Man who fell behind on electric bill allowed to freeze

Truly a sad story. I thought there were laws against disconnecting power during the winter? :unamused: :imp:

There are laws about it.

We fell behind really bad when our son was young, they could not touch it.

This guy though is a total ass and deserves to be in a big Bubba cell with a horny mean Bubba in it. this quote is a real pisser

The utility company is a neighbor… I hope they slap that company diirector hard.

what is wrong with people these days… since when did electricity become a right? and why should this guy get free electricity? at whose expense?

whatever happened to personal responsibility? electricity is a product like any other, it is not a right and it certainly is not free. this guys death is no ones fault but his own…

more blood on obama’s hands…

-Imp

Its been common practice for a long time to NOT let people be put in danger because they cannot pay a certain utility bill. So there is a compassionate tradition out there that you have not been aware of. The extremely radical idea that we are all monads with no connection to each except through financial transactions is an ideal - and I use the term in its technical sense not its positive one - that most people are not so cold hearted to adhere to.

When some poor persons kid falls down a well, the rescue teams and municipalities to not run a credit check on the parents, even if those parents should have kept their kid from falling down that well.

As one example amongst many.

But if I see your grandmother lying in the street - why the hell did that bitch try to run across when the light was about to change on an icy street - Ill be sure to charge her for my time and spent calories lifting up the irresponsible drain on society.

i am well aware of leasing regulations of this sort – they are in effect on the apartment that i currently rent. but im alittle confused here: what do monads have to do with personal responsibility? who exactly is responsible for that man’s life, a distant company that provides a contingent and beneficial service for a price, or the man himself? perhaps it was not “compassionate” to turn off his heat (he could still easily have gotten warm clothing or gone someplace else, like the hallway, for warmth), but it also was not very compassionate of that man to steal electricity from the utilities; last time i checked, theft was against the law too. where is your moral outrage there?? the man is (was) a thief.

rescue teams are paid by taxpayer dollars and exist for the public benefit; that kid, or the kids family, are not paying the fireman who pulls the kid out of the well anything. so your analogy completely fails.

feel free to list those “other examples” you mentioned, id be more than happy to debunk those as well.

ah, now here your true nature shows through perfectly. i can definitely see the compassion and progressive attitudes come through in your “why the hell did that bitch” phrasing. man you sure are a mature, progressive intellectual, so caring. in fact, however, my grandma’s are both dead, so it doesnt matter.

but if youd like to know, in that situation you do not have a moral or legal imperative to help save my grandma’s life. you certainly can choose to help if youd like (im so sure that you would, youre such a nice guy!), but you dont HAVE to, morally or otherwise. in fact, legally you are advised to not get involved, due to the possibility of liability by accidentally making the situation worse.

Who says they don’t pay the bill??? Its an extension. You still have to pay it eventually, all plus fees. We did, I know others that went through it too. You pay and you pay for the extension. TANSTAAFL

Utilities do something for free? :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

sorry, but you dont get to just take services that have a price, and use them without paying, even if youre going to pay “sometime in the future”… the utilities have no idea if you are going to pay or not. thats like getting food at mcdonalds and just walking out the door with your sandwich, telling them “hey, ill pay you someday”. even IF you intend to pay in the future, that is still stealing: it is not how economic transactions work.

when you use a service that had a price, and you do not pay that price, that is stealing. paying for it in the future doesnt change the fact that at the time, you were a thief.

finding moral indignation over someone refusing to give away their product for free (i.e. consent to being a victim of theft), rather than with someone being as irresponsible as not paying his bills and failing to take precautions to stay warm in a cold winter, is seriously backwards, and reflects a very dangerous mental fog of unthinking ignorance about basic moral principles…

