[Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Michele Stephenson]

 
For those of you who live in the US an article of interest... For those who 
live outside looking in, it's no big surprise
 
Private Company and Industry pensions plans have all but gone away.  The 
substitute is the 401K that no one is really responsible for except the 
investor to make the best choice for Self.  However, for those who work for 
local and state govt agencies this is something to watch and investigate 
especially if you are currently receiving a pension or will receive a pension 
in the next years to come.
 
What is as important if not more important to watch is how these issues will be 
resolved.  In the article below, if the judicial system does not get involved, 
then mediation is an option which usually results in a cut in benefits.  I 
doubt for those struggling funds one mediation is all it will take.  Mediation 
could possibly take place with every local and state legislative session 
resulting in a cut every time.
 
For those funds that do get processed in the court system it will likely go to 
the respective State Supreme Court and ultimately the US Supreme Court.  If 
localities are legitimately declared bankrupt and no longer required to pay 
pensions it is the federal govt's responsibility to do so.  In effect, we all 
pay for lack of managment and corruption in Anywhere, USA.  And once this 
precedent is established there will be a landslide of 'toxic' pensions to be 
dealt with (or not).
 
It is the future.  If you don't think so, Iceland is bankrupt from investing in 
bonds that were rated as "A" by unscrupulous wall street fund managers/business 
men/swindlers when they should have been rated as "Junk" level.  Greece is 
bankrupt. Ireland is bankrupt. Portugal is bankrupt. Spain will possibly be 
bankrupt by this time next year.  And the US's current financial situation, if 
scrutinized by the IMF credit rating system used on these same bankrupt 
countries, is on the verge of changing to riskier interest rates based on our 
debt and GDP and other indicators (just like the above countries with exception 
of Iceland).  What do all these countries have in common?  They are followed 
the same financial paradigm:  loans/debt to stimulate economy.
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40793765/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
 
Full Text below:
 

PRICHARD, Ala. — This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was 
warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of 
money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry. 
 
Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen 
before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, 
breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in 
full. 
 
Since then, Nettie Banks, 68, a retired Prichard police and fire dispatcher, 
has filed for bankruptcy. Alfred Arnold, a 66-year-old retired fire captain, 
has gone back to work as a shopping mall security guard to try to keep his 
house. Eddie Ragland, 59, a retired police captain, accepted help from 
colleagues, bake sales and collection jars after he was shot by a robber, 
leaving him badly wounded and unable to get to his new job as a police officer 
at the regional airport. 
 
Far worse was the retired fire marshal who died in June. Like many of the 
others, he was too young to collect Social Security. 
 
“When they found him, he had no electricity and no running water in his house,” 
said David Anders, 58, a retired district fire chief. “He was a proud enough 
man that he wouldn’t accept help.” 
 
The situation in Prichard is extremely unusual — the city has sought bankruptcy 
protection twice — but it proves that the unthinkable can, in fact, sometimes 
happen. 
 
And it stands as a warning to cities like Philadelphia and states like 
Illinois, whose pension funds are under great strain: if nothing changes, the 
money eventually does run out, and when that happens, misery and turmoil 
follow. 
 
More U.S. news More retirees moving in with their children 
As retirement investments erode during the economic crisis, the number of 
multigenerational family households has been growing — returning to a trend 
from half a century ago. Full story 
 
It is not just the pensioners who suffer when a pension fund runs dry. If a 
city tried to follow the law and pay its pensioners with money from its annual 
operating budget, it would probably have to adopt large tax increases, or make 
huge service cuts, to come up with the money. 
 
'Prichard is the future' 
Current city workers could find themselves paying into a pension plan that will 
not be there for their own retirements. In Prichard, some older workers have 
delayed retiring, since they cannot afford to give up their paychecks if no 
pension checks will follow. 
 
So the declining, little-known city of Prichard is now attracting the attention 
of bankruptcy lawyers, labor leaders, municipal credit analysts and local 
officials from across the country. 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Joe Street]

Noam Scheiber describes something resembling a lateral rather than hierarchical 
organization although he still assumes some overarching control frame it seems 
which is a departure from pure lateral networking. That is more the way nature 
organizes things and hopefully if Schieber is right this reorganization will 
take a hint from the great creator of Nature. Hardt and Negri allude to such 
things in the book Multitude. 

"I'd guess that most organizations a generation from now will be 
pretty small by contemporary standards, with highly convoluted 
cell-like structures. Large numbers of people within the organization 
may not even know one another's name, much less what colleagues spend 
their days doing, or the information they see on a regular basis. 
There will be redundant layers of security and activity, so that the 
loss of any one node can't disable the whole network. Which is to 
say, thanks to Wikileaks, the organizations of the future will look a 
lot like Š  Wikileaks."





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Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Jeromie Reeves]

You make it sound like the company is to return 100% of the money to
the group who pays in. That is not the case. The company is to find as
many people who want to pay in to the fund, while not needing to ever
draw from that fund. Everything that does not get drawn is then free
for the company to use as it pleases. This is exactly have
unemployment and social security works. It takes from the many to give
to the (hopefully) few.
When that few grow to close to the many, the system breaks down. You
need to add more many or take away more few.

As far as setting fixed caps on payouts because adjusters were just
paying what ever they felt like, seams logical. Its like buying a
burger. I would feel cheated if I paid for a 1/2lb burger and got a
1/4 instead and you paid for a 1/2 but got a full 1lb, just because
your server felt like giving you more, or me less, on any given day.
This is bad business for any business. The more product that is moved,
the higher profits are. Could that insurance corp have afforded to pay
out a bit more to people? Very possible.


