Utilities Took Public Money, Gave CEOs Millions, and Then Turned People's Lights Off During the Pandemic (gizmodo.com) 134
A new report finds that some of the country's most powerful utilities raked in millions of dollars in taxpayer bailout funds last year -- while continuing to shut off service for households across the U.S. during the pandemic. Gizmodo: The report, released Thursday from the Center for Biological Diversity and BailoutWatch, takes a look at states with publicly available data on utility shutoffs. In the 17 states where there was available data on shutoffs, the report found that the 16 utilities operating in those states cut off electric services for their customers nearly 1 million times between February 2020 and June 2021. (For some context on shutoffs during a normal, non-pandemic year, the U.S. Census found that 1.2 million households in 50 states reported experiencing shutoffs within a three-month period of taking the survey in 2017, the latest Census Bureau data available on disconnections.)
The offenses here are not shared by the utility industry equally; there are especially bad actors. The report highlights six utilities that were responsible for a jaw-dropping 94% of all shutoffs last year. NextEra, Duke Energy, Southern Company, Dominion Energy, Exelon, and DTE Energy make up what the authors call a "Hall of Shame." NextEra alone, the report found, accounted for more than half of all shutoffs. The analysis also examined financial documents, including proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission before a company's shareholder meeting, to calculate how much money these 16 utilities received from the government as part of relief efforts during the pandemic. The CARES Act was originally designed to help struggling businesses pay workers, but utilities took advantage of corporate loopholes within the act that changed how big businesses could report taxes. (The CARES Act also disproportionately benefited oil and gas producers: BailoutWatch, one of the authors of this report, has also used financial documents to show how oil companies laid off thousands of people and yet still gave their CEOs raises during the pandemic, all the while taking handouts from the government.)
The offenses here are not shared by the utility industry equally; there are especially bad actors. The report highlights six utilities that were responsible for a jaw-dropping 94% of all shutoffs last year. NextEra, Duke Energy, Southern Company, Dominion Energy, Exelon, and DTE Energy make up what the authors call a "Hall of Shame." NextEra alone, the report found, accounted for more than half of all shutoffs. The analysis also examined financial documents, including proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission before a company's shareholder meeting, to calculate how much money these 16 utilities received from the government as part of relief efforts during the pandemic. The CARES Act was originally designed to help struggling businesses pay workers, but utilities took advantage of corporate loopholes within the act that changed how big businesses could report taxes. (The CARES Act also disproportionately benefited oil and gas producers: BailoutWatch, one of the authors of this report, has also used financial documents to show how oil companies laid off thousands of people and yet still gave their CEOs raises during the pandemic, all the while taking handouts from the government.)
Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
If they don't pay the ceo, he/she will leave. What are customers going to do?
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
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And now you just made AMD's CEO sad.
What's the Lisa Su reference? (Score:2)
And now you just made AMD's CEO sad.
AMD is doing quite well lately and I LOVE their chips. What's the Lisa Su reference? I think they're doing much better than Intel and she seems to be doing a great job, from what I can tell.
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And now you just made AMD's CEO sad.
AMD is doing quite well lately and I LOVE their chips. What's the Lisa Su reference? I think they're doing much better than Intel and she seems to be doing a great job, from what I can tell.
I'm assuming it's the "Not like it requires Einstein level intelligence," jibe that they were referencing.
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Do what every frugal company does. Get a cheaper CEO.
Isn't that what companies do? Replace expensive things with cheaper and crappier things? And in this case, I even doubt the quality would suffer.
Capitalism at work (Score:1)
What, you expected a private for-profit company would give back to the public? That's communism!
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This isn't capitalism. In capitalism, a business would not receive public funds.
Re:Capitalism at work (Score:5, Insightful)
The most conservative company ever gets a handout and of course that isn’t socialism for some reason.
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And you thought it was just the 3000 dollar toilets
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This isn't capitalism. In capitalism, a business would not receive public funds.
If public money instead goes directly to hire people to do/build the things needed, you would have called those state-owned enterprise and communism.
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Bullshit.
I'd suggest reading some history books.
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I did. Starting with Adam Smith.
Try military history and procurement. In WW2, for example, some companies in the USA made a loss on some contracts, especially development contracts. In some cases it contributed to the effective collapse of those companies. They weren't actually all making money hand-over-fist on everything, and tendering could be really quite competitive.
