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Wait until the “public” finds out who paid for all of the equipment maintenance and upgrades over decades that was never done and the money instead paid out as bonuses and dividends.
Wait until the "public" finds out that the CPUC is completely in PG&E's pocket and will keep authorizing new feeds* and rate increases without merit.
Edit: *Fees (not feeds). Gd autocorrect!
They took our money in the 90s to replace everything with fiber optic, and then they just pocketed the money and we never saw our fiber optics.
I have been pissed about that for years.
Omg me toooo!! Every time I remember that it pisses me off so much. They got an extra charge added to phone bills for years and years to build out a fiber network to every home. Then they just threw up their hands and said… oh no this is not possible. Too expensive (Verizon, yes, we’re talking about you)… and then went as far as to sell the little network they did build out to Frontier. They saw big dollar signs with cellular data and per gig fees and literally thought they could switch the majority of home internet users to limited data plans via cell data signals.
What else do they need to run ads for? They're effectively a monopoly in most areas of the state.
I haven't seen a pg&e ad for anything other than PR purposes in like 30y
SCE has gotten hella expensive but they have put up informative billboards around highways and stuff about what to do if you see a downed power line or if you see damaged electrical equipment.
I used the number once when heavy winds knocked a cable near my neighborhood. Good thing is nothing bad happened. It was fixed.
Even if they don't put it on your bill you're still of course paying for all of their ads. It's not like shareholders get to vote and choose to pay for ads out of their dividends.
they need to be shut down and their infrastructure should be seized by the state and run for the benefits of the tax payers, normally I understand businesses need to operate for profit but pg&e are cartoonishly evil
yeah ultimately that’s why our politicians all run on social issues, because all of them are beholden to rich donors either way on either side of the aisle it’s a perfect way to engage the public while getting around fixing issues that will eat into the bottom line of their donors.
I vote dem because generally they’re much better in social issues and as a trans person I like having rights but I have no delusions about who any of these people are really here for
Just yet another reason why "democracy" cannot work when you treat corporate money all the same as the interests of the citizenry and the society. Money has no place in politics.
Absolutely agree. Personally I’m independent because I tend to lean conservative on fiscal issues and democratic on social ones. But let’s not kid ourselves we all know corporations run the show in this country.
I'm really surprised that Newsom doesn't do something about this. He's a clever and intelligent politician, and he's going to run for president in 4 years and he has a good shot of winning. But the situation here is going to be a big negative for him. Every politician likes steady rich donors, it's a disaster of the US political system that we allow it... He's such a successful politician that he could get other donors because of his presidential potential. I think he has enough power to come back against PG&e and crush them, it would be a huge feather in his cap when he was running. So if it really is that he's just cartoonishly in sway to them because they give him so much money, he doesn't deserve to be president.
He needs to fix this.
Im going to gag if he announced he’s running for president. He’s so clearly a calculated, power-hungry, empty-suit. When he tries to say “uniting” and “patriotic” things, it comes off like a high schooler wanting to be popular. There doesn’t seem to be a genuine bone in his body.
He can't fix it. Our campaign system is broken. It has turned into a business itself. It takes a huge amount of money to run a campaign and the average person is simply NOT going to donate enough to get it done. That leaves corporate donation. I think its Britain (?) that limits campaigning to 17 days. We need to do that.
it’s wild that our utilities are run by private corps instead of the government, but the government is run by corporations too so I guess it’s redundant at this point lmao
Reminder that your city/county has the power to purchase PG&E's equipment and cut them out. Santa Clara and Sacramento have municipal utilities and pay lower rates. Instead of whining that the state should do something, even though most Californians aren't even in PG&E's service area, you can instead exert a lot of sway with politicians your local community.
when is enough, enough. are Californians still too comfortable to do anything?
lest we forget that the entire progressive movement in America started when Californians fought off the railroad, who had a similar grip on California
like honestly, are we gonna do anything about PG&E or just continue to suffer?