On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Tyler Arnold
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Yes, that's because insurance companies' business model is to 1) accept money 
> in return for a promise to give it back when needed and then 2) don't give it 
> back.  That's it.  Their profit is inversely related to their payouts. I used 
> to work for a small software startup which made a kind of auto insurance 
> claims management/decision support software that was supposed to account for 
> the fact that newbie claims adjusters were all over the map when it came to 
> payouts.  Our software would use custom calculations based on different 
> scenarios to set the upper and lower limits of a given payout and would 
> prompt the claims adjuster to find a number between those limits.  It worked 
> really well -- I learned that our main customer was thrilled with it when 
> they discovered that after using our software for one year they had saved $50 
> million USD in payouts.  That's $50 million that was given to them by 
> California drivers in the expectation that the money would be paid back out 
> in the event of an accident; money which the company kept for itself instead. 
>  So instead of buying $50 million worth of car repair and medical bills or 
> whatever people needed, it paid for $50 million worth of hookers and blow for 
> insurance company executives.*  I no longer work for this company, but I hear 
> they are doing very well.
>
>
> * This may not literally be true.  I don't care.
>
>
> -Original Message-
>>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Sent: Dec 28, 2010 6:41 PM
>>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org" 
>>
>>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning      
>>(NYT-article)
>>
>>Same here.  That's quite common in rural areas here.  Often property
>>taxes via special levies that we vote upon fund the equipment, etc,
>>but the staff volunteers their time.  The insurance companies don't
>>like this and charge higher premiums than houses in town with a paid
>>fire department but we're also finding out after 170 houses burned in
>>the forest fire this fall that so called insurance is quite a scam as
>>they are trying to avoid paying the benefits that were supposedly paid
>>for.
>>
>>On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, Jason Mier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>> i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
>>> paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
>>> which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in 
>>> fact volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, 
>>> foolish.
>>>
>>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>>> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
>>>> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
>>>> Warning(NYT-article)
>>>>
>>>> Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed 
>>>> by
>>>> volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>>>> funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>>>> but there is no compulsion.
>>>> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>>>> occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the 
>>>> US (&
>>>> the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>>&g

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Jeromie Reeves]

As someone else stated, when people are allowed to pay when they have
a fire, then only people who have fires will pay. That does not work.
Remember that rural fire coverage is not paid for by taxes (i am sure
there are grants and such that people can make use of) but by the
local fees. It takes a lot of payments (both in the number of people,
and the years they pay them) to cover fires, as most people have less
then 1 fire in their life on average.

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Tyler Arnold
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Except that $75 has very little to do with the actual cost of fighting the 
> fire; and accepting the money at the time of the fire would have done just as 
> much to offset the cost of the fire as accepting it earlier would have.  So 
> saying the system works "if you pay" isn't quite true: the luckless resident 
> offered to pay, would have paid, could have paid -- so if the system works 
> "if you pay" then the system could have worked right then and there.  But it 
> *didn't* work because the $75 and the refusal to put out the fire is nothing 
> more than a childish moral scold that benefits nobody, penalizes everybody, 
> and only gratifies the shriveled hearts of right-wing authoritarians.
>
>
> -Original Message-
>>From: Dan Beukelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Sent: Dec 30, 2010 12:26 PM
>>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is        a       
>>Warning(NYT-article)
>>
>>The situation cited below is interesting.  The person who’s house burned for
>>$75.00 actually lived in the country.  The rural residents don’t pay taxes
>>for fire service (they could if they wanted to).  So, since the rural
>>residents didn’t want to tax themselves to provide a fire service a nearby
>>town said they could provide to any individual that wanted to pay for it.
>>This guys son had a house fire also, also hadn’t paid his $75.00 annual fee,
>>but was allowed to pay it once the house caught on fire.  Once that happened
>>many people conveniently forgot, assuming that they could just pay when the
>>fire happened, if no fire, save your $75.00.  Anyway a new rule was
>>implemented saying that if you don’t pay your $75.00 you are out of luck,
>>that was done to encourage as many as possible to pay for this service and
>>not wait until their home catches on fire.  Had it not been for the nearby
>>town offering fire service for a fee, no one would have responded.  The
>>neighbor to the guy who’s house burned, had paid his $75.00 and his house
>>was protected from the fire spreading.  The system actually works pretty
>>good, if you pay, but these residents decided themselves that they didn’t
>>need government provided fire service.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
>>Doug
>>Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 4:17 AM
>>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a
>>Warning(NYT-article)
>>
>>
>>
>>Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
>>volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>>funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>>but there is no compulsion.
>> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>>occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US
>>(&
>>the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>>
>> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the
>>1800´s:
>>there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
>>insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
>>levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire
>>Services
>>are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.
>>
>>regards Doug
>>
>>
>>On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
>>> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>>> > Ivan
>>> > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
>>> > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
>>> > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>>>
>>> Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do
>>work
>>> like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Keith Addison]

