How Bubble Barons Protected Their Influence While the Economy Tanked

[Mari333]

April 16, 2010 |







Following the deadly mine explosion in West Virginia last week, the CEO of the company that owned the mine quickly emerged as a sort of Dickensian villain in media reports. Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s cavalier, profit-obsessed approach to mining had led him to dismiss pressing safety concerns at his mines. He had called safety regulators “as silly as global warming” and ordered managers to spend more time “running coal” and less time building ventilation structures. One miner told ABC news that working for Blankenship was "like living under a hammer. It's about the bottom line; we all know that."

Blankenship was the hammer, but whose bottom line was he looking out out for, exactly? The answer is somewhat surprising.

One of the handful of major investors in the coal company is Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire hedge fund manager researched as part of last month’s AlterNet/LittleSis.org investigation of the bubble barons. Druckenmiller sits on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an organization that would seem to be opposed to Massey’s exploits.

















http://www.alternet.org/investigations/146462/how_bubble_barons_protected_their_influence_while_the_economy_tanked

[lib2DaBone]

1. K/R An excellent article... well worth the read...

I worked for a hotel owned by the Blackstone Group. I watched as they hired slave labor from the Philippines and eastern europe. They paid workers $2 an hour and housed them in company dorms, for which they deducted a monthly fee from the workers. All the while they were charging the guests a minimum of $350 per night for a hotel room.

Next on the hit list for the Asset Strippers and Hedge Fund Hyenas are the public school systems.

The Bubble Barons can't wait to get their hands on the cash that flows from property taxes to the schools.. not to mention the contributions from State Lotteries and Gambling.

The Bubble Barons own and control every politician in Washington. They are transparent and above the law... a deal SO SWEET.. it makes Al Capone smile.