Its hardly free especially when interest is tacked on and fees. You end up paying one way or another. That man paid taxes most of his life, SS, welfare medicaid etc, do not begin to cover how much he more than likely paid in to state and federal taxes. he has paid sales taxes road taxes county , city state, federal, School,etc… Are you trying to say that a person of his age actually should not be covered and protected? People pay more in taxes then they will ever get back from the Gov’t. If you have to hit the teat once in awhile then there is nothing to be ashamed of because you worked for it. At least most people work for it. What the hell good is a Gov’t that does not protect its down and out citizens? I hate socialsim but, if you pay taxes, work your butt off, the gov’t should help you out once in a while. These utilities are somewhat subsidized by the Feds and state, they recieve taxpayer money. Small utility co-ops like the one we belong to right now does not. But it did recieve after Katrina, a sizable chunk from the Gov’t., just like the utilities are getting throughout the US right now due to those snowstorms. Taxpayer money. So IMO if someone needs some time then they deserve to get it especially Seniors, handicapped and those with little kids. Fixed incomes suck. especially with rising costs.

3X - That power company spends far more on coffee for linemen during a storm than it did on this guy’s electricity bill. He evidently had some mental problems, and the money to pay. We usually operate under the principle that we’ll keep the old guy alive long enough to straighten the bill out with him. In other words, we like to think we use some common sense. That’s really all this case boils down to. It cost the light company more to freeze him to death than it would have to collect the payment.

One more little thing Utilities are not competitive,its not a free market. Very few areas do you get to choose who you go with to supply you power. they corner the market, have you backed against the wall, so the Gov’t. has the job of setting rules for this uncompetitive unfree market.

Faust, what are you saying, that the company is “evil”, “rich” (“That power company spends far more on coffee for linemen during a storm than it did on this guy’s electricity bill”) therefore the owners have no right to their own product? that they have no input as to the disposal of their property? even IF the power company is owned by taxpayers like many utilities (but not all), there is still no obligation for government to give away free services without prior arrangement. if the man had called and negotiated an agreement with the company beforehand, then it would be a different story, and the company would be liable and morally at fault for shutting the electricity off.

and just why is the company responsible for having to know every one of their customer’s personal situations? how is that man’s mental health or personal situation even any of their business, let alone their responsibility?? its not. and as for “we’ll keep the old guy alive long enough to straighten the bill out”, yes this would be a justified reason why the company could choose to continue providing services absent payment, BUT, that is a choice they are free to make. utilities are not run by tax money; they may receive certain subsidies, but consumers pay directly for electricity whether or not its supplies by private company or government utility. this has nothing to do with common sense, unless you call common sense personal responsibility, which i would, and in this case we can see where the common sense was lacking…

“It cost the light company more to freeze him to death than it would have to collect the payment” this may indeed be true, but its truth is not a moral or legal imperative on the companies actions: if the company choose to discontinue service IN SPITE OF the fact that it costs them money, that is their perogative; they are SELLING their product WHICH THEY OWN… i still fail to see where you can try and justify an ethical imperative against the company to require it to consent happily to the theft of its property…

cmon people this isnt that hard, use your head… Faust youre a smart guy, and i usually agree with your posts, but you gotta see all this for what it is…

I’m saying that the company is stupid. Did you read the news stories? The guy was 93 and in a deteriorated mental condition. He didn’t intend to steal, and you don’t kill someone for petty theft. If you get caught shoplifting, you don;t get shot on sight. It’s not a choice we are free to make. No one at the power company would agree with you here. They just dropped the ball.

of course no one at the company agrees with me; im left to take up the flag for their rights that they themselves wouldnt even fight for, not against such a massively irrational and emotionalist mentality as public opinion…

but once again: WHY does a company (any company) that sells me something, need to know any of my personal information? the only thing exchanged in such a transaction is money and goods, thats it. unless there is prior stipulation or agreement regarding additional information, no one has an obligation to determine HOW their customer is going to use/not use your product. and this is quite different from shoplifting. in the case of this 93 year old man, or anybody, when you are buying electricity and stop paying for it, the “punishment” is that the service gets turned off. same as cable tv, internet, grocery delivery, etc. there is nothing “special” about electricity. some people depend on food delivered to their house because they are disabled: if they stop paying the delivery company, should that company continue to bring them free food? for how long? and if it doesnt, are they responsible when that person starves? of course not. its not their job to know or care about their customers other than whether they get paid or not.

