CAPITALISM AT WORK: Death and Profits- The Utility Protection Racket

[Panaconda]

Death and Profits: The Utility Protection Racket
by Michael Parenti
Oct. 14, 2010

SAN BRUNO, CA - SEPTEMBER 24: Flowers sit in front of a burned home where two people died near the epicenter of the gas line explosion that devastated a neighborhood near San Francisco International Airport September 24, 2010 in San Bruno, California. Work crews continue to sift through rubble and residents are beginning the process of rebuilding their lives two weeks after the deadly San Bruno gas line explosion that killed seven people and destroyed dozens of homes.

...

PG&E’s shareholders enjoy a guaranteed 11.35 percent yearly return on equity. That’s slightly higher than the 11 percent that swindler Bernard Madoff pretended to offer his investment victims. After Madoff was exposed, his victims were chided for not having realized that no one pulls down an 11 percent return year after year on the stock market. But PG&E investors take in more than that every year. And unlike Madoff, the company’s earnings are for real, guaranteed at a fixed return devoid of risk.

...

If northern and central California’s gas and electric services were publicly owned (yes, socialism), there would be no 11.35 percent skim off the top going to rich investors, no fat salaries and bonuses and huge severance packages pocketed by top executives, no billions of dollars in private wealth to be traded on the stock market. Customer rates would probably be one-third to one-half lower than they are today. And gas pipelines would be in better repair.

...

Capitalism at Work

...

Left out of the whole picture is how corporate malfeasance and corporate generated disasters are a reflection of the capitalist system. If a gas pipeline had exploded in communist Cuba, killing people and destroying homes, the incident would immediately have been treated by US commentators as evidence of the deficiencies of the broader economic system, as proof that socialism cannot do it right.

...

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/death-and-profits-the-utility-protection-racket-by-michael-parenti/

[KansDem]

1. Capitalism is a disaster.

How anyone could defend it is beyond me.

For decades, and certainly since the "government is evil" mantra of the Reaganites, we've heard about how capitalism "makes us free."

But it's become painfully obvious in recent years, particularly since 2000, that "capitalism" is nothing more than a device to siphon wealth from the middle class and working class up to the idle rich.

When you stop and think about it, if you want a corporate body that exists and works for the citizenry, then you would favor the government in that role: the board of directors and the CEO is elected by the people; policies are made in public; the "investors" (the people) are in control and reap the benefits.

Not so with "capitalism": Whatever gave us the idea that a small group of powerful CEOs, working in secret for the benefit of "investors," would have the best interests of this nation at heart?

[Panaconda]

2. Bumpage

[leftstreet]

3. Robber Barons > Shareholder Barons

That was a good read. Thanks for bumping it up

Reminds me of the movie Chinatown, the evil water baron etc. But when corporations do it, everyone gives a collective yawn

K&R

[Hannah Bell]

4. kr