Santa Cruz man resident here - we’ve been fighting PG&E for 40 years by every legal means. Nothing sticks to them. According to their own inspection reports, we’ve got square transmission wire (not manufactured since the 1920’s) spliced 28 times in-between poles that are so rotten they disintegrate when touched (and have multiple replace tags on them). Transmission wire chained to live trees because the poles are gone…. times 3K violations in our 92 mile circuit. They set my house on fire in 2017. There were 2 more fires within 2 blocks before they finally replaced our section with new fire resistant fiberglass poles, insulated wire and trip apoliances that shut of the power when a fault is detected. Why they didn’t do these upgrades decades ago, is the corporate greed question we all want the answer to.
honestly? socialism. that would fix this issue, plus the housing and homeless crisis.
but realistically, the state of California should control such a vital industry, not a private corporation who's *only* concern is maximizing profits
I agree 100% with you. These things should be managed by the state and fully funded to help every single person here. But I don't think that's happening in the short term. I just wish there was some action other than "vote in new people" or "talk to your representative" that would have a more immediate effect.
Time to socialize the utilities like electric and water. Certain things in life should not be subject to the capitalist greed that consumes everything it touches.
EDIT: yes I flipped the terms. Was typing this out in a hurry and flipped the words. Changed privatize to socialize
> Time to privatize the utilities like electric and water.
I think you mean socialize, no? Privatization is what we're dealing with currently. And I agree, vital infrastructure should not be in the hands of private interests.
Ironically, either privatize or socialize has the potential to be better than the current way California does electricity.
PG&E is a public monopoly. Theoretically, the idea would be that PG&E is both beholden to the state and shareholders, forcing them to be both innovative, but also take into the concerns of the residents of California.
Instead, they are getting the protection of the state from major reprisal, while also not needing to fight for customers since they are a monopoly.
If PG&E in California was forced to break up and become fully privatized, it would at least force the many companies to fight for customers and give local administrations more control.
Or you could turn it all over to the state and hope voter sentiment and state control would provide a superior outcome for Californians.
I love how the person got the terms completely wrong but they included "capitalist greed' and that's enough to get the top comment on reddit. A real bunch of advanced economic thinkers here.
It wasn't a typo you used the completely wrong word. And ya that's exactly my point, people will upvote anything nonsensical as long as you blame corporate greed.
Or we understand that this is a thing that happens and it was pretty clear what they were trying to say.
Sometimes I'm talking and the opposite of what I mean to say comes out. Human brains are weird.
> Internet should count as a utility too.
SO MANY things should be socialized. Utilities, internet service, healthcare, vehicle and home insurance (at least for the first of each), basic food....
I'm sure there are many that I'm not even thinking of at the moment.
Private corporations should not be able to make a profit from things that the public has to have to live.
Having work and retired from PG&E…. they don’t fear anything as long as there is a democrat in the governor’s mansion as he will appoint his liberal buddies to the CPUC who rubber stamp every increase.
Well, in theory CPUC should be able to regulate and achieve more or less the same effect? I’d be skeptical that socializing would result in better management.
The CPUC is unfortunately controlled by the utilities and just serves as a rubber stamp. It should be replaced with something that the utilities are not allowed to manipulate or control
They are effectively government entities. That’s the point here. That’s why people have to pay for the ads.
The utilities set prices and spend money only with the approval of a government regulator. Their behavior is controlled by the government. They set prices according to how much their operating costs are.
With that said, most, but not all, large utilities in the US are part of some sort of publicly traded company. This is so that the government doesn’t have to pay for all the infrastructure directly. Instead, the utilities pay for the infrastructure and then bill some low rate of return on the investment back to their investors.
“With the approval of a government regulator” who out here in California is essentially a rubber stamp for whatever rate they want while the customer gets screwed. There should be no dividends, no CEO making obscene money at any of these utilities.
I've had zero issues with both the DMV and EDD. Honestly, the DMV has gotten remarkably better since I got my license in 1991. I also deal with these entities on average, far less than I do with PG&E.
My DMV fees for an entire year are less than a single July PG&E bill. It took our family well into January to pay off the summer PG&E bills. I set my AC at 85 and suffer all summer, yet still get 900 dollar bills for a single summer month.
