• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

The revolution will be supervised.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

We still have time to mess this up!

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Our messy unity will be our strength.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Mobile Menu

  • 4 Directions VA 2025 Raffle
  • 2025 Activism
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Republicanism Kills…Corporations Can Definitely Regulate Themselves Edition

Republicanism Kills…Corporations Can Definitely Regulate Themselves Edition

by Tom Levenson|  November 15, 20196:29 pm| 38 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, All Too Normal, Decline and Fall, Jump! You Fuckers!, Our Awesome Meritocracy

FacebookTweetEmail

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.

Republicanism Kills...California Electricity Edition

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

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Repub Venality Open Thread: Little Prince Rand Hates Nepotism, So He Outs A Whistleblower
Next Post: Friday Night Open Thread »

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    November 15, 2019 at 6:35 pm

    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.

    Even with this, PG&E lines still started one of the fires this year, right? And yet, Trump will blame it all on Newsome.

  2. 2.

    moops

    November 15, 2019 at 6:36 pm

    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?

  3. 3.

    VeniceRiley

    November 15, 2019 at 6:37 pm

    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?

  4. 4.

    Martin

    November 15, 2019 at 6:38 pm

    Worth adding:

    California regulators this week launched an investigation into Pacific Gas & Electric’s massive fire-prevention power outages last month, both to assess whether the bankrupt utility should face millions of dollars in fines for its communication breakdowns during the events as well as to prevent future events from being as disruptive.

    On Tuesday, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered PG&E to “show cause” as to why it shouldn’t face fines for its failures during its public safety power shutoff event of Oct. 9-12. The outage affecting 34 counties and an estimated 2 million people was marked by a breakdown in communications, including the crash of the PG&E website serving as the sole source of outage information for the public and city, county and state agencies alike.

    PG&E also failed to coordinate with local governments and tribal communities before and during the event; what’s more, it failed to plan for how its outages could require backup power for key infrastructure like highway tunnels or railroad crossings. All in all, the CPUC accused PG&E of an outage that was “ill-conceived, poorly planned, uncoordinated (both internally and externally) and ineffectively communicated.”

  5. 5.

    Martin

    November 15, 2019 at 6:41 pm

    @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.

     

  6. 6.

    Martin

    November 15, 2019 at 6:41 pm

    @VeniceRiley: We could always donate to Papadopoulos.

     

  7. 7.

    gene108

    November 15, 2019 at 6:43 pm

    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

  8. 8.

    Ruckus

    November 15, 2019 at 6:46 pm

    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.

  9. 9.

    moops

    November 15, 2019 at 6:46 pm

    @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.

     

  10. 10.

    Sure Lurkalot

    November 15, 2019 at 6:47 pm

    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.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    November 15, 2019 at 6:50 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    WaterGirl’s posts should be a separate category under “Featured” so they can be quickly and easily accessed.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    November 15, 2019 at 6:51 pm

    @VeniceRiley: Katie Hill chose a woman who’s been the state assemblyperson for the area named Christy Smith to be the Democratic candidate:

    Here’s an idea. How about all of you man spread in your own damn districts?! #CA25 belongs to #CA25 https://t.co/z5hpdbGzqq— Christy Smith (@ChristyforCA25) November 13, 2019

     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.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    November 15, 2019 at 6:55 pm

    Dear Leader is going to go ahead and pardon the convicted war criminals:

    Breaking: Trump signs off on controversial pardons for three military members. Full pardon for Clint Lorance and Mathew Golsteyn, promotion back to E-7 for Edward Gallagher. pic.twitter.com/tDks6ECSRx

    — Leo Shane III (@LeoShane) November 15, 2019

  14. 14.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    November 15, 2019 at 6:59 pm

    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.

  15. 15.

    cmorenc

    November 15, 2019 at 6:59 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    This is yet one more reason why the next election is existential.

     

    We already had an existential election in 2016 – the 2020 election is existential ^3.

  16. 16.

    Wapiti

    November 15, 2019 at 7:00 pm

    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.

  17. 17.

    debbie

    November 15, 2019 at 7:02 pm

    @Wapiti:

     

    Also, narrow roads prevent effective evacuations.