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Again, I think you need to look at more history. In several cases (I will need to find the information, as it is not something I keep recorded for answering debates), contracts were negative, and whilst a contractor might have hoped to make that up via other business there was never a certainty that any other business would be offered to a contractor that had spent more on, say, a development contract than it had received in funding. And in many instances during WW2, production contracts were not given to t
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So you have no example of a NET LOSS in Military selling of any vendor in WWII. THanks for the admission.
There were definitely contracts that were net loss. What I am not going to do is categorically say contract X or Y resulted in a net loss until I have double-checked as I don't keep lists of this information in one place (or a thousand other things) to answer people on Slashdot in detail. You seem to be shooting me down for explaining the limits of my information on hand, despite my efforts to present what I do know in good faith. However, I gave examples of two I believe to be the case, and there are other
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No,show me one company whose total business with Uncle war was a NET LOSS.
So you want me to show you a thing I never claimed? No, I won't do that.
That way you can't hide behind loss leaders.
I still don't think you understand what I am talking about.
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You said there were plenty of companies who lost money. Prove it.
I said on individual contracts, not overall. I will need to go through books I have to find references to have any sort of proof, and that's still not primary information. Doing the research will take time as I don't have that sort of information tabulated ahead of time. It isn't invalid to ask me to do so, though.
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You said "LOST MONEY". Now prove it.
And yes, I did say that. I have books which indicate that this occurred. I can pull out quotes. However, since they don't include detailed references of the contracts I doubt you would accept them, but I have found a source for contracts for 1942-5, some for 1940-1, although it is missing the late 1930s period. It will take me some significant time to work through such data. If I do get round to doing this I am going to concentrate on contracts not whole sweeps of contracts together as this is the premise I
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No you don't have books that indicate that. You have books claiming individual contract offers (loss leaders) failed to make money.
Yes, I have books claiming what I claimed. I don't see the issue.
Re: Capitalism at work (Score:2)
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PUC regulated monopolies == Capitalism...
Idiots.
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gov't money and power = carrion for vultures (Score:5, Insightful)
companies and CEOs are not the problem; gov't subsidies are a petri dish for corruption and and waste
they also influence the market in unnatural ways and with no accountability, the phukkery causes even more problems, therefore even more gov't intervention is needed to 'fix' the very problems it caused
sometimes gov't regs and intervention are necessary, but fer chrissakes, can't we at least consider the possibility that less gov't is the best choice instead of more?
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You mean less government like in Texas?
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
A combination of those 2011 findings, as well as reports from the state grid operators that generators and natural gas pipelines froze during the current calamity and Austin American-Statesman interviews with current and former utility executives and energy experts, suggest a light regulatory touch and cavalier operator approach involving winter protections of key industrial assets. Had the recommendations been followed, either voluntarily by power generators and transmission companies or because of mandates by regulators, many Texans likely would be a lot warmer now, Tuttle said.
Texas sued the federal government for the right to fuck up their grid as they see fit. Way to own those libs!
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They've had 3 such incidents, all 10 years apart. I'm predicting another one in 9-10 years, probably more severe. Once again, Texans will throw their hands up. The citizens wondering how this was allowed to happen again. The power companies in glee as they make even more money from the citizens.
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Don't you worry, as soon as it cuts into their bottom line, they'll start to do the responsible thing and upgrade thier power grid to handle it. Of course not without asking for tax money to fund it, after all, they're just doing it for government's sake, because people are stupid enough to get pissed at the government when they get ripped off by corporations, so it's only fair the government pays for it.
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yeah sure, the government is too powerful and has too much money, that must be why companies have such an easy time co-authoring favorable legislation and regulation
surely the solution is to make the government smaller and weaker, that would definitely make it more difficult for the private sector to wield self-interest over the kind of shared and common interests societies have.
I assert that the real problem is the revolving door and toothless protections against lobbying between two sectors with a very cr
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Re:gov't money and power = carrion for vultures (Score:5, Insightful)
Less government would have resulted in fewer people getting their power shut off how exactly?
If the government hadn't shut down their employers they'd still have income to pay their power bill. Every business in my town is gone since the governor closed all "non-essential" business.
But Walmart and Amazon are doing great!
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The measures reduced the number exposed until the vaccine became available, thus saving lives.
