Time Out

Patriot Coal, a misnomer if ever there was one. It may even rise to the level of oxymoron. It seems that this company was born out of the detritus of Peabody Energy Company when it sought to remove the less profitable divisions from its balance sheet. In the process the company born with negatives in the balance sheet proceeded to lose profitability and has now been through bankruptcy proceedings and has been successful in unloading much of the pension liabilities of Peabody Energy and Arch Coal. It is a good strategy, or perhaps I should say an effective strategy having been used by the auto industry and others when it became apparent that they could not both give stockholders dividends and appreciating stock values while living up to their promises to the people who gave their lives generating those profits. It is a deplorable attempt to place the retirements and health benefits of thousands of people in the same class with utility and material costs and simply declare them null and void through the bankruptcy process. Oh, like the other creditors the pensioners will receive cents on the dollar in settlement it will do nothing to secure their security in retirement thereby inevitably placing the load on the American taxpayer. Patriots, indeed. Like Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jackson and Franklin. No, not the ones who founded this republic but more like the ones that grace our folding money. It is a despicable way to do business.

But this is not the only way in which Patriot Coal is failing to act like a good citizen. You know, corporations are citizens just like anyone else if you adhere to the definition of our Supreme Court who held that position in the Citizens United case. Difference is if we get caught tossing a trash bag in the creek it is money out of our pockets but Patriot Coal is attempting to avoid the costs that amount to hundreds of millions of dollars for the massive trashing of the mountains and the water supply incurred during the mining operations. If they are successful, and if history is any indication they will be, the costs will fall on, you guessed it, the citizens of the United States of America. In the parlance of country music, “they got the money, we got the shaft.” To hear the legislators and coal executives tell it the Environmental Protection Administration and this radical, liberal Obama administration are waging a war on coal that will result in widespread unemployment and depression of the minefields. If the despoiling of Kentucky's resources and loss of benefits are part of the way Patriot Coal does business then there needs to be a war, not just on coal but on the illegal way they do business. This is the way that the coal industry has avoided the true costs of burning the black rock. By moving the environmental costs onto the backs of the American citizen. Just another way that corporate socialism is OK.

This is just one instance of how corporate America is ripping off the American public. These monied giants understand the value inherent in spending millions of dollars to lobby our representatives in Congress to pass favorable legislation that is very often written by the entities being regulated. In any other area such action would be called bribery but those receiving the money say that it has no influence on their vote and those spending the money swear they have the public's welfare at heart so it can't be bribery.

After the Wall Street crash that took the world economy into the tank one would think that those responsible would be contrite and at least promise to do better. Think again. When our Congress sat down to write regulations to ensure that this could never happen again those banks and hedge funds were the first in line with millions of dollars to educate those Senators and Representative on the niceties of how we needed those behemoths to create wealth and jobs for our economy that they drove into the ditch. And those guys and gals fell for it. There are some very simple proposals, the Volcker proposal for one, that would greatly diminish the damage that failure of one of those giants could once again require the American Taxpayer to cover its losses. One of them would require that those banks keep a larger percentage of capital reserves to cover losses but they don't want to do that since it means they can't use that money to make more money. I don't really care if they lose money but I certainly don't want the taxpayer to be on the hook for it. So, are these guys working on behalf of the people of the United States or on behalf of their stockholders? It should be obvious and yet we have a significant number of our representatives who do the shilling for these banks.

So, is anyone in Washington DC talking about what we can do to help the people who have lost their jobs, health benefits and pensions and who will likely never again be employed at the same pay grade? If they are I'm not hearing it. What I hear is our representatives still arguing over who we should blame for Benghazi. Not over who to blame for it happening but who to blame for not having the gift of foresight in explaining what happened. Or what about the IRS ruckus in which some staffers used the words “Tea Party” or “Patriot” as keywords to flag groups asking for tax exemption under the 501 C(4) statute. For crying out loud, this is what they are supposed to do. And now the revelation that the NSA is collecting data of the same sort that any other business collects as if we didn't know that was already happening. Rand Paul says it is as bad as King George but then he is given to statements of hyperbole. If anyone ever looked at the Patriot (there's that word again) Act this revelation would be no surprise at all. Now, personally, I don't like it but I said that ten years ago and no one paid attention.

We all know what the problem is here and it begins with a group of people with megaphones who can control the temperature of the national debate. Don't think they don't have an agenda because they most certainly do. This problem lies with a group of people in Congress who will refuse any attempt at any legislation that carries the approval of the President even if they originally proposed it. And the problem lies with an electorate that has been swayed by the shrill voices with diversionary tactics.

So, that's my take on the way things are. I don't know if we can return to sanity before disaster strikes or not. We certainly need for cooler heads to prevail and for the impertinent kids to be put in time out.