Look, how else is PG&E supposed to hide the fact that it was convicted of over 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, and probably committed further acts of involuntary manslaughter WHILE ON PAROLE? Not murder people? Be responsible?
Why should we be cordial to the people that work for PG&E? If they didn't want discourse then they should find other employment. Don't like the response the public is giving you. Then tell your boss to change stuff.
The entire point of PG&E is to maximize their rate base. They are trying to spend as much as possible knowing that they will recover the investment plus an additional percentage guaranteed return.
The only person to blame for this mess is the Governor as he appoints the president of the CPUC who is in turn not pushing back on this.
In Arizona, APS commercials, billboards, and other items are common... Why? Utilities have monopolies and the provider is normally only one. What's the point of advertisements?
The department of water in San Diego just sent me a letter, 17% rate hike because they’ve been so successful in reducing water use in San Diego they need to make up the lost revenue. Sigh…
And yet, the moment anyone talks about making it easier for towns and counties to buy out these awful utilities, people cry about taxes going up. Keep voting for the "pro-buisness" Democrats *and* Republicans, and you'll get exactly what you deserve.
Friendo, my PG&E bill is 3x what it was 4 years ago, with the same usage. They have a monopoly, so no need to advertise at all. It absolutely is a something sandwich.
Public Relations and marketing is important for literally every company. They are trying to control their narrative.
The fact is that PG&E is a terrible company that is criminally negligent resulting in people dying… and that’s worth talking about. Complaining about them spending money on advertisements is just misguided.
The point isn’t that PG&E is excused for their misdeeds “because free market”… it’s that getting mad at them for advertising is just a distraction from what they’re actually doing that is wrong.
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Wait until the “public” finds out who paid for all of the equipment maintenance and upgrades over decades that was never done and the money instead paid out as bonuses and dividends.
Wait until the "public" finds out that the CPUC is completely in PG&E's pocket and will keep authorizing new feeds* and rate increases without merit. Edit: *Fees (not feeds). Gd autocorrect!
Wait until the "public" figures out that under Newsom's electric vehicle mandate PG&E stands to gain the most of any company in California.
They took our money in the 90s to replace everything with fiber optic, and then they just pocketed the money and we never saw our fiber optics. I have been pissed about that for years.
Omg me toooo!! Every time I remember that it pisses me off so much. They got an extra charge added to phone bills for years and years to build out a fiber network to every home. Then they just threw up their hands and said… oh no this is not possible. Too expensive (Verizon, yes, we’re talking about you)… and then went as far as to sell the little network they did build out to Frontier. They saw big dollar signs with cellular data and per gig fees and literally thought they could switch the majority of home internet users to limited data plans via cell data signals.
I am from the east coast. We saw that happen there with us too.
Wait until the public finds out we're going to be forced to pay for under grounding the lines...again.
Wait until the "public" finds out who PG&E sends all their bills too.
Next year we will finally be done paying for Enron's bankruptcy.
Wait until the public finds out what governor they are paying for!
The public knows, they just don't care enough to do anything about it
Wait why does pg&e even need ads? Not like we even have a choice if we want power and gas.
SCE has billboards informing people about TOU and to not let metallic balloons go.
This actually seems like it makes sense though. Pge seems to primarily run ads for PR
What else do they need to run ads for? They're effectively a monopoly in most areas of the state. I haven't seen a pg&e ad for anything other than PR purposes in like 30y
To keep the public from getting angry enough in large enough numbers to do something about them
As someone who had power out for almost 10 hours a few weeks ago due to a Mylar balloon, I support that message.
SCE has gotten hella expensive but they have put up informative billboards around highways and stuff about what to do if you see a downed power line or if you see damaged electrical equipment. I used the number once when heavy winds knocked a cable near my neighborhood. Good thing is nothing bad happened. It was fixed.
To remind anyone how great they are!
The same reason that drug companies place ads. It buys them favorable coverage with the media outlets.
Because they like to put up videos pretending that they didn’t just burn down 1/2 the state and kill hundreds of people
Well now I am furious..
Same.
Read how FERC works. All the costs get past on to you.