     

  18. 18.

    jeffreyw

    November 15, 2019 at 7:12 pm

    @debbie: If Watergirl had a paypal link in the sidebar I would give her some money and a box o’ chocolates.  //Forrest Gump voice

     

  19. 19.

    jeffreyw

    November 15, 2019 at 7:15 pm

    That reply to Debbie at #18 went through in a most splendid and expedition manner.  Make that two boxes of chocolates.

  20. 20.

    jeffreyw

    November 15, 2019 at 7:17 pm

    Poof… and just like that, the magic is gone, had to refresh to see my #19.  back to one box

  21. 21.

    Mike in NC

    November 15, 2019 at 7:19 pm

    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.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    November 15, 2019 at 7:23 pm

    @moops:

    Regulatory capture is a pervasive problem now in the US.

    And the Republicans have the brilliant idea of eliminating regulatory capture by getting rid of the regulators so there’s nobody to capture.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    November 15, 2019 at 7:23 pm

    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

    The NTSB, an independent federal agency, has no authority to enforce its recommendations, so regulators such as the Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration are not bound by them.

     

    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.
     

    The agency, the National Transportation Safety Board, criticized the Coast Guard’s oversight of duck boat operations in a 14-page report released Wednesday, saying it had warned of safety hazards for two decades before the Stretch Duck 7 capsized near Branson, Mo., in July 2018.
     
    Seventeen of the boat’s 31 passengers died after the amphibiouslanding craft, a World War II military relic that could operate on land and water, overturned in Table Rock Lake during a thunderstorm that produced winds of over 60 miles per hour. The accident was one of the deadliest involving the touring vessels in United States history.
    The N.T.S.B. said it had pushed for the Coast Guard to require duck boats to have more watertight spaces above the waterline, known as reserve buoyancy, and to remove obstructions such as overhead canopies that could hamper an evacuation.  The agency made its recommendations after the 1999 sinking of another duck boat, near Hot Springs, Ark., in which 13 people died.

     

    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.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    November 15, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    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”.

  25. 25.

    SFBayAreaGal

    November 15, 2019 at 7:34 pm

    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

  26. 26.

    moops

    November 15, 2019 at 7:42 pm

    @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.

     

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    November 15, 2019 at 7:59 pm

    @moops:

    Little bits of extortion to socialize liability? I hope CA is not that stupid.

    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.

     

  28. 28.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    November 15, 2019 at 8:32 pm

    @Roger Moore: Genius!

     

  29. 29.

    Mike G

    November 15, 2019 at 8:38 pm

    @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.

     

  30. 30.

    Ladyraxterinok

    November 15, 2019 at 9:00 pm

    Testing

  31. 31.

    Ladyraxterinok

    November 15, 2019 at 9:15 pm

    Finally

    @Ladyraxterinok:

     

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    November 15, 2019 at 9:18 pm

    @Mike G:

    If that’s not PG&E’s corporate slogan, it should be.

    Slogans are supposed to be quicker and punchier than that.  It sounds more like a mission statement.

     

  33. 33.

    Dan B

    November 15, 2019 at 9:21 pm

    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.

  34. 34.

    Feathers

    November 15, 2019 at 9:38 pm

    @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

  35. 35.

    Feathers

    November 15, 2019 at 9:51 pm

    @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.

     

  36. 36.

    J R in WV

    November 16, 2019 at 1:30 pm

    @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?

    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!

  37. 37.

    J R in WV

    November 16, 2019 at 1:38 pm

    @Roger Moore:

     

    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.

    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!!

     

  38. 38.

    Ruviana

    November 16, 2019 at 8:28 pm

    @Feathers: Someone’s probably thinking of Glendale (hi Billin!).  CA25 is in Palmdale, about 60 miles or so north of L.A. proper.

     

     

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - Deputinize America - Moorea 2024 2
Image by Deputinize America (7/14/25)
Donate

Recent Comments

  • Another Scott on Late Night Open Thread: Obama Speaks (Jul 15, 2025 @ 9:10am)
  • Kathleen on Late Night Open Thread: Obama Speaks (Jul 15, 2025 @ 9:08am)
  • The Audacity of Krope on Late Night Open Thread: Obama Speaks (Jul 15, 2025 @ 9:06am)
  • JML on Late Night Open Thread: Obama Speaks (Jul 15, 2025 @ 9:05am)
  • Kathleen on Late Night Open Thread: Obama Speaks (Jul 15, 2025 @ 9:04am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!