(..or, Palin again and her "Drill Baby Drill" Mantra)
Investor's Business Daily
Energy: Will oil hit $250 a barrel? The Russians think so, as crude prices climb to an eight-month high. Meantime, House Republicans advance a plan to help the administration keep a domestic energy promise.
The cost of July deliveries of crude bounced over $73 Thursday as the American Petroleum Institute reported shrinking U.S. inventories as the dollar weakens against the euro.
Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, is repeating his prediction of a year ago that oil may eventually reach the $250 mark. That may be wishful thinking on his part, seeing how the Russian economy and military are dependent on oil revenues.
But one thing is certain — a recovering global economy is going to need ever more energy, and it can't wait for switch grass. A wobbly U.S. economy overburdened by current and future debt is likely to face ever-rising energy prices.
House Republicans hope to lower those prices and make a change in our listless domestic energy policy with the American Energy Act. The measure provides incentives for increased oil and gas production on public and private lands and authorizes drilling in a tiny portion of the frozen tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Rather than planting trees in a Third World backwater, the plan's "carbon offsets" involve building 100 new nuclear power plants over the next 20 years.
With 31 announced reactor applications already in the pipeline, this is a doable goal. It will lower domestic energy prices and clean the air more effectively than an administration cap-and-tax plan that would cause electricity prices to "necessarily skyrocket."
Reprocessing of spent fuel rods, already done by France and other countries, makes nuclear power a renewable resource, one that emits no greenhouse gases. The administration gives nuclear energy lip service while stopping a storage depository for these rods in Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The House GOP is actually trying to help President Obama keep a promise. "In the short term," he said in April, "as we transition to renewable energy we can and should increase our domestic production of oil ... We still need more oil, and we still need more gas." The House GOP wants to help him do just that.
But in a classic case of the doubletalk we've all become familiar with, the administration is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Its cap-and-trade plan punishes those who produce and use domestic energy. It has proposed eliminating all tax incentives to produce oil and gas, and has slapped a 13% excise tax on all energy coming from the Gulf of Mexico.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has canceled 77 oil and gas leases that were assigned to Utah. He stopped plans to lease oil shale rights in five Western states estimated to hold between 1 trillion and 2 trillion (with a "t") barrels of recoverable oil. The Obama administration has decided not to issue leases for gas well drilling on the Roan Plateau in Colorado.
Exploration in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska has been impeded by such developments as the listing of the yellow-billed loon as an endangered species.
Science magazine reports that the U.S. Geological Survey now finds it holds more than anyone thought — 1.6 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, or 30% of the world's supply and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 4% of the global conventional resources.
We are being denied this by a bunch of loons.
"It's a very nonsensical position we're in right now," Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told IBD in an interview. "(We) ask the Saudis to ramp up production of crude oil so that hungry markets in America can be fed, (and) your sister state in Alaska has those resources."
The really sad part is that in a nation starved for energy and jobs, we continue to keep our heads in the sand and our energy in the ground.
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=309875060&mode=cnc&tag=3.8218%3Ficx_id%3D479339
Saturday, June 13, 2009
ACE Private Risk Services Introduces Background Screening of Financial Advisors, Contractors and Domestic Staff
BusinessWire
PHILADELPHIA, Jun 10, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ACE Private Risk Services(SM), part of the ACE Group, today announced that it will offer access to a service that can provide comprehensive background screening of financial advisors, contractors, and domestic staff as part of its ACE Platinum Portfolio(SM) insurance program for affluent and high net worth clients. The inclusion of financial advisors and contractors (including both general and subcontractors performing work on the home) as well as domestic staff, represents an unusually broad scope of access for a personal insurance program. These innovations come at a time of rising concern in both areas.
FOR INSTANCE:
In one case, an individual discovered that a loan for nearly
$200,000 had been fraudulently opened in his name. It turned out
that his long-time adviser had fallen into financial trouble and
couldn't resist the temptation to misuse his client's personal
information. Background screening may have raised a red flag in
such a case.
