Pacific Gas and Electric
It seems that with the recent stock market crash, the value of Pacific Gas and Electric stock being offered fire victims may be less than expected, but the company pointed out “that its share price on Monday was higher than it had been, on average, during the two months prior to reaching a settlement with victims in December.” The lawyers for those victims want to renegotiate. Which means the bankruptcy deal is now in doubt. And it appears those victims have some leverage.[1] I’m certainly no fan of PG&E, but this sounds bogus to me.
Katherine Blunt, “PG&E’s Settlement With California Fire Victims Is Fraying,” Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-es-settlement-with-california-fire-victims-is-fraying-11586189889
Pandemic
When I posted the following tweet addressed to Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto and Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf, I realized two things:
- I have no defense against a charge of selective observation.
- A very large proportion of my passengers are Black and accordingly, I am frequently in areas predominantly populated by Blacks.
So my perception could be distorted and I chose to avoid singling out any particular group:
I don’t know if this data is being aggregated, but a more detailed demographic view of #Covid_19 victims might help to target outreach to specific, especially historically oppressed, groups on #SocialDistancing.
— David Benfell, Ph.D. (@n4rky) April 6, 2020
But it turns out that Blacks might well be suffering and dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates, in part due to poorer health care and worse health. Oh yes, and the data is at least being collected.[2]
And I guess I can’t be surprised[3] that Pennsylvania’s social distancing grade dropped from a B to a C-.[4] Not even one little bit.
Teghan Simonton, “Pennsylvania is getting worse at social distancing, data shows,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 6, 2020, https://triblive.com/local/regional/pennsylvania-is-getting-worse-at-social-distancing-data-shows/
Vanessa Williams, “U.S. government is urged to release race, ethnicity data on covid-19 cases,” Washington Post, April 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-urged-to-release-race-ethnicity-data-on-covid-19-cases/2020/04/06/7891aba0-7827-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html
- [1]Katherine Blunt, “PG&E’s Settlement With California Fire Victims Is Fraying,” Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-es-settlement-with-california-fire-victims-is-fraying-11586189889↩
- [2]Vanessa Williams, “U.S. government is urged to release race, ethnicity data on covid-19 cases,” Washington Post, April 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-urged-to-release-race-ethnicity-data-on-covid-19-cases/2020/04/06/7891aba0-7827-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html↩
- [3]David Benfell, “As we cower in our apartments,” Not Housebroken, April 6, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/06/as-we-cower-in-our-apartments/↩
- [4]Teghan Simonton, “Pennsylvania is getting worse at social distancing, data shows,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 6, 2020, https://triblive.com/local/regional/pennsylvania-is-getting-worse-at-social-distancing-data-shows/↩