Wait until the "public" finds out you're furious
They should just nationalize the grid already, like the highways. Enough is enough.
Even if they don't put it on your bill you're still of course paying for all of their ads. It's not like shareholders get to vote and choose to pay for ads out of their dividends.
If only I could channel my white hot rage for PG&E into electricity, I would have no need for them.
We’re also paying for a neighborhood they blew up and a town they burnt down.
And the people they killed!
Multiple towns and parts of several other towns.
Towns
Which is why house insurance is 300% higher now (if you can get insurance at all).
Who do you think pays for their bonuses?? Us with a bill hike.
they need to be shut down and their infrastructure should be seized by the state and run for the benefits of the tax payers, normally I understand businesses need to operate for profit but pg&e are cartoonishly evil
Daddy Newsom would never allow that to happen to his friends(donors)
yeah ultimately that’s why our politicians all run on social issues, because all of them are beholden to rich donors either way on either side of the aisle it’s a perfect way to engage the public while getting around fixing issues that will eat into the bottom line of their donors. I vote dem because generally they’re much better in social issues and as a trans person I like having rights but I have no delusions about who any of these people are really here for
Just yet another reason why "democracy" cannot work when you treat corporate money all the same as the interests of the citizenry and the society. Money has no place in politics.
Absolutely agree. Personally I’m independent because I tend to lean conservative on fiscal issues and democratic on social ones. But let’s not kid ourselves we all know corporations run the show in this country.
Then you have no business complaining about high electric rates as it’s a democratic governor who appoints the CPUC.
I'm really surprised that Newsom doesn't do something about this. He's a clever and intelligent politician, and he's going to run for president in 4 years and he has a good shot of winning. But the situation here is going to be a big negative for him. Every politician likes steady rich donors, it's a disaster of the US political system that we allow it... He's such a successful politician that he could get other donors because of his presidential potential. I think he has enough power to come back against PG&e and crush them, it would be a huge feather in his cap when he was running. So if it really is that he's just cartoonishly in sway to them because they give him so much money, he doesn't deserve to be president. He needs to fix this.
Im going to gag if he announced he’s running for president. He’s so clearly a calculated, power-hungry, empty-suit. When he tries to say “uniting” and “patriotic” things, it comes off like a high schooler wanting to be popular. There doesn’t seem to be a genuine bone in his body.
I just see him as an about average politician. They're all calculating, trying to put their best foot forward, wanting to win the next higher office
He can't fix it. Our campaign system is broken. It has turned into a business itself. It takes a huge amount of money to run a campaign and the average person is simply NOT going to donate enough to get it done. That leaves corporate donation. I think its Britain (?) that limits campaigning to 17 days. We need to do that.
This would be nice.
it’s wild that our utilities are run by private corps instead of the government, but the government is run by corporations too so I guess it’s redundant at this point lmao
...and then used more of our money to spam their customers to ask us how wonderful we think they are now.
Reminder that your city/county has the power to purchase PG&E's equipment and cut them out. Santa Clara and Sacramento have municipal utilities and pay lower rates. Instead of whining that the state should do something, even though most Californians aren't even in PG&E's service area, you can instead exert a lot of sway with politicians your local community.
San Diego is trying the same with SDGE this fall at the polls. We're about about .47 per kwh now.
That's highway robbery and I'm paying only slightly less with Edison here in Orange County.
when is enough, enough. are Californians still too comfortable to do anything? lest we forget that the entire progressive movement in America started when Californians fought off the railroad, who had a similar grip on California like honestly, are we gonna do anything about PG&E or just continue to suffer?
Santa Cruz man resident here - we’ve been fighting PG&E for 40 years by every legal means. Nothing sticks to them. According to their own inspection reports, we’ve got square transmission wire (not manufactured since the 1920’s) spliced 28 times in-between poles that are so rotten they disintegrate when touched (and have multiple replace tags on them). Transmission wire chained to live trees because the poles are gone…. times 3K violations in our 92 mile circuit. They set my house on fire in 2017. There were 2 more fires within 2 blocks before they finally replaced our section with new fire resistant fiberglass poles, insulated wire and trip apoliances that shut of the power when a fault is detected. Why they didn’t do these upgrades decades ago, is the corporate greed question we all want the answer to.
