AlterNet: Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Running Water and Food

[marmar]

Happy Thanksgiving, DU !!!! :hi:




Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Running Water and Food

By Yasha Levine, AlterNet. Posted November 26, 2009.

Thanks to AIG, some of the poorest residents of rural Kentucky learned you can always be made poorer by corporate villains.



What are we getting in return for the bailout? So far, predatory credit card rates, exorbitant bank fees and obscene Wall Street bonuses. But we're being robbed in other, sneakier ways, too. It seems that taxpayers in the poorest, most vulnerable parts of the county are getting plundered by the same institutions they bailed out. One example is AIG's underhanded fleecing of residents of rural Kentucky.

Middlesboro and Clinton are two tiny, impoverished towns in southern Kentucky with a combined population of 12,000. In 2008, Middlesboro's per capita income was $13,189 a year, only a few hundred dollars more than the average worker earned in third-world Mexico. That is if they were lucky to even get a job. Real unemployment hovers somewhere around 30%, and the state is so broke that half the people eligible for unemployment benefits can't receive them. Life may be tough and most people live in poverty, but that doesn't mean they can't be made a little poorer. That's the lesson locals learned after bailed-out insurance villain AIG took over their water utility and instantly raised rates to squeeze an extra $1 million in profits out of its new customers, forcing some to consider choosing between running water and food.

The towns are so rural, their residents have yet to be touched by the Internet revolution. Forget comment sections or forum threads. In Clinton, you have to track down actual hand-written notes that residents filed with city hall to read their complaints about the rate increase. Luckily, city officials were nice enough to scan some of them.

Here's one, dated August 8, 2009:

My husband and I are on a fixed income and with everything going up in price this would be very a very large burden on us as well as most of the citizens of Clinton. Our town is mostly of people like us and this would be such a hardship for us. A 50.8% raise is outrageous on anything. Please do not let this happen. It would mean the difference in bringing buying food and medicine or paying a high water bill to make someone else's life easier.

Here is how the AIG takeover went down: In 2005, flush with cash from its shady dealings in the mortgage derivatives market, AIG announced that it was in the process of acquiring Utilities Inc., a holding company that controlled scores of small water utilities across 17 different states. With just 300,000 customers, the company wasn't huge, but it boasted of being the largest privately held water utility in the country. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144203/bailed-out_aig_forcing_poor_to_choose_between_running_water_and_food

[madrchsod]

1. the people should take over the water supply.

let aig take them to court.

[barbtries]

2. water should be like air: free

it is just as essential to sustain life. i deplore the greeeeeed! it will take down the human race.

[Demeter]

3. I Think It's Time to Take Down the Corporations, One By One

just as Hugo Chavez is purging Venezuela of multinational corporations, so should the US. And all national corporations should be regulated and barred from the political process entirely.

[dgibby]

4. This is a page right out of "Economic Hit Man" and

"Disaster Capitalism". The only difference is that it's being played out in the US instead of some 3rd World country.

Wonder if we'll ever get smart enough to stage a national shutdown until this shit stops.

[winyanstaz]

5. Time for AIG to be disbanded and taken apart.

It is also past time for all utilities to be publicly owned again.
Privatizing essential survival things like water and electricity is nothing but harmful.
Time for a little Socialism for the people.
P.S. Give our damned money BACK AIG AND ALL THE REST OF YOU BANKS!!!