So, I guess I should take the new site out for a spin!
Here’s what’s been enraging me lately. The first incident comes from a little while back.
You may have heard that the giant California utility company PG&E — whose faulty infrastructure started the devastating fire that last year engulfed Paradise, CA — has been shutting off power anytime it thinks its crappily maintained equipment might set off another disaster.
On one hand, good for them: pro-active safety is better than another firestorm.
On the other: this is PG&E we’re talking about, so over the summer, this happened:
A 67-year-old man with health issues died 12 minutes after Pacific Gas & Electric cut the power to his Pollock Pines neighborhood in Northern California late Wednesday, and his daughter believes the outage was a contributing factor.
The coroner quickly ruled PG&E was not at fault, but his family has, shall we say, some questions:
Robert Mardis Sr. was using a continuous positive airway pressure machine that helps keep airways open when sleeping, but it stopped working when the electricity was cut by PG&E around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, said Marie Aldea, his daughter. She said her father collapsed and died 12 minutes after the power went out at her home, where her father was staying.
“The power had just gone off, so he was going to his portable oxygen machine,” Aldea said. “We weren’t even able to get to the generator it happened so quick.”
File this one away under “Not Proven”, I guess — or “Smells Bad” if you prefer. But the thought of Mr. Mardis suffocating in the dark hasn’t left me…
So, that’s the retail version of corporate pursuit of profit with reckless disregard for the costs it imposes on others.
Here’s a wholesale case, which will, I guarantee, enrage you. Alec MacGillis’s piece in the New Yorker and Pro Publica digs into Boeing and the people its decisions killed in the 737 Max. There I learned stuff like this:
2005, embracing the deregulatory agenda promoted by the Bush Administration and the Republicans in Congress, the F.A.A. changed to a model called Organization Designation Authorization. Manufacturers would now select and supervise the safety monitors. If the monitors saw something amiss, they would raise the issue with their managers rather than with the F.A.A. By sparing manufacturers the necessity of awaiting word from the F.A.A., proponents of the change argued, the aviation industry could save twenty-five billion dollars in the next decade.
At a meeting on the new process, Sorscher said, “This is just designed for undue influence,” he recalled. “ ‘No, no, no,’ they said. ‘This will work.’ ‘How will this work?’ I said. ‘We have good people,’ they said. I said, ‘Good people in a bad system is still a bad system.’ ”
Exactly right:
In 2009, the F.A.A. created the Boeing Aviation Safety Oversight Office, a forty-person bureau in Seattle dedicated to serving Boeing, led by an employee named Ali Bahrami. Four years later, Bahrami left the F.A.A. to take a job with the Aerospace Industries Association, which lobbies for Boeing and other manufacturers.
The article goes on to describe the boost-the-stock-price obsession that overrode the traditional engineering culture at Boeing, and that led directly to the design disasters in the 737 Max that have now killed hundreds — and may yet wreck Boeing itself.
I thought about both of these stories in the context of the current spray of headlines about Trump’s grotesque corruption. The takeaway, for me, is that Trump as foul and dangerous as he is, remains a symptom of a pathology that runs much deeper. The Reagan revolution was a coup: corporate interests seizing the levers of power, and then, inevitably, using them for short term gain and then, much earlier than long term, disastrous outcomes for ordinary people — and then themselves. Here’s MacGillis again, picking up his story after reminding his readers of Reagan’s famous, deadly quote “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
By the early nineties, it was plain to Nader that the government was failing to regulate air safety. In “Collision Course,” a book that he co-wrote with Wesley J. Smith, they warned, “It is an unfortunate fact that government oversight and enforcement is so underfunded and understaffed that regulators and inspectors must rely upon the integrity and good faith of those they regulate to obey the rules.” They continued, “If a company is determined to cut corners, there is every likelihood that it will succeed, at least for a while.”
The book was published in 1993. A decade later, Boeing lobbyists began pushing for a wholesale shift in regulatory oversight.
Trump is the end point: decades of Republican misrule — and its slow-rolling assault on the courts — have produced a “kill folks now, apologize later” pattern of corporate behavior. Trump’s wrecking of the executive is not a new development; its just a logical conclusion to a process in which the federal government has been rendered less and less able to confront large scale private capital.
This is yet one more reason why the next election is existential. We’ve had forty years now of the Reagan Republican experiment. It’s killing us, and will do so in faster, and in greater numbers, until we end it.
My old tagline applies:
Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est.
Oh! And I really like our new digs!
You?