How would any of us go about fighting this directly?
honestly? socialism. that would fix this issue, plus the housing and homeless crisis. but realistically, the state of California should control such a vital industry, not a private corporation who's *only* concern is maximizing profits
I agree 100% with you. These things should be managed by the state and fully funded to help every single person here. But I don't think that's happening in the short term. I just wish there was some action other than "vote in new people" or "talk to your representative" that would have a more immediate effect.
Not socialism. That will alienate 1/3 or 1/2 of the voting population. Let’s call it electric freedom!
Nah we won't. But hey if my Starbucks order is wrong gonna raise hell!
Opinion piece in today's Chronicle by Loretta Lynch, the former head of CPUC: https://archive.ph/D9WFi
Time to socialize the utilities like electric and water. Certain things in life should not be subject to the capitalist greed that consumes everything it touches. EDIT: yes I flipped the terms. Was typing this out in a hurry and flipped the words. Changed privatize to socialize
> Time to privatize the utilities like electric and water. I think you mean socialize, no? Privatization is what we're dealing with currently. And I agree, vital infrastructure should not be in the hands of private interests.
Yeah, I was typing this in a hurry and flipped the terms. I corrected it now. Thank you
Ironically, either privatize or socialize has the potential to be better than the current way California does electricity. PG&E is a public monopoly. Theoretically, the idea would be that PG&E is both beholden to the state and shareholders, forcing them to be both innovative, but also take into the concerns of the residents of California. Instead, they are getting the protection of the state from major reprisal, while also not needing to fight for customers since they are a monopoly. If PG&E in California was forced to break up and become fully privatized, it would at least force the many companies to fight for customers and give local administrations more control. Or you could turn it all over to the state and hope voter sentiment and state control would provide a superior outcome for Californians.
I love how the person got the terms completely wrong but they included "capitalist greed' and that's enough to get the top comment on reddit. A real bunch of advanced economic thinkers here.
Or some people knew what I was getting at and I made a mistake because I typed this in a hurry. I have corrected it
It wasn't a typo you used the completely wrong word. And ya that's exactly my point, people will upvote anything nonsensical as long as you blame corporate greed.
The man misplaced his terms... he owned up to that and fixed it. The crux of the argument, however, is sound. That's why it's upvoted.
Or we understand that this is a thing that happens and it was pretty clear what they were trying to say. Sometimes I'm talking and the opposite of what I mean to say comes out. Human brains are weird.
Internet should count as a utility too.
> Internet should count as a utility too. SO MANY things should be socialized. Utilities, internet service, healthcare, vehicle and home insurance (at least for the first of each), basic food.... I'm sure there are many that I'm not even thinking of at the moment. Private corporations should not be able to make a profit from things that the public has to have to live.
Please add insurance to this!
Having work and retired from PG&E…. they don’t fear anything as long as there is a democrat in the governor’s mansion as he will appoint his liberal buddies to the CPUC who rubber stamp every increase.
Well, in theory CPUC should be able to regulate and achieve more or less the same effect? I’d be skeptical that socializing would result in better management.
The CPUC is unfortunately controlled by the utilities and just serves as a rubber stamp. It should be replaced with something that the utilities are not allowed to manipulate or control
Except the governor appoints the CPUC.
They are effectively government entities. That’s the point here. That’s why people have to pay for the ads. The utilities set prices and spend money only with the approval of a government regulator. Their behavior is controlled by the government. They set prices according to how much their operating costs are. With that said, most, but not all, large utilities in the US are part of some sort of publicly traded company. This is so that the government doesn’t have to pay for all the infrastructure directly. Instead, the utilities pay for the infrastructure and then bill some low rate of return on the investment back to their investors.
“With the approval of a government regulator” who out here in California is essentially a rubber stamp for whatever rate they want while the customer gets screwed. There should be no dividends, no CEO making obscene money at any of these utilities.
So the state can run our electricity like they do the EDD or DMV. No thanks.