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We got plenty of people, what we're running out of is jobs. Doesn't anyone think of the economy?
Fewer people would also mean fewer unemployed, which also means that companies would have to pay more to get employees. And lo and behold, even with the rather mediocre culling we accomplished that. Just think where our salaries would be if those 20% more had died!
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Don't you worry, they are so far off the deep end in their conspiracy that you can tell them the truth to their face and all they'll do is double down on it to "stick it to you".
Stupid fucks.
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can't we at least consider the possibility that less gov't is the best choice instead of more?
OK, let's consider it.
Hmmm considering.
On due consideration, it sounds like bullshit.
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you're intellectual hammer seems capable of only growing or shrinking government, so everything looks like a nail to you
it's much more likely to be a problem solved by something independent of how big or small the government is, but you know, that's complicated so reach for that hammer, buddy
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> you're intellectual hammer
No, he's not intellectual hammer. Working class at best.
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Government can work, and does in many places. The problem is lobbying and self sabotage. How does that saying go, a republican will eat shit if that means a democrat has to smell his breath. I mean they came out and said their goal is to do the opposite of whatever democrats do.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/m... [wsj.com]
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You're right. Government works so well already that having more would be even better!
I assume you're posting from the Libertarian Paradise of the Congo.
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Well, there are some "socialist" paradises like the countries in the north of Europe where a lot of "socialism" is mixed into their market economy. The same applies to Central Europe where a lot of things that would be branded "socialism" are a reality: Socialized healthcare, common, mandatory health insurance, strong unions (to the point where in some countries they actually have the power to mandatorily negotiate minimum wages), mandatory worker's legal representation, mandatory retirement insurance and m
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Well, we've tried both, and both turned out to fail the moment it gets into contact with humans, who are greedy, selfish, lazy and generally a poor contribution to the workforce.
So what should we do? Wait 'til AI is at the level where it can take over government and economy?
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Bullshit. This isn't even a decent amount of handwavium to excuse sheer, unadulterated greed by the wealthy, screw the public.
Oh, that's right, you're not part of the public, you're "special".
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Anything that is a natural monopoly should be state run. Do it as a state owned but independent company if you like.
Roads, power, internet, schools, some public transport. At they very least it needs to be heavily regulated, but that doesn't work where politicians are easily bought so is only an option for very robust democracies. If it doesn't work in your country, ask why.
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I agree with you in general terms. The problem is that the public utility has to be protected with very robust laws. When your political system has a party that, when it comes into power, will immediately privatize (read: sell to politically connected cronies for a tiny fraction of a fair price) those monopolies.
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Ideally it should be impossible to get a majority and force something like that trough. Coalition governments are a lot better.
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sometimes gov't regs and intervention are necessary, but fer chrissakes, can't we at least consider the possibility that less gov't is the best choice instead of more?
During a pandemic when everyone is trying to fuck everyone else to come out on top? No. Lets not. I'm all for generally a reduction of government doing pointless things, but managing crisis using common funds, and stabalising the economy in the process is one of the core reasons for them existing.
You want smaller government, stop the pointless war waging.
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can't we at least consider the possibility that less gov't is the best choice instead of more?
Sure thing just eliminate campaign contributions, cap corp profits and divide market shares equally. Business is not designed to play fair deal with it.
Re:gov't money and power = carrion for vultures (Score:5, Informative)
Your logic is that bank robbers are not the problem, but Banks are because that's where the money is.
That's a bad analogy. Bank robbers rob banks, but these CEOs and corporations are not robbing the government. The government is giving away money, then complaining about how the money is being spent.
We've seen this over and over so many times it's just a joke. The government starts a program to spending money on X, but they don't make X a requirement to get the money. Then they cry when the money is spent on things other than X. It's a tale as old as time.
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The government doesn't just give away money. These companies have to invest in the government before seeing a return. Wine and dine some senators, invest in their campaigns, that sort of thing.
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The government doesn't just give away money.
In Capitalist USA, the government indeed just gives money away.
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Most likely due to lobbyists. If the government had any balls it would ask for the funds to be returned with interest.
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good ollie, troll wannabe.... keep trying lil man, you'll get there
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good ollie, troll wannabe.... keep trying lil man, you'll get there
Heh, if you saw that as a troll, you might be a tad sensitive, easily triggered to anger. Just the type I like to troll. I feed off your umbrage. I'll take not of that for after this posting.