Image: J. W. M. Turner, Wreckers, Coast of Northumberland, c. 1836
debbie
Even with this, PG&E lines still started one of the fires this year, right? And yet, Trump will blame it all on Newsome.
moops
Regulatory capture is a pervasive problem now in the US. I don’t know how it is in other countries. Does the EU handle regulating aircraft? or is that up to each nation state to handle for itself?
VeniceRiley
OT- But Cenk Uygur is running for Katie Hill’s congressional seat in CA 25. Anyone have a candidate we can donate to to beat him? Can we make sure he never benefits from any of our fundraisers?
Martin
Worth adding:
Martin
@moops: EU (EASA) used to accept the FAA certification of aircraft made in the US. They are refusing to do that for the 737 insisting that Boeing go through the EASA process.
I’m guessing this is a test of whether EASA will accept FAA certification for all future aircraft.
Martin
@VeniceRiley: We could always donate to Papadopoulos.
gene108
I wish there was a way to really drive home the damage Republican economic policies have done to this country.
Democrats bring it up from time to time, but not with utter condemnation it deserves
Ruckus
I believe this is something to do with the state of CA and the power companies, not just PG&E. I live in socal and have SCE and they have the same program of power outages when fire danger is high. I live in an urban area a few miles from the major wilderness area and my apt is in one of the outage areas. Just but still it can happen. Now on the other hand we have some rather impressive high voltage lines both on my street and a 1/2 mils south. And I worked on some pretty impressive power system stuff in the navy. What we used would kill you for looking at it sideways. This makes that seem like a single cell AAA flashlight.
moops
@Martin: Will all this just result in the usual CPUC telling PG&E they are bad people and then no actual consequences? That how most CPUC bravado plays out.
Sure Lurkalot
Despite the roll out glitches, I commend all those who worked tirelessly to produce this here new site. I hope to go through Watergirl’s instruction posts so I too can learn the cool kid tricks.
debbie
@Sure Lurkalot:
WaterGirl’s posts should be a separate category under “Featured” so they can be quickly and easily accessed.
Mary G
@VeniceRiley: Katie Hill chose a woman who’s been the state assemblyperson for the area named Christy Smith to be the Democratic candidate:
That was to Mike Cernovich and Cenk Uygur who have both announced and don’t live in the district. Her website is in her twitter bio.
Mary G
Dear Leader is going to go ahead and pardon the convicted war criminals:
?BillinGlendaleCA
Boeing was also in the news down here in Southern CA, about 25 years ago they bought the part of Rockedyne that owned the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. What did they do at the Field Laboratory? Testing stuff…like rocket engines and nuclear reactors(including an experimental sodium reactor that had an “incident”). Since housing is in short supply, homes are being built closer and closer to where the Field Lab was(it closed in 2006) and cancers have been increasing. So if the aircraft division doesn’t kill off Boeing, the liability at the Field Lab may.
cmorenc
@Tom Levenson:
We already had an existential election in 2016 – the 2020 election is existential ^3.
Wapiti
As an aside, just after the Paradise fire I used googlemaps to look through the town, both street level and overhead. All of the imagery was pre-fire. Many/most lots had multiple pine trees around the house. If when a fire came through, the houses were seriously at risk. The Central Valley and Sierra foothills are hot and dry; without shade, it probably wouldn’t be livable there. With shade, the fire risk goes up. I expect that many communities in the region have the same risky behavior.
PG&E might have the blame for the Paradise Fire, but the Carr Fire was started by a flat tire where the wheel rim was in contact with the road. It could have easily caused a human disaster like Paradise.
debbie
@Wapiti:
Also, narrow roads prevent effective evacuations.
jeffreyw
@debbie: If Watergirl had a paypal link in the sidebar I would give her some money and a box o’ chocolates. //Forrest Gump voice
jeffreyw
That reply to Debbie at #18 went through in a most splendid and expedition manner. Make that two boxes of chocolates.
jeffreyw
Poof… and just like that, the magic is gone, had to refresh to see my #19. back to one box
Mike in NC
I walked into a drug store the other day and a crew was noisily ripping out a large section of linoleum flooring near the front door. There was a nasty smelling cloud of dust hanging in the air as well. I told the unfortunate young woman working the cash register nearby that many years ago I was the Safety Officer on a navy ship, and the management of the store should — at a minimum — have provided her with a simple respiratory mask, not to mention probably eye protection and ear plugs. I’m guessing had she requested such items they might have just fired her.
Roger Moore
@moops:
And the Republicans have the brilliant idea of eliminating regulatory capture by getting rid of the regulators so there’s nobody to capture.
Elizabelle
The Coast Guard, which usually has a pretty good reputation, is under fire too, for not stepping up fast enough on NTSB recommendations. Actually, it sounds like they are too beholden to the vessel owners. Because cannot imagine they don’t believe in water safety.
