By now you’ve all seen the photo above. A catastrophe waiting to happen, one of many, caused once again by conservative oh-so very holier than thou pious policies. Here’s the other shoe dropping:
The Texas fertilizer plant that exploded last month, killing 14 people, injuring more than 200 others and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to the surrounding area had only $1 million in liability coverage, lawyers said Saturday.Tyler lawyer Randy C. Roberts said he and other attorneys who have filed lawsuits against West Fertilizer’s owners were told Thursday that the plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance. Brook Laskey, an attorney hired by the plant’s insurer to represent West Fertilizer Co., confirmed the amount Saturday in an email to The Associated Press, after the Dallas Morning News first reported it.
(More at Christian Dem in NC’s diary) You better believe who’s gonna bear the brunt of this disaster, outside of the people who paid the ultimate price and the many who were injured and lost homes. The same people who bailed out Wall Street, the same people who shoveled trainloads of guts and treasure into a clusterfuck called Iraq, the same people who are now being told they must tighten their belts and make sacrifices. The same middle class taxpayers the same conservative goons always bleed dry like their personal piggy bank to socialize their losses. But you dson’t you dare think about getting one penny of their hard work … when it pays off.
Transferring costs from businesses onto individuals has become a cottage industry. It pops up everywhere. From Wall Street picking your pocket to stuff theirs, to contractors paid to give Iraqi’s free healthcare, even smaller concerns are getting in on the con. The apartment complex where I live now require renter’s insurance, but not for your stuff. They require coverage up to $250,000 on their stuff, their pipes, their walls. Which means the deduct has to be sky-high, so high it’s not gonna cover anything the renter owns. Unless they happen to 50k worth of keep diamonds and gold in their $600 studio apartment. I’m not sure, but seeing as how their ceiling — which I rent along with some walls and other stuff — caught on fire and I happened to be here to put it out, maybe I’ll be even more extra responsible for the carnage.
The poorer someone is, the easier it is to stick them like that. Republicans are fond of comparing businesses to people. Their SCOTUS stooges wasted no time giving corporations the same rights as a person — when it came to benefits. Just not the responsibilities, just not the social stigma. What we would call a powerful person who takes money from the most vulnerable, desperate people they can shake down for no other reason than no one is around who will stop them?
A million dollars is peanuts compared to the damage this plant caused. But in the great state of Texas, this is one of the few industries that have any requirement at all. If the governing hair man had his way, there would be no requirement at all. Which most anyone might call unfair, or bullshit. In Texas, or anywhere else these ultra goons get behind the wheel, that’s just the price of them doing their business in your backyard. Let freedom ring.
A million wouldn’t even cover a single serious workplace accident. I take it Texas has no laws requring them to carry some minimum insurance like sensible states have?
Texas prides itself in protecting corporations against tort lawsuits.
Not for nothing are they known as the National Laboratory for Bad Government.
Whats to bet the insurance company finds some ‘irregularity’ that allows them to avoid paying up…..
I’m really worried about the fracking that’s going on in south Texas.
We’re currently moving back to Texas from the central coast of California (from paradise to hell).
We’ve been traveling on I-10 and we keep seeing crews of men and signs that say “seismic crews at work”.
We’re currently staying in a brand-new hotel in a tiny little town, along with a large number of construction workers. It looks like they are drilling all along the I-10 corridor and businesses are springing up fast.
I’m concerned that they are going to foul the aquifers that supply what little water there is available here. I’m sure that once they have done their damage, those oil companies will move on without any consequences. Of course, it’s mostly poor people and immigrants who live in the area, so what will they care?
The more that we are seeing all of this, the more we are determined to get out of Texas again as soon as we possibly can. Unfortunately, there are too many poor souls who don’t have that option.
This is insane, when I worked in insurance in NZ it was $10,000,000 liability for a single private use motor vehicles!! $1mil would’d even cover the cost of establishing the extent of the liability for a fertilizer plant explosion. Those republicans of yours have gotta go. For the safety of the public if nothing else!
I thought Texas was fond of patent trolls and asbestos lawsuits. See? They’re even-handed.
Sadly, it ain’t just Texas…http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/05/05/pol-enbridge-breaks-neb-safety-rules.html
Corporations used to be about making money by discovering new things and creating efficiencies. But then they discovered that plunder was more efficient. Plunder renters, plunder employees, plunder customers when you can. And get the government to bail you out when it occasionally goes wrong.
The USA has been colonized by its ruling class. The D12 Houston protests showed this. We shut down the old gates and forced the Port Authority CEO to resign, but the contingent of Occupy Austin members sent to help was led by an Austin Police detective who knew exactly how to get us to face federal charges.
They live by fear. They have the Fox Fear network on their side. They will not give in until we can amass enough force to make them fear us. We did that at D12 Houston, but it disappated our strength.
And let’s talk about conservative Christians in general: They do not believe in right and wrong. They understand only force. God is right because he can kick our asses forever by sending us to Hell. And God appoints his asskicking representatives her on earth to carry out His will.
They are not moral agents capable of reasoned argument as you and I are. They understand nothing but force. There is no way to defeat them than by acquiring the power top make them submit to us.
Wow, 1 Million is a joke. I had to get more insurance with my uni just for sitting in an office.
I guess the Texas logic is – they have to have the freedom to decide whether they want to have insurance or not, and if it blows and they have no coverage, we can simply give them the death sentence, not really of course.
There is something that bugs me about that map.
High school – children here omg!
Middle school – children here omg!
Playground – children here omg!
Retirement home – elderly here omg!
I’ll agree that those things are bad to have near a fertiliser plant, but what about the (to me) glaring omission?
Residential zoning – people of all ages here… meh.
“I’ll agree that those things are bad to have near a fertiliser plant, but what about the (to me) glaring omission?
Residential zoning – people of all ages here… meh.”
That is absolutely true. The author is simply using the same tactic as the conservatives in order to enhance the emotional reaction of the readers.
Wow, there’s a disturbing amount of class warfare going on here! How dare you point out these things, don’t you know how damaging it could be?! Hurting their feelings and/or inhibiting their ability to extract unlimited amounts of cash from the lower orders would be way way worse than simply flattening an apartment complex or elementary school with a massive industrial accident. How dare you!
These cottages are presumably on privately owned Caribbean islands with no extradition treaty
A la lanterne !!!!