Ring Of Fire

MM&A today filed for bankruptcy protection. This is the legal was of the principals in a company walking away from the consequences of acts brought on by the actions of their company. This is the result of laws defining limited or non-public liability. The shareholders may or may not have done well with this outfit,I suspect management did all right, the railroaders probably made enough to get by, but perhaps not enough to be really committed to the job and the company, but the people of Lac Mégantic are going to be left holding the bag, along with the Province of Québec and the citizens of Canada as a whole. The whole system works in favour of the investing class and, unless criminal responsibility can be established, it seems reasonable to assume that the railroaders will be looking for work, the shareholders will get what value hasn’t already been sapped out of the corporate structure, and the mucky-mucks will join some of their other friends on another corporate management team. It seems unlikely that there will be much left to pick over by the residents, either through compensation or lawsuit, and I wish them the best of luck dealing with the insurance folk. Any time anyone who has worked in management says the words “transparency” and “accountability” you can bet that they are talking about what they get from others. Make no mistake, this ought to be construed on several levels as a criminal act, it’s just that there will be no culprit because the law forgives MM&A its trespasses before they’re ever committed, if I read the signs right. Read Greg Palast.

Update:

Please have a look at:

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2013/08/lac-megantic-survivors-get-victimized.html