What's your thesis anyway - don't be vague.
Is it that subsidies are always corrupt and should be eliminated?
Is it that Government is corrupt?
Is it that private enterprise is never corrupt?
Is it that the Free and private market solves all problems.
Is it that you aren't capable of making discussion without insul
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Private enterprises don't need to be corrupt to only care about themselves and not give a fuck about you. Nobody (sane) expects them to do anything else. They can quite openly operate like that.
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Private enterprises don't need to be corrupt to only care about themselves and not give a fuck about you. Nobody (sane) expects them to do anything else. They can quite openly operate like that.
No argument there. My issue is with the idea that people expecting that companies who are only beholden to themselves are somehow more moral that governing systems where we at least have the chance to have some influence are corrupt.
As for sanity, well, I've often doubted the thought process of the libertarians who believe all problems are solved by the invisible hand of the free market.
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Who in their right mind expects a corporation to act moral? Any corporation is by definition intelligence without morals. People have morals. But they only apply when they themselves are feeling responsible for their actions. Which they are not, by definition, in a corporation. No matter what level you are in a corporation, you can pretend that your hand is forced whenever you have to do something that you would consider immoral.
It does of course help if you're a psychopath or antisocial, but it is by no me
By my math: (Score:1)
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"Electrical disconnects decrease during pandemic" doesn't generate the same level of outrage, does it?
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You are forgetting that that is ~3900 customers/month in 17 states vs. ~8000 customers/month in 50 states. Since they don't give the figure for how many disconnects were done in the other 34 states over that 16 month period there is no way to accurately compare the figures.
I guess you could average it out to per state (i.e. ~230 customers/state/month vs ~160 customers/state/month on average) but I still wouldn't call this an accurate comparison.
Corporate Welfare at its worst (Score:2)
Why weren't executive bonuses (as well as any form of compensation over and beyond their salaries) suspended for companies that received these funds?
I know that people will cry "It's the free market" but I suspect that with many of companies, although it isn't spelled out in TFA, that the customers that were shut off didn't have the opportunity to shop around for electricity providers. So they had a government mandated monopoly and still did this.
At the very least, the governments that provided these f
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The company made more money thanks to the government trying to keep poor peoples electricity on. So of course that means the CEO gets a raise.
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Why weren't executive bonuses (as well as any form of compensation over and beyond their salaries) suspended for companies that received these funds?
Because the law didn't require it. Apparently it was a poorly written law.
They're not "utilities" they are private companies (Score:3)
Just like banks aren't "institutions" - they're private companies. Their relationship to the taxpayer is the same as the relationship between a farmer and his cows.
kleptocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have a two party system, we have a kleptocracy masquerarding as a democracy.
There is no fixing this with the petty squabbles over masks and vaccines. The Pandemic just provided a greater means to steal from the public.
The 3.5 TRILLION dollar budget proposal is just more of the same.
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But if I vote for the red team, then the blue team won't win.
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Basically what your elections decide is which crew of croonies gets to fleece you. It's like living in a gang neighborhood and your choice is between which gang gets to rob you.
And you know what? (Score:3)
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That's the problem with doing what is "technically legal". It's not that nothing is going to happen to them, it's that nothing *can* happen to them.
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Well, things could happen to them, but those things wouldn't be "technically legal". Pitchforks and torches rarely are.
DTE oddly changed... (Score:2)
DTE oddly changed. And I was young and moved out on my own across state lines, I would often get behind on my power bill but never once did it ever get shut off.
At one point they even screwed me because I was enrolled in a cost Savings Program that would make the payments the same every month. They failed to reevaluate the cost for a month over a few years until finally nailing me with notice that they weren't charging enough and I was behind three grand.
This really pissed me off because I was paying every
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They have the technology to do remote shut offs in many cases now, which makes it a (disproportionately) easier stick to rattle.
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"Fast forward 15 years and I have my shit together, forgot to pay a single 70 something dollar power bill due to caring for a special needs child in the hospital and was not even 1 month late and they shut me off like THAT. Boy have times changed...."
