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Comment by lokar | Hacker News Reader

California should never have bailed out PG&E. They should have been forced into liquidation and taken over by the state.

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It wasn't even a topic in the governor race, despite the numerous well documented connections between the governor and PG&E

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-originals/pge...

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/gavin-news...

It's the financial piece. The poor again get screwed with higher prices because they will never have solar panels. So electric company was charging more to the poor to pay for this. Just like they do for food and for gas. Just like poor voluntarily pay the education tax for the rich.

Agreed that monopolies need to be regulated by the state. In PA my electricity went up over 300% in the first 6 years it was deregulated, and the company's profits were record quaters from 2008 - 2017.

Investor-owned utility monopolies are regulated by the state. Either Public Utility Commissions or Corporation Commissions.

The alternative is publicly-owned utilities, like munis or coops. Typically the publicly-owned utilities have materially lower electricity rates.

> The alternative is publicly-owned utilities, like munis or coops.

You mean, like Silicon Valley Power (Santa Clara) or Los Angeles Department of Water and Power?

Both of which charge a fraction of PG&E does, and have more reliable power, and offer better customer service (SVP's website is around 1000x better than PG&E's), and more transparent billing, and more assistance to needy customers.

Yes. Other California, US examples are SMUD (Sacramento), TID (Turlock), MID (Modesto), IID (Imperial Valley), Redding, and Needles. Generally all have lower rates than PG&E, SCE, or SDG&E.

And then what happens when it is still equally badly run?

We go on streets?

How do you handle booting an incompetent government. You can't even force liquidation. You can't fire anyone. The only thing you can do is force the issue on the Governor but booting him is close to impossible.

Crony capitalism is as socialist as socialism.

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