"Recent significant and highly-publicized investment industry misappropriations have made our clients more concerned about the trustworthiness of their financial advisors," said Bob Courtemanche, CEO of ACE Private Risk Services. "In addition, current market conditions have had a detrimental effect on the construction industry, and now more than ever, it is more important to know that contractors are financially sound and reliable when they work on your home. The value-added services we're providing through the ACE Platinum Portfolio program offer a solution to address these concerns."
To provide access to the screening services, ACE Private Risk Services has formed a strategic alliance with the International Intelligence Division of The Guidry Group, a U.S.-based consultancy specializing in security risk auditing and management. Many members of The Guidry Group have held previous senior investigative and security positions involving direct oversight of security issues for major businesses and federal government agencies in the United States and on a global basis.
"Affluent and high net worth families represent lucrative targets for fraud," said Mike Guidry, Founder of The Guidry Group. "They must be particularly careful when making hiring decisions. In relatively stable economic years, industry surveys indicate that two-thirds of all job applicants reported they have stretched the truth at least once in an effort to land a job. You can only imagine what the percentage is now in this time of economic stress. Our background screening should enable ACE Platinum Portfolio policyholders to make better hiring decisions as they recruit individuals who will take care of their children, their home, and their financial well being."
The screening process offered by The Guidry Group may include:
-- Comprehensive verification of background information, including name, address, age, date of birth, social security number
-- Employment and educational history
-- Employer and/or client references
-- Driving record, civil and criminal records
-- Business credit check and Credit Bureau check
-- Proprietary Internet data search
The comprehensive background screening process is provided on a complimentary or reduced-fee basis, depending upon the premium threshold and other factors. It complements other valued-added family safety and security benefits available in the ACE Platinum Portfolio program, such as coverage for medical and mental health expenses, lost salary, rewards for information leading to an arrest, and temporary relocation expenses in the event of carjacking, home invasion, stalking, child abduction, kidnapping and hijacking.
The ACE Platinum Portfolio provides specialized coverage for homes, vacation properties, automobiles, watercraft, jewelry and other valuables, and excess liability protection that in most cases, offers the savings of a package discount and the convenience of one bill. To obtain additional information regarding ACE Private Risk Services, please visit: www.aceprivateriskservices.com. Product highlights are summaries only; please see actual policy for terms and conditions. Products may not be available in all states. For more information about The Guidry Group, please visit www.guidry.com.
ACE Private Risk Services is the high-net-worth personal lines business of ACE Group, which provides specialty coverage for homeowners, automobile, recreational marine, umbrella liability and collections insurance for affluent individuals and families. The ACE Group of Companies is headed by ACE Limited (ACE), and is rated A+ (Superior) by A.M. Best Company and A+ (Strong) by Standard & Poor's. The ACE Group provides insurance and reinsurance for a diverse group of clients around the world. To learn more about the ACE Group of Companies, please visit: www.acelimited.com.
SOURCE: ACE Private Risk Services
ACE Private Risk Services
Media Contact:
Carla L. Ferrara, 215-640-4744
Carla.ferrara@acegroup.com
Copyright Business Wire 2009
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=309875057&mode=cnc&tag=3.8218%3Ficx_id%3DNewsfeed95807568
PHILADELPHIA, Jun 10, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ACE Private Risk Services(SM), part of the ACE Group, today announced that it will offer access to a service that can provide comprehensive background screening of financial advisors, contractors, and domestic staff as part of its ACE Platinum Portfolio(SM) insurance program for affluent and high net worth clients. The inclusion of financial advisors and contractors (including both general and subcontractors performing work on the home) as well as domestic staff, represents an unusually broad scope of access for a personal insurance program. These innovations come at a time of rising concern in both areas.
FOR INSTANCE:
In one case, an individual discovered that a loan for nearly
$200,000 had been fraudulently opened in his name. It turned out
that his long-time adviser had fallen into financial trouble and
couldn't resist the temptation to misuse his client's personal
information. Background screening may have raised a red flag in
such a case.
"Recent significant and highly-publicized investment industry misappropriations have made our clients more concerned about the trustworthiness of their financial advisors," said Bob Courtemanche, CEO of ACE Private Risk Services. "In addition, current market conditions have had a detrimental effect on the construction industry, and now more than ever, it is more important to know that contractors are financially sound and reliable when they work on your home. The value-added services we're providing through the ACE Platinum Portfolio program offer a solution to address these concerns."