And strangely, you'll be penalized if you try to not be their customer. Many municipalities, and some US States, have laws that require you to be connected to the power company (and water/sewer), so even if you are completely self sufficient using solar or wind
The interesting number is profits, not shutoffs (Score:3)
As always, there is nuance here. We all know sometimes a business needs to tighten it's belt and lay off some employees and in this case cut off customers who can't pay. However, if you're going to take corporate welfare money and tighten your belt and screw over these impacted customers, I hope you've tightened your belt equally to your leadership ranks. It's OK to be a little shitty to keep your business from going bankrupt. It's heinous to be shitty to keep your leadership fat and overcompensated.
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if you're cutting pay to the directors and executives
Heh. I think if anyone ever truly cut pay to the directors and executives, that would make the news.
Reducing the salary to $1/year and giving twice as much in stock doesn't count.
voters choice (Score:2)
You mean companies grifted? (Score:2)
I'm shocked to hear that taxpayer money handed over by the con artist to corporations was not used for its intended purpose, but was instead used to enrigh those at the top.
It's almost as if his leading by example paid off.
Good thing we have these torches (Score:2)
Hey and I found some pitchforks back here too.
This is why utilities should be publically owned (Score:3)
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Huh ?
If you try to sell garbage, people aren't going to buy them. You'll lose
The GOVERNMENT has no incentive to provide great service. They'll take your money either way.
That's why they're the ones who are making garbage.
I don't have to pay ANY money for free email from Google while the government squanders 3 MILLION USD on studying why lesbians weigh more than straight people.
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But even if that corruption wasn't going on, it's not like you can vote in new DMV workers.
Corruption these days is just unreal (Score:2)
Take a look at this:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=13... [youtube.com]
Yes, the Starbucks falls over like a movie set facade in an F3 rated tornado. Ironically, it was a good thing it was a tornado that knocked it down, because the customers evacuated to saftey after heading the warning. Had it been a sudden downburst, or just a windy day, this STBX would've been filled with people who would've gotten killed.
Corruption is how this solid looking yet flimsy building got approved and built in the first place, and some d
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You mean corruption a decade or two or four ago, that's what caused the Starbucks fuckup. The current-day corruption will take years to decades to rear its ugly head, so what you are seeing are not the consequences of "corruption these days".
Re: Corruption these days is just unreal (Score:2)
Then we are really fucked.
Once corruption takes hold, they just continue to push the envelope, seeing just how much they can get away with before the hammer comes down. In the case of buildings, it means cheaper, more brittle materials. The extreme end of this is mixing concrete with sand for high rise apartment buildings, which has resulted in major fatalities in other countries. I hope it's not happening here already, but who knows? The recent condo collapse in Florida was the result of corruption and lac
Center for Biological Diversity and Bailout Watch? (Score:3)
"The Center for Biological Diversity and Bailout Watch" seems like a really odd combination.
Where is the synergy?
How many times before we learns that ... (Score:2)
... giving money directly to corporations with the expectation that they're going to do some good for the public or their customers is not going to result in anything good being done for the public or those customers. This seems to be Plan A whenever there's a crisis -- "Let's give money to big corporations because they must know what they're doing to get so big." -- when what actually happens is that the big corporations get even bigger when they got money and could get away with not doing what that money
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This is the result of a number of attitudes, starting with 'capitalism provides': There are a number of things capitalism doesn't provide hence we need a government, a government that doesn't privatize the very problems that greed and Efficiency of Supply can't fix, E.g. prisons (because government guarantees a supply of criminals to a monopoly). Furthermore, giving money to person X (the corporation) because person Y (the consumer) has a problem isn't capitalism, it's totalitarianism without the iron fi
You don't have to pay, but you have to call. (Score:2)
Here's an article with some context.
https://www.savannahnow.com/st... [savannahnow.com]
A lot of turnoffs are people who move and don't pay the last few bills. It's quite common.
Also, many, if not most power companies have payment plans for people who fall behind.
And if you got cutoff, they'll turn it back on if you just call them and make some arrangement. There are programs to help you. But they can't read your mind and no way are they just going to send you money "in case you need it" without some kind of clue.
The main thi
Bogus headline (Score:2)
Non sequitor.
Of course they did (Score:2)
"Utilities Took Public Money, Gave CEOs Millions, and Then Turned People's Lights Off During the Pandemic"
Of course they did, what did you expect to happen?
I mean, these days this kind of thing barely qualifies as "news", it should really go in the "Recurring Events" section or the "Stuff We See All The Time" category.