e first place?
>
>The old private-v-public distinction no longer applies as it did before. The
>corporations are as much part of the State as the government. There 
>is no relief
>in socialism, for Régie GM is still the same animal, only 
>potentially moreso. I
>suggest that the operative distinction in the current context is, rather,
>personal/community/local v corporate/government/transnational.
>
>Regards
>
>Dawie Coetzee
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org"
>
>Sent: Sun, 26 December, 2010 23:14:50
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning 
>(NYT-article)
>
>Alot of the US has a strange attraction to worshipping the almighty
>free market. Any sort of public or regulated business ideas
>Socialism, public health care, etc is attacked with a fervor usually
>reserved for religious disagreements.  People might claim to believe
>in God, but what their rhetoric points towards is believing that the
>free market is infallible and incapable of doing wrong.  This belief
>persists completely in the face of facts and reality in many cases.
>You might as well be trying to convert Christians to shamanism if you
>try to talk public health care capitalists.
>
>Z
>
>
>On Sunday, December 26, 2010, Doug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>  I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
>>  mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a
>>  Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
>>  (sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, 
>>depending on the
>>  market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia
>>  as yet.
>>
>>   The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
>>  residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with 
>>Private insurance
>>  if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
>>  Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian 
>>citizen is
>>  covered.
>>
>>   If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more 
>>for my tax $
>>  than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the
>>  inefficiencies could be, & feel that a fairer system should be achievable. I
>>  wonder why Obama is having so much difficulty changing the US 
>>medical system?
>>
>>  regards Doug
>>
>>
>>  On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:18:40 am Keith Addison wrote:
>>>  Hello Dan, Michelle and all
>>>
>>>  >Michele,
>>>  >
>>>  >I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - PBGC
>>>  >
>>>  >only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the retired
>>>  >workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
>  >> >planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This 
>reminds me of
>>>  >the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up in
>>>  >Enron, when the company went under, so did they.
>>>
>>>  So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the
>>>  Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?
>>>
>>>  >Pensions should not exist.
>>>
>>>  I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because
>>>  there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on
>>>  it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with
>>>  the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only
>>>  exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an
>>>  essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system
>>>  of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is
>>>  no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be
>>>  aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just
>>>  baling out?
>>>
>>>  >They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least with
>>>  >a 401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get
>>>  >depends on what I contribute.
>>>
>>>  How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have
>>>  died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied
>>>  healthcare?
>>>
&g

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Keith Addison]

http://www.alternet.org/story/149369/8_smears_and_misconceptions_about_wikileaks_spread_by_the_media?page=entire

AlterNet / By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Tana Ganeva

8 Smears and Misconceptions About WikiLeaks Spread By the Media

Shredding the corporate media's malicious attacks on WikiLeaks.

December 31, 2010
The corporate media's tendency to blare misinformation and outright 
fabrications has been particularly egregious in coverage of 
WikiLeaks. As Glenn Greenwald has argued, mainstream news outlets are 
parroting smears and falsehoods about the whistleblower site and its 
founder Julian Assange, helping to perpetuate a number of "zombie 
lies" -- misconceptions that refuse to die no matter how much they 
conflict with known reality, basic logic and well-publicized 
information.

Here are the bogus narratives that keep appearing in newspapers and 
on the airwaves.

1. Fearmongering that WikiLeaks revelations will result in deaths. So 
far there's no evidence that WikiLeaks' revelations have cost lives. 
In fact, right before the cables were released, Pentagon officials 
admitted there were no documented instances of people being killed 
because of information exposed by WikiLeaks' previous document 
releases (and unlike the diplomatic cables, the Afghanistan files 
were unredacted).

That's not to say that the exposure of secret government files can't 
somehow lead to someone, somewhere, someday, being hurt. But that's a 
pretty high bar to set, especially by a government engaged in 
multiple military operations -- many of them secret -- that lead to 
untold civilian casualties.

2. Spreading the lie that WikiLeaks posted all the cables. WikiLeaks 
has posted fewer than 2,000 of the 251,287 cables in its possession. 
The whistleblower released those documents in tandem with major news 
outlets including the Guardian, El Pais and Le Monde, and used most 
of the redactions employed by those papers to protect the identities 
of people whose lives could be endangered by exposure. The AP 
detailed this process in a December 3 article, but this did not stop 
officials and pundits from howling that WikiLeaks "indiscriminately" 
dumped all the cables online. Much of the media mindlessly repeated 
the claim.

Greenwald and others have battled to kill the myth that the 
whistleblower site threw up all the cables without taking any 
precautions to protect people, but it keeps coming up. Just this week 
NPR issued an apology for all the times contributors and guests have 
implied or outright voiced the falsehood that WikiLeaks blindly 
posted all the cables at once.

3. Falsely claiming that Assange has committed a crime regarding 
WikiLeaks. The State Department is working really hard to pin a crime 
on Julian Assange. The problem is that so far he doesn't appear to 
have broken any laws. Assange is not a U.S. citizen, he does not work 
for the U.S. government, and the documents WikiLeaks posted were 
procured by someone else. As Greenwald has repeatedly pointed out, 
it's not against the law to publish classified U.S. government 
information. If it were, hundreds of journalists would be in prison 
right now.

While the government tries to conjure up a legal justification for 
prosecuting Assange, the media is helping out by fanning the 
narrative that he's some criminal mastermind. Major outlets continue 
to host guests who accuse Assange of criminal behavior without quite 
specifying what his crime is. In a much derided CNN debate between 
Bush Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend and Glenn Greenwald 
hosted by Jessica Yellin, Greenwald had to repeatedly bat away the 
assertion that Assange has "profited" from "criminal" acts.

The effort to tar Assange as a criminal -- spearheaded by government 
officials and helped along by the media -- may have a chilling effect 
on future whistleblowers.

4. Denying that WikiLeaks is a journalistic enterprise. Public 
officials and pundits continue to claim that WikiLeaks is not a 
journalistic outlet, even though it procured the scoop of a decade. 
But much of what WikiLeaks does is identical to the activities of 
other news sources. WikiLeaks receives secrets from anonymous 
sources, which it then reveals to the public -- news is nothing if 
not a checks and balances system for the government, a fundamental 
right of a free press. Secondly, it curates those secrets before 
revealing them -- a journalist selecting relevant and appropriate 
material from a confidential document is not that different from 
WikiLeaks redacting certain parts of the cables.

Because WikiLeaks' actions fall under the First Amendment, all 
journalists should be outraged if the American government attempts to 
prosecute. If WikiLeaks is prosecuted for conducting a journalistic 
enterprise, what rights will be stripped from journalists in the 
future? One of the most respected journalistic institutions in the 
world, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is 
speaking out.