To provide access to the screening services, ACE Private Risk Services has formed a strategic alliance with the International Intelligence Division of The Guidry Group, a U.S.-based consultancy specializing in security risk auditing and management. Many members of The Guidry Group have held previous senior investigative and security positions involving direct oversight of security issues for major businesses and federal government agencies in the United States and on a global basis.
"Affluent and high net worth families represent lucrative targets for fraud," said Mike Guidry, Founder of The Guidry Group. "They must be particularly careful when making hiring decisions. In relatively stable economic years, industry surveys indicate that two-thirds of all job applicants reported they have stretched the truth at least once in an effort to land a job. You can only imagine what the percentage is now in this time of economic stress. Our background screening should enable ACE Platinum Portfolio policyholders to make better hiring decisions as they recruit individuals who will take care of their children, their home, and their financial well being."
The screening process offered by The Guidry Group may include:
-- Comprehensive verification of background information, including name, address, age, date of birth, social security number
-- Employment and educational history
-- Employer and/or client references
-- Driving record, civil and criminal records
-- Business credit check and Credit Bureau check
-- Proprietary Internet data search
The comprehensive background screening process is provided on a complimentary or reduced-fee basis, depending upon the premium threshold and other factors. It complements other valued-added family safety and security benefits available in the ACE Platinum Portfolio program, such as coverage for medical and mental health expenses, lost salary, rewards for information leading to an arrest, and temporary relocation expenses in the event of carjacking, home invasion, stalking, child abduction, kidnapping and hijacking.
The ACE Platinum Portfolio provides specialized coverage for homes, vacation properties, automobiles, watercraft, jewelry and other valuables, and excess liability protection that in most cases, offers the savings of a package discount and the convenience of one bill. To obtain additional information regarding ACE Private Risk Services, please visit: www.aceprivateriskservices.com. Product highlights are summaries only; please see actual policy for terms and conditions. Products may not be available in all states. For more information about The Guidry Group, please visit www.guidry.com.
ACE Private Risk Services is the high-net-worth personal lines business of ACE Group, which provides specialty coverage for homeowners, automobile, recreational marine, umbrella liability and collections insurance for affluent individuals and families. The ACE Group of Companies is headed by ACE Limited (ACE), and is rated A+ (Superior) by A.M. Best Company and A+ (Strong) by Standard & Poor's. The ACE Group provides insurance and reinsurance for a diverse group of clients around the world. To learn more about the ACE Group of Companies, please visit: www.acelimited.com.
SOURCE: ACE Private Risk Services
ACE Private Risk Services
Media Contact:
Carla L. Ferrara, 215-640-4744
Carla.ferrara@acegroup.com
Copyright Business Wire 2009
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=309875057&mode=cnc&tag=3.8218%3Ficx_id%3DNewsfeed95807568
A "Civil-Warmart?"
Officials delay vote on Wal-Mart at battlefield
By DENA POTTER Associated Press Writer
The National Park Service and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources warned Orange County planning officials Thursday that allowing a Wal-Mart Supercenter to be built near a significant Civil War battlefield would irrevocably carve from the historic site.
During a nearly four-hour meeting, Orange County officials listened to the impassioned pleas but fired back questions about what they should do with historically significant land that happens to be privately owned and zoned for commercial use.
At issue is the retail giant's plan to build a 138,000-square-foot store less than one mile from the Wilderness Battlefield in Locust Grove where 29,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or injured 145 years ago.
Planning officials put off a vote on whether to recommend that the county's Board of Supervisors grant the company a special use permit until they could get more information at a June 25 special meeting. Although no vote is guaranteed then, most of the 10 members said they wanted to get the issue resolved by the end of the month.
Wal-Mart representatives — at least eight of which were scattered about the 40-member crowd — said its studies have found that the area where it hopes to build was not the site of any bloody combat or military hospitals during the two-day conflict where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in battle.
Bob Carter of the Department of Historic Resources said even if no blood was shed in that area it is significant because it is where Union support functions took place.
"This is part of the battlefield," he said. "It's part of that landscape."
"It's not something you're going to be able to reverse," he warned commissioners.
