Brothers and sisters, this is what unregulated capitalism looks like.
A month ago, two coal miners died in West Virginia. Here is the gist from Reuters.
May 13 (Reuters) - A West Virginia coal mine collapsed, killing two miners during an operation that had been one of the most hazardous in the industry, officials and the company said on Tuesday.
A "ground failure" caused the Patriot Coal Corp's Brody Mine No. 1 to collapse at about 8:30 p.m. on Monday, trapping two miners, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said in a statement.
The Associated Press had a
nice description of "retreat mining" to flesh out what hazardous means:
That's where the roof is intentionally collapsed to retrieve more coal. Retreat mining has been going on for generations and is considered standard practice in mines where coal reserves are running out. It involves yanking supporting pillars of coal from inside the mine and letting the roof collapse as miners and equipment work their way out.
That sounds dangerous indeed, but no sense in leaving all that coal in the pillars holding up the mine roof. Coal is money, after all. Even if it means sometimes shit will happen and some miners will go down to injury or death.
But wait, there is so much more to this story.
Not only were these men killed playing retreat mining roulette, but the company had one of the worst safety records in the business. How could a risky process in the hands of a company that routinely cut corners on safety possibly go wrong?
Risky business, indeed. A report from National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said the practice creates an "inherently unstable situation" under the best of circumstances. Mining roulette is always played with bullets in multiple chambers. Sometimes it just goes boom.
Larger roof falls than intended can occur, and — as apparently happened at the Brody Mine — increased pressure on remaining pillars can literally explode those pillars in a “coal outburst” that sends coal and rock blasting into the work area and onto the workers.
In the glorious unregulated free market envisioned by the Tea Klan, nothing stops a reckless company, not even the untimely deaths of its employees. When you can continue to operate with 535 safety violations in the past year, regulation has already been rendered largely meaningless.
And this is cynical bullshit of the worst possible kind.
"We express our deepest sympathies to Eric's and Gary's families, friends and co-workers," Mike Day, Patriot's executive vice president for operations, said in a statement.
If you are responsible for the deaths of two people because you drove drunk, shot up a school, or robbed a liquor store, people will be demand your head. If a few people are killed in an embassy by terrorists, talking heads and politicians will explode in rage.
Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. Kill a few miners while maximizing your profit at their risk and no one will pay attention. Mining deaths tend to be ignored by the general public unless the body count is impressive. The company's public relations team does not even have to break a sweat over two miners.
By the way, Patriot Coal just emerged from bankruptcy this past December.
Patriot exited bankruptcy as a closely held company on Dec. 18, using $545 million in financing led by Barclays Bank Plc and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. It received $250 million of junior capital in a rights offering from Knighthead Capital Management LLC and other unsecured creditors.
So Patriot received the bulk of its operating capital from two of the biggest offenders in the $1.5 trillion
LIBOR scandal, Barclays and Deutshche Bank. Strange that all these corporate scofflaws are drawn together in this Ayn Randian utopia.
Patriot Coal celebrated coming out of bankruptcy with a nice little toxic spill, safety violations by the boatload (all ignored, of course), and a few dead miners.
Guess what Patriot Coal was permitted to do as part of its bankruptcy? Points go to all those that picked steal pensions from retired miners as their guess.
Patriot Coal Corp. (PCXCQ), the bankrupt mining company, won court approval of a proposal to reduce pensions and benefits to 13,000 unionized workers and retirees.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States in St. Louis today approved the company’s request after a week-long hearing earlier this month in which protesters gathered outside the courthouse.
The United Mine Workers of America has
contended for years that Patriot Coal was created as a company to allow mining giants Peabody Energy and Arch Coal to offload their largest pension obligations in the area. The gambit worked. They were able to greatly reduce their obligations through court-mediated settlements.
The "free market" we have heard so much about seems to be rigged in favor of some of the biggest assholes on the planet. I am always amazed at how you never have to work very hard to uncover overwhelming evidence of ethical bankruptcy, particularly among the ranks of fossil energy companies. Paraphrasing Aesop, it is just in the nature of scorpions to sting.