Wednesday, May 05, 2010

The Culture of Corruption and it's Price

We have all watched in Horror, the developing Environmental Disaster that is happening in the Gulf Coast. If we are Lucky, the last-ditch, Containment methods will work and we will just have destroyed one of the Worlds' Great Areas for Generations. but what makes me Angry, what makes me feel Hopeless about all this is IT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED!!!

A device called an Acoustic Switch, when properly implanted at the bottom of an oil pumping line can be remotely triggered to close off a leak or failure in the pipeline. They cost about $500,000 a switch, no small number for a piece of equipment, but in comparison to the cost of doing nothing-CHEAP!!! The use of the Switch is NOT REQUIRED by recommendation of the Minerals Management Service, who found: "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly." Not Surprisingly, this is an agency filled with Bush Cheney appointments, mostly from the very industries they "Monitor" I wonder if anyone who is either in the Underwriting Industry, the Management of these Companies or their stockholders wish they had installed those switches today...

The Bottom Line is the Hard Truth that No One can effectively be Trusted to Monitor themselves. The Same off- Balance Partnerships that did Enron in are still Legal, fought for by the accounting Industry themselves, The Heads of the Banks Knew that the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis was developing, but were making too much money to care & Big Oil & Big Mining has Proven that they will cut Any Corner!

It is especially Telling that, in it's message to it's stockholders that the Massey Energy staed that they were not insured for the loss of production but were insured from workers' claims. They also said that they would recover all the Equipment from the mine and move it to another site, saving the company a significant expense...