John Kennessy of the National Park Service said the area where the Supercenter would be built is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, but the land owner has not asked that it get that designation. He said putting a Wal-Mart near the battlefield and the national park that encompasses it would amount to establishing a small city right beside it.
"This will be the first of a thousand cuts that will in 20, 30, 40 years transform the Wilderness Battlefield," he said.
Some commissioners countered that the property is privately owned and has been zoned for commercial use since 1973 and that the property owner has the right to sell it. They asked the agencies why they didn't so adamantly oppose when fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and strip malls were erected in the same area.
"Where were you then?" asked commissioner Donald Brooks.
The planning commission hosted a four-hour public hearing in May, where opponents outnumbered supporters 2-1 among the more than 70 speakers. More than 200 people jammed into a local school gymnasium for the meeting.
Opponents say Wal-Mart should build elsewhere in the county, located 60 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. Supporters say it would bring much needed jobs — the company says it would create 300 — and more shopping options.
Wal-Mart has argued that it would not bring any undue traffic or disruption for the site. Company officials say they have looked at alternative sites nearby, but that the disputed area along Route 3 is the best option.
The company has agreed to design elements that would decrease the megastore's impact and also has promised to set aside 17 acres on the property for conservation.
"We've tried to design a site and a project that we think is very respectful of that unique location that we have there," one of Wal-Mart's attorneys, Thomas Kleine, told the board.
In addition to some local opposition, 250 U.S. historians, congressmen, activists and actor Robert Duvall, a Lee descendant, have rallied against the proposal.
___
On the Web:
Civil War Preservation Trust: http://www.civilwar.org/walmart08/
Orange County Wal-Mart: http://www.orangewalmart.com/
Raymond James Financial, Inc RJF Securities Stock Fraud
Company: Raymond James Financial, Inc
Ticker Symbol: RJF
Class Period: Apr-22-08 to Apr-14-09
Date Filed: Jun-10-09
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Aug-9-09
Court: Southern District of New York
Allegations:
A class action lawsuit has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all purchasers of the common stock of Raymond James Financial, Inc. ("RJF" or the "Company") (RJF) between April 22, 2008 and April 14, 2009, inclusive (the "Class Period").
RJF and certain of its officers and directors are charged with issuing a series of materially false and misleading statements in violation of Section 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder.
Specifically, the Complaint alleges that defendants repeatedly touted its supposedly conservative management practices and avoidance of risky assets associated with subprime residential mortgages. Defendants, however, failed to disclose that RJF understated the credits risks of its wholly-owned subsidiary's commercial and residential loan portfolios, and failed to set aside adequate reserves for the losses that RJF knew, or recklessly disregarded, were forthcoming. On April 14, 2009, RJF shocked investors when it announced that results for the second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2009, would be well below the consensus analysts' estimates.
RJF also announced that both its commercial and residential portfolios would require higher loss reserves, with the loan loss provision tripling from the previous quarter. In response to such an unexpected sharp increase in loan loss provisions, investors sent RJF shares plummeting. RJF closed down $2.57 per share, or 13.48%, to close at $16.49 per share on April 15, 2009 on unusually high volume. Over the next few days, RJF's stock price traded as low as under $15 per share, well below its Class Period highs of over $38 per share.
If you acquired the securities of the defendants during the Class Period you may, no later than the Lead Plaintiff Deadline shown above, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff through counsel of your choice. You may also choose to remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff must meet certain requirements.
Raymond James Financial, Inc RJF Securities Fraud Legal Help
If you have suffered from financial losses, you may qualify for damages or remedies that may be awarded in a possible Raymond James Financial, Inc securities class action lawsuit. Please click the link below to submit your complaint for a free evaluation.
Click on title above for legal help and a free evaluation of your possible case
https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/submit_form.html?label=raymond-james-financial-inc-rjf-securities
Ticker Symbol: RJF
Class Period: Apr-22-08 to Apr-14-09
Date Filed: Jun-10-09
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Aug-9-09
Court: Southern District of New York
Allegations:
A class action lawsuit has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all purchasers of the common stock of Raymond James Financial, Inc. ("RJF" or the "Company") (RJF) between April 22, 2008 and April 14, 2009, inclusive (the "Class Period").