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Dawie Coetzee]

Some of the more fanciful reactions to the WikiLeaks thing remind me a bit of a 
standard tactic used by the pre-'94 South African government, only somehow in 
reverse. Whenever an anti-apartheid activist got bumped off it was almost like 
clockwork, the SA government response would come, "Actually he was one of ours, 
working undercover. I mean, we don't go about killing people ..." - though this 
was often disseminated by subtler means than press releases. That way the 
victim's own constituency could be blamed for the murder.

Now some are saying of Assange, "Actually he's one of theirs ..."

Me, I don't know. One can never know, really, though naturally one's partial 
knowledge informs one's positions. What's important is one's response to an 
idea 
as a proposal, i.e. where one stands on the idea of this or that being true.

Regards

-Dawie Coetzee






From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Sent: Sat, 1 January, 2011 6:30:18
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

http://www.alternet.org/story/149369/8_smears_and_misconceptions_about_wikileaks_spread_by_the_media?page=entire


AlterNet / By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Tana Ganeva

8 Smears and Misconceptions About WikiLeaks Spread By the Media

Shredding the corporate media's malicious attacks on WikiLeaks.

December 31, 2010
The corporate media's tendency to blare misinformation and outright 
fabrications has been particularly egregious in coverage of 
WikiLeaks. As Glenn Greenwald has argued, mainstream news outlets are 
parroting smears and falsehoods about the whistleblower site and its 
founder Julian Assange, helping to perpetuate a number of "zombie 
lies" -- misconceptions that refuse to die no matter how much they 
conflict with known reality, basic logic and well-publicized 
information.

Here are the bogus narratives that keep appearing in newspapers and 
on the airwaves.

1. Fearmongering that WikiLeaks revelations will result in deaths. So 
far there's no evidence that WikiLeaks' revelations have cost lives. 
In fact, right before the cables were released, Pentagon officials 
admitted there were no documented instances of people being killed 
because of information exposed by WikiLeaks' previous document 
releases (and unlike the diplomatic cables, the Afghanistan files 
were unredacted).

That's not to say that the exposure of secret government files can't 
somehow lead to someone, somewhere, someday, being hurt. But that's a 
pretty high bar to set, especially by a government engaged in 
multiple military operations -- many of them secret -- that lead to 
untold civilian casualties.

2. Spreading the lie that WikiLeaks posted all the cables. WikiLeaks 
has posted fewer than 2,000 of the 251,287 cables in its possession. 
The whistleblower released those documents in tandem with major news 
outlets including the Guardian, El Pais and Le Monde, and used most 
of the redactions employed by those papers to protect the identities 
of people whose lives could be endangered by exposure. The AP 
detailed this process in a December 3 article, but this did not stop 
officials and pundits from howling that WikiLeaks "indiscriminately" 
dumped all the cables online. Much of the media mindlessly repeated 
the claim.

Greenwald and others have battled to kill the myth that the 
whistleblower site threw up all the cables without taking any 
precautions to protect people, but it keeps coming up. Just this week 
NPR issued an apology for all the times contributors and guests have 
implied or outright voiced the falsehood that WikiLeaks blindly 
posted all the cables at once.

3. Falsely claiming that Assange has committed a crime regarding 
WikiLeaks. The State Department is working really hard to pin a crime 
on Julian Assange. The problem is that so far he doesn't appear to 
have broken any laws. Assange is not a U.S. citizen, he does not work 
for the U.S. government, and the documents WikiLeaks posted were 
procured by someone else. As Greenwald has repeatedly pointed out, 
it's not against the law to publish classified U.S. government 
information. If it were, hundreds of journalists would be in prison 
right now.

While the government tries to conjure up a legal justification for 
prosecuting Assange, the media is helping out by fanning the 
narrative that he's some criminal mastermind. Major outlets continue 
to host guests who accuse Assange of criminal behavior without quite 
specifying what his crime is. In a much derided CNN debate between 
Bush Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend and Glenn Greenwald 
hosted by Jessica Yellin, Greenwald had to repeatedly bat away the 
assertion that Assange has "profited" from "criminal" acts.

The effort to tar Assange a

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Dan Beukelman]

Michele,

   I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - PBGC
only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the retired
workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me of
the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up in
Enron, when the company went under, so did they.  Pensions should not exist.
They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least with a
401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get depends
on what I contribute.

 

Dan

 

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Michele Stephenson
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 11:36 AM
Subject: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

 

 


For those of you who live in the US an article of interest... For those who
live outside looking in, it's no big surprise

Private Company and Industry pensions plans have all but gone away.  The
substitute is the 401K that no one is really responsible for except the
investor to make the best choice for Self.  However, for those who work for
local and state govt agencies this is something to watch and investigate
especially if you are currently receiving a pension or will receive a
pension in the next years to come.

What is as important if not more important to watch is how these issues will
be resolved.  In the article below, if the judicial system does not get
involved, then mediation is an option which usually results in a cut in
benefits.  I doubt for those struggling funds one mediation is all it will
take.  Mediation could possibly take place with every local and state
legislative session resulting in a cut every time.

For those funds that do get processed in the court system it will likely go
to the respective State Supreme Court and ultimately the US Supreme Court.
If localities are legitimately declared bankrupt and no longer required to
pay pensions it is the federal govt's responsibility to do so.  In effect,
we all pay for lack of managment and corruption in Anywhere, USA.  And once
this precedent is established there will be a landslide of 'toxic' pensions
to be dealt with (or not).