Re the fire on the diving boat Conception, that killed all 34 sleeping underdeck in bunks:
LA Times: Boat fire: Coast Guard repeatedly rejected calls for tougher boat safety rules
A followup article in LA Times, two days later:
Boat fire: Coast Guard will reconsider vessel safety improvements that were earlier rejected
And the duck boat in Missouri.
NY Times: Coast Guard Ignored Calls for Safeguards Before Duck Boat Sank, Report Says
The National Transportation Safety Board said it had warned of the dangers of duck boats, like the one that sank near Branson, Mo., killing 17 people.
When the Conception burned, I really thought the USCG standards were way too lax. I personally would NEVER have slept underdeck on that boat. Looked like the scariest hostel in the world.
Roger Moore
The catastrophic problems from PG&E’s power cuts are the point of the exercise. They’re trying to bully the state into eliminating their liability for the fires they’ve started. The implicit message is “if you want us to turn the power on, indemnify us for any fires we start”.
SFBayAreaGal
Hmm, how come I have to fill out my information again? I’m on a Samsung Galaxy android cell phone.
Now to my story about PG&E.
Years ago I worked for a tree surgery company that had an exclusive contract with PG&E.
The company trimmed any branches that were hanging over the power lines. To save money PG&E decided not to continue with the services my company offered and stopped trimming any overhanging branches. This happened in the early 1980s
moops
@Roger Moore: That might be their brilliant plan, but I don’t think it should work.
Little bits of extortion to socialize liability? I hope CA is not that stupid.
Roger Moore
@moops:
I agree completely, and it appears our governor does, too. He’s suggesting that the correct response is to take over the company if they can’t get their act together. They’re bankrupt, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Genius!
Mike G
@Martin:
“ill-conceived, poorly planned, uncoordinated (both internally and externally) and ineffectively communicated.”
If that’s not PG&E’s corporate slogan, it should be.
Ladyraxterinok
Testing
Ladyraxterinok
Finally
@Ladyraxterinok:
Roger Moore
@Mike G:
Slogans are supposed to be quicker and punchier than that. It sounds more like a mission statement.
Dan B
We live a long mile from Boeing’s first factory, now a complex of factories. Next to the Duwamish river are a hundred or so 737 Max’s. There are many other sites around the country. Most of these belong to airlines umin the middle east and Asia. Boeing was one America’s biggest exporters. If their reputation is destroyed it will push these airlines into the arms of Airbus, and possibly China.
The culture at Boeing was engineer driven but the executives moved headquarters to Chicago. If I remember correctly the executives seemed to feel they were not getting favorable breaks from the state. After the move they got an 8 billion dollar tax break from Inslee by saying they would keep manufacturing in the state. Inslee faiked to get a guarantee of keeping jobs in the state.
The separation of executives from engineering and the embrace of extortion tactics that became common in industry seemed to have diminished what little ethics remained.
Feathers
@VeniceRiley: On the twitters someone was pointing out that the district has the largest Armenian community outside of Armenia, and anyone who called their media empire “The Young Turks” is not likely to find a warm welcome. My view, based on Boston area Armenian observation: Turkish alone might be overcome, but asshole Turk will find active and hostile reception. As a young man he was an active genocide denier. He has since renounced previous stand, but he will find a group of committed opponents within the district.
ed for typo
Feathers
@Dan B: There was a fascinating article in Harvard Business Review about how hiring an outside CEO, and then moving the headquarters to where ever that CEO had previously lived was invariably disastrous and sometimes a fatal blow to a company.
And Boeing did this once before. The 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster happened after Boeing moved the shuttle engineering team from California to Texas. Only 20% of the engineers agreed to move to Texas. The new team erroneously claimed that the shuttle could survive reentry. Post crash analysis showed that one of the other shuttles could have made a rescue flight and arrived in time to save the stranded crew.
People are not fungible.
J R in WV
@VeniceRiley:
And this is why we never donate to committees, you lose control of your donation if you don’t give to a specific campaign. Truthfully, you still don’t have total control, as one candidate can donate funds to another candidate, but still very much more control while not giving to the DLCC or DGCC or DCCC or DSCC.
These are all “good, Democratic” committees, but still can support candidates you would never give your hard earned, difficult to save funds to directly.
Mr Uygur is one of those people I would never support in any way!
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
If they’re bankrupt — that’s technically known as worthless, as in free if you purchase it, right? Eminent domain them out of corporate existence!!
Ruviana
@Feathers: Someone’s probably thinking of Glendale (hi Billin!). CA25 is in Palmdale, about 60 miles or so north of L.A. proper.