RJF and certain of its officers and directors are charged with issuing a series of materially false and misleading statements in violation of Section 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder.
Specifically, the Complaint alleges that defendants repeatedly touted its supposedly conservative management practices and avoidance of risky assets associated with subprime residential mortgages. Defendants, however, failed to disclose that RJF understated the credits risks of its wholly-owned subsidiary's commercial and residential loan portfolios, and failed to set aside adequate reserves for the losses that RJF knew, or recklessly disregarded, were forthcoming. On April 14, 2009, RJF shocked investors when it announced that results for the second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2009, would be well below the consensus analysts' estimates.
RJF also announced that both its commercial and residential portfolios would require higher loss reserves, with the loan loss provision tripling from the previous quarter. In response to such an unexpected sharp increase in loan loss provisions, investors sent RJF shares plummeting. RJF closed down $2.57 per share, or 13.48%, to close at $16.49 per share on April 15, 2009 on unusually high volume. Over the next few days, RJF's stock price traded as low as under $15 per share, well below its Class Period highs of over $38 per share.
If you acquired the securities of the defendants during the Class Period you may, no later than the Lead Plaintiff Deadline shown above, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff through counsel of your choice. You may also choose to remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff must meet certain requirements.
Raymond James Financial, Inc RJF Securities Fraud Legal Help
If you have suffered from financial losses, you may qualify for damages or remedies that may be awarded in a possible Raymond James Financial, Inc securities class action lawsuit. Please click the link below to submit your complaint for a free evaluation.
Click on title above for legal help and a free evaluation of your possible case
https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/submit_form.html?label=raymond-james-financial-inc-rjf-securities
Friday, June 12, 2009
Oil and Indians Don't Mix
by Greg Palast
Friday, June 12, 2009
For Air America Radio's Ring of Fire
There's an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.
If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo-them away. Shoo-ing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.
But be aware. Lately the Natives are shoo-ing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government's murder of more than a dozen rainforest residents who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling.
Again and again I see it in my line of work of investigating fraud. Here are a few pit-stops on the oily trail of tears:
In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly's oil tank in Oklahoma. Here's the weird part. Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.
Stanlee Ann wasn't Koch's only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.
Koch, according to the tape, would, "giggle" with joy over the records of the theft. Koch's own younger brother Bill ratted him out, complaining that, in effect, brothers Charles and David cheated him out of his fair share of the looting which totaled over three-quarters of a billion dollars from the Native lands.
The FBI filmed the siphoning with hidden cameras, but criminal charges were quashed after quiet objections from Republican senators.
Then there are the Chugach Natives of Alaska. The Port of Valdez, Alaska, is arguably one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on Earth, the only earthquake-safe ice-free port in Alaska that could load oil from the giant North Slope field. In 1969, Exxon and British Petroleum companies took the land from the Chugach paid them one dollar. I kid you not.
Wally Hickel, the former Governor of Alaska, dismissed my suggestion that the Chugach deserved a bit more respect (and cash) for their property. "Land ownership comes in two ways, Mr. Palast." explained the governor and pipeline magnate, "Purchase or conquest. The fact that your granddaddy chased a caribou across the land doesn't make it yours." The Chugach had lived there for 3,000 years.
No oil company would dream of digging on the Bush family properties in Midland, Texas, without paying a royalty. Or drilling near Malibu without the latest in environmental protections. But when Natives are on top of Exxon's or BP's glory hole, suddenly, the great defenders of private property rights turn quite Bolshevik: lands can be seized for The Public's Need for Oil.
Some Natives are "re-located" through legal flim-flam, some at gunpoint. The less lucky are left to wallow, literally, in the gunk left by the drilling process.
Take a look at this photo here, taken in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. It's from an investigation that I conducted for BBC TV, now in the film "Palast Investigates." I'm holding up a stinking, black glop of crude oil residue pulled from an abandoned Chevron-Texaco waste pit. A pipe runs from the toxic pit right into the water supply of Cofan Indians.
Chief Emergildo Criollo told me how oil company executives helicoptered into his remote village and, speaking in Spanish - which the Cofan didn't understand - "purchased" drilling rights with trinkets and cheese. The Natives had never seen cheese. ("The cheese smelled funny, so we threw it in the jungle.")
