PG&E Reports Profits Declined 10%, Which Means They'll Just Raise Bills Again | Hacker News Reader

PG&E Reports Profits Declined 10%, Which Means They'll Just Raise Bills Again

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15 pointscoding1238 comments

>Yes, your PG&E bills are higher. And they’re probably going to go up even more, because PG&E needs to bury power lines and pay off manslaughter victims’ families, and the investors would rather you pay for that instead of them.

>I’m not an investor, but if I were, I’d sure think twice before investing in a company that spent a great deal of time in criminal court over an endless array of manslaughter charges. But PG&E has a special arrangement, that is, a monopoly, and any financial penalties they suffer can simply be passed along to you the consumer, which makes them a very safe bet for investors.

I don't quite know what solution people with these politics have. They don't like oil companies (which are capitalist competitors) or utility companies (which are run with help from the state and have profit caps). Of course being a monopoly is bad incentives - but the alternative is more free market control. If you want PG&E to not be allowed to make any money - then it will just be unable to hire workers, run plants or provide people with power.

The fact that you think state capitalism or private capitalism are the only options is kind of depressing.

I mean the state could pay for it...but then people just pay for it with taxes. Which is fine but also just moving the ball around. Unless you think the state wouldn't pay wrongful death lawsuits and therefore could charge the user (taxpayers) less.

I'll preface this by saying I don't know any details about PG&E. But public ownership doesn't just 'move the ball around', it also allows the enterprise to make decisions not purely based on the pursuit of profit. For instance, charge the service closer or at cost.

Why do you believe against all evidence, that government owned and controlled companies can run at a lower cost that provate for profit companies?

What is the incentive to reduce costs, make the business more efficient, provide a quality service? And if there is such an incentive, can you please explain why you believe it is stronger than the profit motive , even with all the dis-incentives in place in a not for profit company

All evidence doesn't necessarily point to that. Medicare, for example, is much more efficient than private insurers.

> Why do you believe against all evidence, that government owned and controlled companies can run at a lower cost that provate for profit companies?

Um, because "all evidence" points to the exact opposite of what you're saying?

A private company is trying to maximize profit. To the extent they minimize their costs they have no incentive to pass that on to any customers.

Empirically, if what you said was true, then the US would have the cheapest health care out of all the other OECD nations because it's run by "for profit private companies". Instead the US pays on average double, as a % of it's GDP.

PG&E has profit caps so it has to offer service close to cost. This article is about a large wrongful death suit it has to pay. In order for it to not be negative and it has to raise prices to continue to be close to cost. The writer is criticizing this as an example of greed.

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