Despicable PG&E

Headline news reported the other day that TRN an industry watchdog group is accusing energy giant PG&E of serious misconduct in relation to the disastrous pipeline explosion two weeks ago.   Four people were killed and three more are “still missing” (let’s just call it seven, from the video i saw I do not think they will find the last three) dozens of houses were burned to the ground, and some of the evacuees who were lucky enough not to lose every thing in the fire were later victims of looters while being kept away from there homes by police.  Then I saw a news crawl that governor Schwarzenegger wants to declare the site a federal disaster area to pay for the cleanup.

The charges are that PG&E received a five million dollar rate hike to pay for repairing the gas main that failed, then turned around and gave the repair money out as executive bonuses.  PG&E then asked the state for more time and another five million dollars to make the repairs they should have already made.  I can only guess that they must have rum out of money before they ran out of executives.  The explosion and resulting fire were so huge that at first it was reported that an airliner had gone down in the neighborhood on approach to LAX.  It took emergency responders two days to put out the fire, and police kept even people who lost nothing to the fire out of the area.  Police kept out the residents but apparently  allowed in all the looters who felt like wondering through the neighborhood.  One couple not only had their jewelry stolen, but their passports and social security cards as well.  My advice to that couple is to go ahead and change your names now, it will only get tougher the more your identity is stolen. avoid the rush.

What I would do.  This is a new feature for this blog where I not only write about a travesty of justice, I will also write about what I would do to bring about a just resolution to the matter if it were up to me.  And they better pray it is never up to me.  First PG&E would pay for the whole cleanup and rebuild, no federal money!  Next, every executive that took a bonus from the rate hike meant for repairs would be charged with arson and murder.  Over and over again companies rip off consumers, poison their employees and customers all while getting huge tax breaks and free land from local governments just to do business in their states.  Nothing is ever done to correct these travesties or to prevent them from happening again.  There is a lot wrong with the Chinese government, but they know how to deal with corruption and restore the confidence of the public.  Remember when tainted baby formula turned up?  The Chinese took their head of the Chinese equivalent of the FDA out of his office and shot him within a month.  If we created a few examples like these some of these abuses would clear up pretty quickly