risk of default, an opinion that was backed up by a secret report from Morgan Stanley to her department.
The compromise was a massive $7.4 billion compensation package to the power companies. Again there was an outcry. It was only half what was needed.
It should be remembered that when the European Union introduced emissions trading a few years ago, the power companies were handed so many free carbon credits - using similar threats - they made windfall gains.
In any case, it is believed Federal Treasury has given assurances that should one or both companies pull the plug on the power stations, it would provide enough finance to keep them running until cleaner alternatives could be built.
Turnbull, a capitalist at heart, supports a long-term market approach to climate change. Tony Abbott, his successor, has opted instead for a bureaucratic response - just hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to reward those who cut emissions.
Talk about a sure bet. Two big foreign power generators and our biggest banks took a punt in the face of well known risks. Now they want taxpayers to write them an insurance policy against losing.
It's called capitalising your profits and socialising your losses.