It is the future.  If you don't think so, Iceland is bankrupt from investing
in bonds that were rated as "A" by unscrupulous wall street fund
managers/business men/swindlers when they should have been rated as "Junk"
level.  Greece is bankrupt. Ireland is bankrupt. Portugal is bankrupt. Spain
will possibly be bankrupt by this time next year.  And the US's current
financial situation, if scrutinized by the IMF credit rating system used on
these same bankrupt countries, is on the verge of changing to riskier
interest rates based on our debt and GDP and other indicators (just like the
above countries with exception of Iceland).  What do all these countries
have in common?  They are followed the same financial paradigm:  loans/debt
to stimulate economy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40793765/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/

Full Text below:


PRICHARD, Ala. - This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was
warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of
money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.

Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen
before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired
workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement
benefits in full.

Since then, Nettie Banks, 68, a retired Prichard police and fire dispatcher,
has filed for bankruptcy. Alfred Arnold, a 66-year-old retired fire captain,
has gone back to work as a shopping mall security guard to try to keep his
house. Eddie Ragland, 59, a retired police captain, accepted help from
colleagues, bake sales and collection jars after he was shot by a robber,
leaving him badly wounded and unable to get to his new job as a police
officer at the regional airport.

Far worse was the retired fire marshal who died in June. Like many of the
others, he was too young to collect Social Security.

"When they found him, he had no electricity and no running water in his
house," said David Anders, 58, a retired district fire chief. "He was a
proud enough man that he wouldn't accept help."

The situation in Prichard is extremely unusual - the city has sought
bankruptcy protection twice - but it proves that the unthinkable can, in
fact, sometimes happen.

And it stands as a warning to cities like Philadelphia and states like
Illinois, whose pension funds are under great strain: if nothing changes,
the money eventually does run out, and when that happens, misery and turmoil
follow.

More U.S. news More retirees moving in with their children
As retirement investments erode during the economic crisis, the number of
mult

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Keith Addison]

Hello Dan, Michelle and all

>Michele,
>
>I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - PBGC
>only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the retired
>workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
>planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me of
>the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up in
>Enron, when the company went under, so did they.

So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the 
Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?

>Pensions should not exist.

I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because 
there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on 
it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with 
the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only 
exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an 
essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system 
of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is 
no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be 
aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just 
baling out?

>They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least with a
>401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get depends
>on what I contribute.

How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have 
died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied 
healthcare?

A Grim Record: One In Seven Americans Is On Food Stamps
December 8, 2010
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/08/131905683/a-grim-record-one-in-seven-americans-is-on-food-stamps>

No prizes for guessing what kind of "food" they eat.

Best wishes

Keith


>Dan
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
>Michele Stephenson
>Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 11:36 AM
>Subject: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)
>
>For those of you who live in the US an article of interest... For those who
>live outside looking in, it's no big surprise
>
>Private Company and Industry pensions plans have all but gone away.  The
>substitute is the 401K that no one is really responsible for except the
>investor to make the best choice for Self.  However, for those who work for
>local and state govt agencies this is something to watch and investigate
>especially if you are currently receiving a pension or will receive a
>pension in the next years to come.
>
>What is as important if not more important to watch is how these issues will
>be resolved.  In the article below, if the judicial system does not get
>involved, then mediation is an option which usually results in a cut in
>benefits.  I doubt for those struggling funds one mediation is all it will
>take.  Mediation could possibly take place with every local and state
>legislative session resulting in a cut every time.
>
>For those funds that do get processed in the court system it will likely go
>to the respective State Supreme Court and ultimately the US Supreme Court.
>If localities are legitimately declared bankrupt and no longer required to
>pay pensions it is the federal govt's responsibility to do so.  In effect,
>we all pay for lack of managment and corruption in Anywhere, USA.  And once
>this precedent is established there will be a landslide of 'toxic' pensions
>to be dealt with (or not).
>
>It is the future.  If you don't think so, Iceland is bankrupt from investing
>in bonds that were rated as "A" by unscrupulous wall street fund
>managers/business men/swindlers when they should have been rated as "Junk"
>level.  Greece is bankrupt. Ireland is bankrupt. Portugal is bankrupt. Spain
>will possibly be bankrupt by this time next year.  And the US's current
>financial situation, if scrutinized by the IMF credit rating system used on
>these same bankrupt countries, is on the verge of changing to riskier
>interest rates based on our debt and GDP and other indicators (just like the
>above countries with exception of Iceland).  What do all these countries
>have in common?  They are followed the same financial paradigm:  loans/debt
>to stimulate economy.
>
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40793765/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
>
>Full Text below:
>
>
>PRICHARD, Ala. - This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was
>warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of
>money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.
>
>Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen
>before: it stopped sending monthly pension chec

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Doug]

I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a 
mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a 
Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund 
(sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, depending on the 
market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia 
as yet.

 The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to 
residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with Private insurance 
if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our 
Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian citizen is 
covered. 

 If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more for my tax $ 
than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the 
inefficiencies could be, & feel that a fairer system should be achievable. I 
wonder why Obama is having so much difficulty changing the US medical system?

