PG&E, guilty

Socialism doesn't cure the evil of greed, it just changes the focus. Socialism has killed its 10's of millions. Don't treat that vile evil as if it's some little innocent puppy.

"Socialism!" is a total red herring here.

In our free market system almost everyone on all sides agree that some important functions should be publicly run.

If people start to question whether a natural monopoly power distribution utility should be a private shareholder owned for-profit corp... they do NOT necessarily want a whole socialist system.

I have a work colleague who used to do consultative work for PG&E maybe 7-8 years ago. From what he described:
- PG&E asked for rate increases from the public service commission in California (regulates utilities are not really the best poster child for an anti capitalist rant since their profit is determined by the rate commission). They asked for those rate increases to increase the maintenance work on their infrastructure
- those rate increase were denied
- the maintenance work didn’t happen
- fires started as a result of poorly maintained infrastructure

I guess that’s manslaughter - deaths result but it wasn’t intentional.

He additionally shared that many of the regulators were not paid well relative to the knowledge and expertise they were expected to possess. Meaning, someone who really knew all that needed to be known in that role could get a job outside the government for far more money. Which meant that the folks in the regulating jobs frequently didn’t have mastery of the content and made ill advised and politically motivated decisions. Bad consequences ensued.

So rant against the company regulated in to bankruptcy if you want - but that misses the full picture.

First of all, the verse says, "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."

Second, in a truly free market/capitalistic society it would have been less likely for this kind of thing to happen. As it is since PG&E has a monopoly in that area of California the residents have no other option as to where they are able to purchase their electricity. If there was more competition there would be a greater incentive for the electric companies to provide a more reliable and safer product at a more competitive price. Currently, the only thing that forces electrical companies to provide a service with a relative amount of safety are government regulations.

Unfortunately, no one really wins in the fallout from the fires that were caused by the negligence of this company. Sure, there will be people who will "benefit" upfront, but ultimately it will be the customers of this company that will pay in increased power bills. So, there may be actual employees who may see some jail time because of this, the customers still lose.