Bad Deeds for 6-30-2009

Private Banker Moved Funds Undetected, No Oversight, No Regulation – As Hernán E. Arbizu tended the fortunes of his gilded South American clients, he says he also illegally took millions of dollars from them for years while at both banks, without being detected. What is more, Mr. Arbizu said he regularly dipped into UBS client accounts — and even visited the Swiss giant’s offices in Manhattan to ensure that the illicit transactions went through — for at least a year after he left UBS for a new job at Chase in the fall of 2006. he also said that UBS “didn’t have proper control over its bankers” and he accused the bank of creating an atmosphere of pressure to keep clients and reel in new ones. He insisted that he had not personally profited from his actions, but rather had shifted money between accounts to make good on unrealistic investment promises he made to keep important clients.

 

Americans Are Dying or Wish They Were Dead Because of Our For-Profit Health Insurance System – People across the United States are sharing their personal stories with Barack Obama’s repurposed campaign arm, Organizing For America, to tell the world about the failures of the U.S. health care system. Some people say they would almost rather die than deal with it.

Joan in Washington, D.C. wrote that she fears she and her husband will be homeless if he can’t find a job, and that she is “uninsurable” because of cancer.

“Maybe I should wish for the cancer to kill me sooner — it might be a better option,” Joan wrote. “I am terrified.”

Jackie in Logan, N.D., wrote that she cried when she was hospitalized in January out of fear for the bills — even though she has health insurance.

“I told my husband that perhaps I should just go home and wait to die,” Jackie wrote, “as it would be cheaper to be cremated, than to have to exist dealing with the debt of surviving.”
Brad of Granite City, IL, wrote that “I may die any day because Health Insurance isn’t available to me.”
“For profit healthcare killed my wife,” wrote John of Nashville, Tenn.

 

Mountain Top Removal Mining Making West Virginia Into Hell – Nothing can prepare you for scale of complete devastation. No living thing survives Mountain Top Removal Mining. The toxic sludge produced from cracking the coal during processing has created tremendous bodies of toxic liquid waste, well over 100 billion gallons held back by nothing more substantial than walls of dirt presenting area residents with an ever-present apocalyptic threat far exceeding that of a nuclear holocaust during the cold war. The people below — including the students and teachers at Marsh Fork Elementary — have four minutes to evacuate before certain death swallows them whole, and there is no evacuation plan.

This entirely unnecessary ecological disaster is the brainchild of Massey Energy’s Don Blankenship. The Bush administration gave Blackenship and Massey Energy a green light to pursue Mountain Top Removal on a scale that knows virtually no limits. In West Virginia alone over 3.5 million pounds of explosives are used per day, 300 days a year (the 4th of July or Sundays are the only respite). Massey energy blasts the tops off mountains to expose the coal buried inside. Rocks fall like rain from the sky terrorizing residents in the valleys below and the force of the explosions literally causes homes to collapse. Massey is nothing if not generous, they purchase the one or two now worthless properties from the families closest to the MTR for pennies on the dollar. The locals further down from the sites then hold their tongues anticipating Massey will buy them out as the ruble and blasting moves ever closer to them. This never happens. Eventually, as the explosions above tear the sky and earth to pieces, walls separate, windows shatter and the structures begin to fail. The terrorized people whose ancestors settled the region long ago ultimately leave. Massey then burns their homes to the ground at no additional charge. Don Blankenship, neighbor and friend at your service. If you are very lucky, they might relocate the remains of your departed family members from the plot in your back yard. Or not.

This is the great American tragedy, and every citizen of this country should be ashamed and horrified that we are collectively allowing this to happen. If you use electricity in the US chances are good that some of it is supplied by a coal-fired electric plant burning Massey coal from what once was a mountain in West Virginia.

 

There are at Least 44 Dangerous Coal Ash Sites in the U.S. That Could Bury Communities – The Environmental Protection Agency released on Monday afternoon a list of 44 “high hazard potential” coal ash sites that the federal government had previously insisted be kept secret. In addition to the 44 coal sites that have been designated “high hazard,” there are hundreds more that could pose environmental and health risks. “The presence of liquid coal ash impoundments near our homes, schools and business could pose a serious risk to life and property in the event of an impoundment rupture” said EPA administrator Lisa Jackson in a statement.

Regards,

Jim