regards Doug


On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:18:40 am Keith Addison wrote:
> Hello Dan, Michelle and all
> 
> >Michele,
> >
> >I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - PBGC
> >
> >only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the retired
> >workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
> >planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me of
> >the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up in
> >Enron, when the company went under, so did they.
> 
> So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the
> Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?
> 
> >Pensions should not exist.
> 
> I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because
> there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on
> it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with
> the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only
> exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an
> essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system
> of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is
> no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be
> aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just
> baling out?
> 
> >They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least with
> >a 401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get
> >depends on what I contribute.
> 
> How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have
> died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied
> healthcare?
> 
> A Grim Record: One In Seven Americans Is On Food Stamps
> December 8, 2010
> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/08/131905683/a-grim-record-one-in-s
> even-americans-is-on-food-stamps>
> 
> No prizes for guessing what kind of "food" they eat.
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Keith
> 
> >Dan
> >
> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
> >Michele Stephenson
> >Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 11:36 AM
> >Subject: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning
> >(NYT-article)
> >
> >For those of you who live in the US an article of interest... For those
> >who live outside looking in, it's no big surprise
> >
> >Private Company and Industry pensions plans have all but gone away.  The
> >substitute is the 401K that no one is really responsible for except the
> >investor to make the best choice for Self.  However, for those who work
> >for local and state govt agencies this is something to watch and
> >investigate especially if you are currently receiving a pension or will
> >receive a pension in the next years to come.
> >
> >What is as important if not more important to watch is how these issues
> >will be resolved.  In the article below, if the judicial system does not
> >get involved, then mediation is an option which usually results in a cut
> >in benefits.  I doubt for those struggling funds one mediation is all it
> >will take.  Mediation could possibly take place with every local and
> >state legislative session resulting in a cut every time.
> >
> >For those funds that do get processed in the court system it will likely
> >go to the respective State Supreme Court and ultimately the US Supreme
> >Court. If localities are legitimately declared bankrupt and no longer
> >required to pay pensions it is the federal govt's responsibility to do
> >so.  In effect, we a

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Andy K]

Doug:
"Obama's failure" is due to the corporate ownership of everything in the US. 
If, for example, the US were to employ a universal type insurance program it 
would significantly diminish insurance companies revenue and profits.  We 
all know that in the United States that Profits rule and, that any cost 
profit is good.  Corporate interest affects everything from elections to the 
supreme court and more.  Even the corporate media is hiding the truth from 
the "Americans", and most of our people are too ignorant to see it, or to do 
anything about it.  This is a "ME" society, not a "WE" society.

- Original Message - 
From: "Doug" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2010 8:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
Warning(NYT-article)


>I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
> mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into 
> a
> Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
> (sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, depending on 
> the
> market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in 
> Australia
> as yet.
>
> The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
> residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with Private 
> insurance
> if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
> Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian citizen 
> is
> covered.
>
> If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more for my 
> tax $
> than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the
> inefficiencies could be, & feel that a fairer system should be achievable. 
> I
> wonder why Obama is having so much difficulty changing the US medical 
> system?
>
> regards Doug
>
>
> On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:18:40 am Keith Addison wrote:
>> Hello Dan, Michelle and all
>>
>> >Michele,
>> >
>> >I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - 
>> > PBGC
>> >
>> >only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the 
>> >retired
>> >workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
>> >planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me 
>> >of
>> >the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up 
>> >in
>> >Enron, when the company went under, so did they.
>>
>> So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the
>> Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?
>>
>> >Pensions should not exist.
>>
>> I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because
>> there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on
>> it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with
>> the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only
>> exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an
>> essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system
>> of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is
>> no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be
>> aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just
>> baling out?
>>
>> >They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least 
>> >with
>> >a 401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get
>> >depends on what I contribute.
>>
>> How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have
>> died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied
>> healthcare?
>>
>> A Grim Record: One In Seven Americans Is On Food Stamps
>> December 8, 2010
>> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/08/131905683/a-grim-record-one-in-s
>> even-americans-is-on-food-stamps>
>>
>> No prizes for guessing what kind of "food" they eat.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Keith
>>
>> >Dan
>> >
>> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf 
>> >Of
>> >Michele Stephenson
>> >Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 11:36 AM
>> >Subject: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning
>> >(NYT-article)
>> >
>> >For those of you who live in the US an article of interest... For those
>> >who live outside looking in, it's no big surpris

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Ivan Menchero]

It is very complicated!

To start in the USA you have the trident of evil Insurance-doctors 
(HMO)-lawyers they all have to make money and they all blame the others for 
their higher costs.
Liability is HUGE in the USA

The ones making money they do not want to make less and they use the "we do 
not want the government telling me what doctor to visit and the, what is or 
not paid for" never mind the insurance is telling them, but it seems to work 
with most Americans, may be they do not know that the USA is the country 
that spends the most in Health Care and most citizens do not get anything 
out of it.

The Corporation speech that Andy K mention is true and THAT is the bottom 
line.

A two tier system with government oversight on the private one (many things 
can go wrong this way) In my opinion is best, if you do not want to wait and 
can afford it, pay for it and go thru a private clinic (Not the most ethical 
but I best solution)
By the way that is NOT how the Canadian system works and I have been in it 
and it does work fairly good but I think a person should be able to PAY and 
get it now.

The health care system in the USA will collapse very soon due to the rising 
costs, we will see what happens. We have solutions from doctors that say 
well I will not get insurance that way no lawyer will sue me (they have a 
point! because remember the "trident of evil")

Is very complicated but one thing is for sure, current situation, it will/is 
not benefitting "the people"

Ivan
PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA! so 
you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a fire in 
your house you are out of luck!

-Original Message- 
From: Doug
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2010 9:56 PM
To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
Warning(NYT-article)

I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a
Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
(sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, depending on 
the
market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia
as yet.

The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with Private 
insurance
if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian citizen 
is
covered.

If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more for my tax 
$
than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the
inefficiencies could be, & feel that a fairer system should be achievable. I
wonder why Obama is having so much difficulty changing the US medical 
system?

regards Doug


On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:18:40 am Keith Addison wrote:
> Hello Dan, Michelle and all
>
> >Michele,
> >
> >I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - 
> > PBGC
> >
> >only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the 
> >retired
> >workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
> >planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me 
> >of
> >the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up 
> >in
> >Enron, when the company went under, so did they.
>
> So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the
> Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?
>
> >Pensions should not exist.
>
> I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because
> there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on
> it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with
> the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only
> exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an
> essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system
> of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is
> no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be
> aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just
> baling out?
>
> >They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least 
> >with
> >a 401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get
> >depends on what I contribute.
>
> How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have
> died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied
> healthcare?
>
> A Grim Record: One In Seven Americans Is On Food Stamps
> December 8, 2010
> <http://w

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Erik Lane]

On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:

>
>
> Ivan
> PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA! so
> you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a fire in
> your house you are out of luck!
>
>

Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do work
like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
things are going.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/


 No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn  Tennessee house in ashes
after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee

   Below:
   1.
  - x
 -
   Jump to video People step up to help Gene Cranick
  
  -   video
  
   2.
  - x Jump to vote Results below
  
  -   vote
  
   3.
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  -   related
  


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  Advertisement | ad info 
   msnbc.com msnbc.com
 updated 10/6/2010 12:48:23 PM ET 2010-10-06T16:48:23

   - Share <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
   - Print 
   - Font:
   - +
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 Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week
because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.

Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in
the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.

"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do
it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the
family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the
fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.

"We wasn't on their list," he said the operators told him.

Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he "forgot" to pay the
annual $75 fee. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting service,
but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a fee.

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have
the fire put out.
 advertisement | ad info 
 Advertisement | ad info 
  Advertisement | ad info 

His offer wasn't accepted, he said.

The fire fee policy dates back 20 or so years.

"Anybody that's not inside the city limits of South Fulton, it's a service
we offer. Either they accept it or they don't," said South Fulton Mayor
David Crocker.

The fire department's decision to let the home burn was "incredibly
irresponsible," said the president of an association representing
firefighters.

"Professional, career firefighters shouldn’t be forced to check a list
before running out the door to see which homeowners have paid up," Harold
Schaitberger, International Association of Fire Fighters president, said in
a statement. "They get in their trucks and go."

Firefighters did eventually show up, but only to fight the fire on the
neighboring property, whose owner had paid the fee.
  Story: 'No pay, no spray' case: Firefighters 'threatened'


"They put water out on the fence line out here. They never said nothing to
me. Never acknowledged. They stood out here and watched it burn," Cranick
said.

South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay
the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those
whose homes are on fire.

Cranick, who is now living in a trailer on his property, says his insurance
policy will help cover some of his lost home.

"Insurance is going to pay for what money I had on the policy, looks like.
But like everything else, I didn't have enough."

After the blaze, South Fulton police arrested one of Cranick's sons, Timothy
Allen Cranick, on an aggravated assault charge, according to
WPSD-TV,
an NBC station in Paducah, Ky.

Police told WPSD that the younger Cranick attacked Fire Chief David Wilds at
the firehouse because he was upset his father's house was allowed to burn.

WPSD-TV reported that Wilds was treated and released.
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Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Zeke Yewdall]

Alot of the US has a strange attraction to worshipping the almighty
free market. Any sort of public or regulated business ideas
Socialism, public health care, etc is attacked with a fervor usually
reserved for religious disagreements.   People might claim to believe
in God, but what their rhetoric points towards is believing that the
free market is infallible and incapable of doing wrong.  This belief
persists completely in the face of facts and reality in many cases.
You might as well be trying to convert Christians to shamanism if you
try to talk public health care capitalists.

Z


On Sunday, December 26, 2010, Doug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
> mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a
> Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
> (sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, depending on the
> market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia
> as yet.
>
>  The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
> residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with Private insurance
> if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
> Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian citizen is
> covered.
>
>  If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more for my tax $
> than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the
> inefficiencies could be, & feel that a fairer system should be achievable. I
> wonder why Obama is having so much difficulty changing the US medical system?
>
> regards Doug
>
>
> On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:18:40 am Keith Addison wrote:
>> Hello Dan, Michelle and all
>>
>> >Michele,
>> >
>> >    I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - PBGC
>> >
>> >only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the retired
>> >workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
>> >planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me of
>> >the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up in
>> >Enron, when the company went under, so did they.
>>
>> So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the
>> Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?
>>
>> >Pensions should not exist.
>>
>> I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because
>> there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on
>> it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with
>> the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only
>> exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an
>> essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system
>> of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is
>> no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be
>> aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just
>> baling out?
>>
>> >They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least with
>> >a 401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get
>> >depends on what I contribute.
>>
>> How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have
>> died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied
>> healthcare?
>>
>> A Grim Record: One In Seven Americans Is On Food Stamps
>> December 8, 2010
>> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/08/131905683/a-grim-record-one-in-s
>> even-americans-is-on-food-stamps>
>>
>> No prizes for guessing what kind of "food" they eat.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Keith
>>
>> >Dan
>> >
>> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
>> >Michele Stephenson
>> >Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 11:36 AM
>> >Subject: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning
>> >(NYT-article)
>> >
>> >For those of you who live in the US an article of interest... For those
>> >who live outside looking in, it's no big surprise
>> >
>> >Private Company and Industry pensions plans have all but gone away.  The
>> >substitute is the 401K that no one is really responsible for except the
>> >investor to make the best choice for Self.  However, for those who work
>> >for local and state govt agencies this is 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Joe Street]

I think the belief persists in the face of facts and reality because 
reality is something deliberately kept far away from the mind of the 
believer for one thing, the examination of the truth of that belief 
system, or facts, is something the average believer is strongly steered 
away from (and often wants to be) almost in every moment by the mind 
control machine of the corruptiles. It is not that the belief system is 
necessarily invalid, but how many people do a reality check on what it 
actually means? So long as they remain insulated from that reality, they 
have little reason to lift the veil and see the light of day.  When a 
corruptile says the free market can find a solution to any problem, it 
isn't actually a lie, it's just that the 'solution' the free market 
finds to say the issue of world hunger for example, is that millions of 
people may in fact starve to death. i.e. the reality today. It is a 
solution in a sense, just not a very human one, but then the free market 
has nothing to do with humanity or more to the point, morality does it? 
Why should it?  It may be like an organism in some ways, but it sure 
isn't human.  It is decidedly inhuman and often, maybe more often than 
not, inhumane.