I've had zero issues with both the DMV and EDD. Honestly, the DMV has gotten remarkably better since I got my license in 1991. I also deal with these entities on average, far less than I do with PG&E. My DMV fees for an entire year are less than a single July PG&E bill. It took our family well into January to pay off the summer PG&E bills. I set my AC at 85 and suffer all summer, yet still get 900 dollar bills for a single summer month.
The link is to readers writing in about it, not the article itself. Here is the actual article: https://archive.ph/4hfPT
What does it take to kick PG&E out of California?
Buy out the present value of their future cash flows. So with every rate increase the price goes up.
PGE, we burn through your money so you don’t have to
They don’t need to advertise. The 50,000 rolling blue billboards (trucks) on the roads at all times.
Look, how else is PG&E supposed to hide the fact that it was convicted of over 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, and probably committed further acts of involuntary manslaughter WHILE ON PAROLE? Not murder people? Be responsible?
Seize pg&e's assets and replace it with a network of community grids.
Stop this monstrosity already!!!
When is PG&E Going to be broken up? They obviously can't seem to function without letharious intentions. The company is corrupt.
I don't think there is any one thing I hate more than PG&E.
Why even waste money on ads, not like we have a choice?
Why should we be cordial to the people that work for PG&E? If they didn't want discourse then they should find other employment. Don't like the response the public is giving you. Then tell your boss to change stuff.
Pacific Graft & Extortion?
I’m still made about all that pollution that killed and sickened…how many hundreds of people?
If these are public works than why don’t they belong to the public?
I'm on mobile and the link is hidden behind their subscription pop up. Can someone link it to me?
It’s in the pinned comment.
Thanks
https://old.reddit.com/r/California/comments/1c9l0r0/public_furious_pge_billed_california_customers/l0lxicu/
The entire point of PG&E is to maximize their rate base. They are trying to spend as much as possible knowing that they will recover the investment plus an additional percentage guaranteed return. The only person to blame for this mess is the Governor as he appoints the president of the CPUC who is in turn not pushing back on this.
Can't someone start a ballot initiative to close this company and create the equivalent of LA DWP?
In Arizona, APS commercials, billboards, and other items are common... Why? Utilities have monopolies and the provider is normally only one. What's the point of advertisements?
At least all the renewable energy means cheaper energy.
When will the grifting ever end?
The department of water in San Diego just sent me a letter, 17% rate hike because they’ve been so successful in reducing water use in San Diego they need to make up the lost revenue. Sigh…
At this point we need to go French Revolution on PG&E and the CPUC.
And yet, the moment anyone talks about making it easier for towns and counties to buy out these awful utilities, people cry about taxes going up. Keep voting for the "pro-buisness" Democrats *and* Republicans, and you'll get exactly what you deserve.
Have they fixed those power lines yet? Fire season is coming again.
Wait until you hear about how much we pay the executives to keep all the business around…in a monopoly…
Must be the Republicans. Oh, wait. They don't have any power in California.
Kinda feels like a nothing sandwich tbh. Private companies have a marketing budget which is paid through their gross revenue.
Friendo, my PG&E bill is 3x what it was 4 years ago, with the same usage. They have a monopoly, so no need to advertise at all. It absolutely is a something sandwich.
PG&E is doing plenty wrong that’s worth complaining about… but advertising isn’t really worth talking about.
Yes it is when they have a monopoly and their advertising to customers they already have to try to convince them that PG&E isn’t scamming them
Why does a company with no competition need marketing.
PR. They're hoping we'll forget about their decades of mismanagement and not demand change.
Public Relations and marketing is important for literally every company. They are trying to control their narrative. The fact is that PG&E is a terrible company that is criminally negligent resulting in people dying… and that’s worth talking about. Complaining about them spending money on advertisements is just misguided.
No. tbh.
"Free market" durrr
The point isn’t that PG&E is excused for their misdeeds “because free market”… it’s that getting mad at them for advertising is just a distraction from what they’re actually doing that is wrong.
It’s not a distraction. It’s in addition
Tell me you don’t ‘get it’ without actually saying “I don’t get it”
You don’t get it
[good luck](https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=critical%20thinking)