After drilling began, Criollo's son went swimming in his usual watering hole, came up vomiting blood, and died.
I asked Chevron about the wave of poisonings and deaths. According to an independent report, 1,401 deaths, mostly of children, mostly from cancers, can be traced to Chevron's toxic dumping.
Chevron's lawyer told me, "And it's the only case of cancer in the world? How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States? ... They have to prove that it is our crude," which, he noted with glee, "is absolutely impossible."
Big Oil treats indigenous blood like a cheap gasoline additive. That's why the Peruvians are up in arms. The Cofan of Ecuador, unlike their brothers in Peru, have taken no hostages. Rather, they have heavily armed themselves with lawyers.
But Chevron and its Big Oil brethren remain dismissive of the law. This week, Shell Oil, to get rid of a nasty PR problem by paying $15 million to the Ogoni people and the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa for the oil giant's alleged role in the killing of Wiwa and his associates, activists who had defended these Nigeria Delta people against drilling contamination. Shell pocketed $31 billion last year in profits and hopes the payoff will clear the way for a drilling partnership with Nigeria's government.
Congratulations, Shell. $15 million: For a license to kill and drill, that's a quite a bargain.
***
This weekend on Air America Radio, catch Greg Palast on the oil wars on 'Ring of Fire,' hosted by Mike Papantonio and Bobby Kennedy Jr.
Father's Day is coming up. Isn't it time you told Dad the truth? And no one tells the truth with more info-fueled flare than Greg Palast ("A cross between Seymour Hersh and Jack Kerouac." - Buzzflash).
Get dad a signed copy of Greg's new DVD, Palast Investigates: From 8-Mile to the Amazon, for a minimum tax-deductible donation of $40 to the Palast Investigative Fund, a 501c3 educational foundation. Include your dad's name, and Greg will personalize it.
The film gives you Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! - including a ride up the Amazon to the Cofan village; then back to New York's Lower East Side where the reporter shows how the investigations are done. Presented by Air America Media.
Your donation supports this important work. Forget the ties and stop the lies - Palast Investigates. "Stories so relevant they threaten to alter history." (Chicago Tribune.) "The All-Time Greatest Moment in [Film] History." - Op-Ed News.
www.GregPalast.com
Friday, June 12, 2009
For Air America Radio's Ring of Fire
There's an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.
If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo-them away. Shoo-ing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.
But be aware. Lately the Natives are shoo-ing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government's murder of more than a dozen rainforest residents who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling.
Again and again I see it in my line of work of investigating fraud. Here are a few pit-stops on the oily trail of tears:
In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly's oil tank in Oklahoma. Here's the weird part. Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.
Stanlee Ann wasn't Koch's only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.
Koch, according to the tape, would, "giggle" with joy over the records of the theft. Koch's own younger brother Bill ratted him out, complaining that, in effect, brothers Charles and David cheated him out of his fair share of the looting which totaled over three-quarters of a billion dollars from the Native lands.
The FBI filmed the siphoning with hidden cameras, but criminal charges were quashed after quiet objections from Republican senators.
Then there are the Chugach Natives of Alaska. The Port of Valdez, Alaska, is arguably one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on Earth, the only earthquake-safe ice-free port in Alaska that could load oil from the giant North Slope field. In 1969, Exxon and British Petroleum companies took the land from the Chugach paid them one dollar. I kid you not.
Wally Hickel, the former Governor of Alaska, dismissed my suggestion that the Chugach deserved a bit more respect (and cash) for their property. "Land ownership comes in two ways, Mr. Palast." explained the governor and pipeline magnate, "Purchase or conquest. The fact that your granddaddy chased a caribou across the land doesn't make it yours." The Chugach had lived there for 3,000 years.
No oil company would dream of digging on the Bush family properties in Midland, Texas, without paying a royalty. Or drilling near Malibu without the latest in environmental protections. But when Natives are on top of Exxon's or BP's glory hole, suddenly, the great defenders of private property rights turn quite Bolshevik: lands can be seized for The Public's Need for Oil.
Some Natives are "re-located" through legal flim-flam, some at gunpoint. The less lucky are left to wallow, literally, in the gunk left by the drilling process.