the company did not cause his death, and they did not INTEND to cause his death. cold caused his death. furthermore, nowhere in the contract of operations for utilities does it say that they have an obligation to keep you alive (of course i suppose nowadays it does say this, considering that most people would be happy to strip the “big, evil heartless companies” of their rights, just as you are all advocating for on this thread)… the utility’s job is not to keep you alive, it is to supply you with power. when its turned off, and its cold, get a coat. get a sweater. call a neighbor or relative or the police to come protect you (i suppose his phone is probably not paid for either, i guess that means the phone company is liable too for his death, since he couldnt call for help, right?) of course not.

yes, everyone is sad that an old man died for such a mistaken reason, but we need to put fault where fault lies. last time i checked, we were still responsible for our actions, and responsible for keeping ourselves warm. if the man was 93 and mentally ill, he should have had a legal guardian/conservator to pay his bills for him. in this case, that person is responsible for the man’s death. but if the man was his own guardian, then he is responsible. nowhere does the company fit into responsibility…

yes yes, we all wish this man had not died, but that doesnt mean we should fall into this emotional/anti-intellectual/victim mentality thinking… principles are principles for the reason that they persist even when the choice is hard; if you compromise them, then they are lost.
#-o ](*,)

If the utility was state owned would it then make a difference? Our taxes subsidize these companies. Most of us do not get a choice in what utility company we have to pay. The laws also state that a house without power or water is uninhabitable, it is against the law to live in such. You have the utilities and the law backing folks into a corner. I have no problem with free trade, but when you have no choice then there must be regulations to assist the poorest.

yes, unfortunately a hundred years of this socialist crap has strangled our free economy with so many unnecessary regulations and redundant laws that the only way to survive is to “play the game” and conceed your rights at the beginning. we do not even have rights to property in america, nor anywhere else in the world. you are correct that the government unfairly restricts competition in energy distribution, props up monopolies with yours and my money, and then forces these companies to provide services even at a loss, or no profit at all. so the concept that companies should have the right to refuse service to anyone who refuses to pay them to their liking is idealistic, and unfortunately not the way our “free”, “capitalist” system works… but still, like i said, gotta stand on principle. if its right, its right; no amount of wasteful and amoral government beurocracy is going to change the fact that we still need to be responsible for ourselves and act in our own interests.

quite, although he is only the effect, not the cause…

It’s intuitive to think I’m cold hearted for agreeing with 3X, who also intuitively appears to be cold hearted.

But realistically, I’m not sure how a company would have systems in place that would detect the weather conditions, whether a place is occupied or vacant, whether the owner of that place is deteriorating in health, physically or mentally, etc.

They just sign people up for an account, and the rest is done by a computer. If a bill isn’t paid, the computer automatically disconnects the service.

I just don’t think any company has checks in place that would prevent these kinds of things from happening, but I’m always open to evidence. It seems the cost of having such a system in place would be ginormous.

You know last I saw, the Folks that run utility companies live in darn fine homes, drive really nice cars and their kids go to private schools more often than not. If that ain’t profit I don’t know what is.

What would happen if more than one utility company ran lines and all these utility companies had power plants all over the cities, any one one to picture that little gridlock? I ain’t no genius but, even lil ol me can figure out that all hell would break loose and lets think about water companies… Yep that would be just as fun as fun could be.

Utilities have to corner the market in an area. It is not feasable for multiple companies in one area. One maybe two companies in an area but, anymore and the fan would be hit with a mess… And to balance it out the gov’t steps in. Utilities may not have a profit but, the big wigs sure do. And that is the whole reason for running a business, to make the people that are in charge a profit.

Kris, were you responding to my post?

I guess I don’t see your point.