Take a look at this photo here, taken in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. It's from an investigation that I conducted for BBC TV, now in the film "Palast Investigates." I'm holding up a stinking, black glop of crude oil residue pulled from an abandoned Chevron-Texaco waste pit. A pipe runs from the toxic pit right into the water supply of Cofan Indians.
Chief Emergildo Criollo told me how oil company executives helicoptered into his remote village and, speaking in Spanish - which the Cofan didn't understand - "purchased" drilling rights with trinkets and cheese. The Natives had never seen cheese. ("The cheese smelled funny, so we threw it in the jungle.")
After drilling began, Criollo's son went swimming in his usual watering hole, came up vomiting blood, and died.
I asked Chevron about the wave of poisonings and deaths. According to an independent report, 1,401 deaths, mostly of children, mostly from cancers, can be traced to Chevron's toxic dumping.
Chevron's lawyer told me, "And it's the only case of cancer in the world? How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States? ... They have to prove that it is our crude," which, he noted with glee, "is absolutely impossible."
Big Oil treats indigenous blood like a cheap gasoline additive. That's why the Peruvians are up in arms. The Cofan of Ecuador, unlike their brothers in Peru, have taken no hostages. Rather, they have heavily armed themselves with lawyers.
But Chevron and its Big Oil brethren remain dismissive of the law. This week, Shell Oil, to get rid of a nasty PR problem by paying $15 million to the Ogoni people and the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa for the oil giant's alleged role in the killing of Wiwa and his associates, activists who had defended these Nigeria Delta people against drilling contamination. Shell pocketed $31 billion last year in profits and hopes the payoff will clear the way for a drilling partnership with Nigeria's government.
Congratulations, Shell. $15 million: For a license to kill and drill, that's a quite a bargain.
***
This weekend on Air America Radio, catch Greg Palast on the oil wars on 'Ring of Fire,' hosted by Mike Papantonio and Bobby Kennedy Jr.
Father's Day is coming up. Isn't it time you told Dad the truth? And no one tells the truth with more info-fueled flare than Greg Palast ("A cross between Seymour Hersh and Jack Kerouac." - Buzzflash).
Get dad a signed copy of Greg's new DVD, Palast Investigates: From 8-Mile to the Amazon, for a minimum tax-deductible donation of $40 to the Palast Investigative Fund, a 501c3 educational foundation. Include your dad's name, and Greg will personalize it.
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Senators Fly In Hi-Style / Taxpayers Money
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Cessna to lay off 1,300 in latest round
BY MOLLY MCMILLIN
The Wichita Eagle
Cessna Aircraft Co. will reduce its work force by another 1,300 people, it announced Friday.
LETTER TO CESSNA EMPLOYEES
WICHITA -
Cessna Aircraft Co. will reduce its work force by another 1,300 people, the company told employees this morning.
Including the cuts announced today, Cessna has cut staffing by 8,200 people since November.
Layoff notices will be distributed to 800 employees, primarily hourly workers on the production lines, on June 19, Cessna spokesman Bob Stangarone said. The 60-day notices will be distributed before the start of a four-week furlough.
The remaining notices to about 500 people will be issued no later than August 14, the company said.
In addition to the four-week furlough, the company is adding another three weeks of furlough. Production employees will not be affected by the additional time, Stangarone said.
The three weeks will be scheduled with the individual employees between now and the end of the year, Stangarone said.
"This is a cyclical industry, and right now we're in the worst part of the cycle," Stangarone said. "While the economy appears to have reached the bottom, it's still going to be quite some time before we're going to see the kind of growth in the economy that will drive airplane sales."
Financing remains difficult, daily utilization is down, and customers are waiting to see whether a recovery will come to fruition, he said.
"There are all these forces at work," Stangarone said.
Last week, Cessna chairman, CEO and president Jack Pelton sent a business update to workers warning that more layoffs were in the works as the company continues to grapple with the downturn in the market.
Cessna, which at the end of 2008 had planned to deliver 535 jets this year, has revised production downward four times since November as the company experiences order cancellations and delays.
For more on this story, come back to Kansas.com and look in Saturday's Eagle.
http://www.kansas.com/topstories/story/850109.html
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