I don't know if I'd agree with your last statement Zeke.  Have you ever 
talked public health care with a capitalist who couldn't afford health 
care?  Now there's a person who is stopped by fact.  The others under 
the veil well yeah, don't waste yer breath. They can afford their 
delusion. Incentives lie where the rubber meets the road, not in TV land 
where so many people around me live.

Joe



Zeke Yewdall wrote:

>Alot of the US has a strange attraction to worshipping the almighty
>free market. Any sort of public or regulated business ideas
>Socialism, public health care, etc is attacked with a fervor usually
>reserved for religious disagreements.   People might claim to believe
>in God, but what their rhetoric points towards is believing that the
>free market is infallible and incapable of doing wrong.  This belief
>persists completely in the face of facts and reality in many cases.
>You might as well be trying to convert Christians to shamanism if you
>try to talk public health care capitalists.
>
>Z
>
>
>  
>



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Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Jeromie Reeves]

We too have had people have their house because they did not pay the
rural fire coverage fee. What people do not understand is that
most, if not all, rural fire departments are a subscription service.
If you did not subscribe, you do not receive services. There is not
(in most
places) a rural fire tax to cover fire services like cities have. I
have been on both sides of this one and I know the feeling of wanting
to bribe
(or pay after the fact) for services that were the responsibility of
the land owner and/or renter.


On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Alot of the US has a strange attraction to worshipping the almighty
> free market. Any sort of public or regulated business ideas
> Socialism, public health care, etc is attacked with a fervor usually
> reserved for religious disagreements.   People might claim to believe
> in God, but what their rhetoric points towards is believing that the
> free market is infallible and incapable of doing wrong.  This belief
> persists completely in the face of facts and reality in many cases.
> You might as well be trying to convert Christians to shamanism if you
> try to talk public health care capitalists.
>
> Z
>
>
> On Sunday, December 26, 2010, Doug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
>> mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a
>> Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
>> (sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, depending on the
>> market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia
>> as yet.
>>
>>  The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
>> residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with Private insurance
>> if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
>> Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian citizen is
>> covered.
>>
>>  If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more for my tax 
>> $
>> than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the
>> inefficiencies could be, & feel that a fairer system should be achievable. I
>> wonder why Obama is having so much difficulty changing the US medical system?
>>
>> regards Doug
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:18:40 am Keith Addison wrote:
>>> Hello Dan, Michelle and all
>>>
>>> >Michele,
>>> >
>>> >    I don't know that the Federal Government would be - on the hook - PBGC
>>> >
>>> >only insures Pensions from Private companies in this case it's the retired
>>> >workers who could be out.  It's a lesson in the need for good financial
>>> >planning and not putting all of your eggs in 1 basket.  This reminds me of
>>> >the Enron collapse.  So many people had all of their retirement tied up in
>>> >Enron, when the company went under, so did they.
>>>
>>> So you blame the pensions themselves, instead of Enron and the
>>> Washington people (?) who enabled the whole scam?
>>>
>>> >Pensions should not exist.
>>>
>>> I'm not 100% in touch with all the details of this issue because
>>> there's simply been too much of it and I've had no reason to focus on
>>> it that closely. But IMHO that would be throwing out the baby with
>>> the bathwater. In other countries than the US, pensions not only
>>> exist, they also function as intended, providing millions with an
>>> essential resource that they depend on. Just because the whole system
>>> of welfare, healthcare and benefits in the US is now dysfunctional is
>>> no reason to damn them as worse than useless. Shouldn't you rather be
>>> aspiring to help restore their valuable functions instead of just
>>> baling out?
>>>
>>> >They are plagued with problems and seldom funded correctly.  At least with
>>> >a 401k I can make my investment decisions and I know that what I get
>>> >depends on what I contribute.
>>>
>>> How many deserving people would that exclude? How many Americans have
>>> died (been killed?) so far because they were effectively denied
>>> healthcare?
>>>
>>> A Grim Record: One In Seven Americans Is On Food Stamps
>>> December 8, 2010
>>> <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/08/131905683/a-grim-record-one-in-s
>>> even-americans-is-on-food-stamps>
>>>
>>&

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Dawie Coetzee]

Indeed. Only the worshippers of the "free market" (here in South Africa they 
tend to middle-aged white guys with that particular sort of academic background 
that causes them to pronounce the term "free mogget") have a skewed idea of 
what 
they are worshipping. For in logic a free market would be a local, mom-and-pop, 
and largely agrarian economy, which would work just fine, and which is exactly 
what the world doesn't have.

The first myth is that the intercourse of the corporations represents a free 
market. It does not. I must admit to being drawn to many of the principles of 
libertarianism. Where the libertarians lose me is where they afford 
corporations 
that owe their existence (or incarnation) to legislation the same spiritual 
status as you and me. I find myself on libertarian websites, having sought an 
appreciation for personal liberty, and find discussions of stock-market 
wangling. Libertarians want an economy without State interference, but in which 
State-borne institutions like a stock market persist. So too with Companies 
Acts, currencies, trademarks and patents, etc.

The second myth is that the corporations fear regulation. The current situation 
could be described as "regulated capitalism", and the unprecedented level of 
corporate power is an essential part of it. Corporations cultivate regulation, 
often by subtle means, in order to establish for themselves 
invulnerable positions. CORPORATIONS NEST IN REGULATION. Corporations cannot 
exist, in their present form or anything even vaguely like it, without it. The 
effect of regulation is to ensure that economic activity may happen only in 
ways 
of which the corporations alone are capable. This does assume that the 
regulation is so structured as to achieve that, and that the strictures thereof 
do not take the form of excessive direct cost (which is quite high: cf. BP. 
Moderate direct cost represents "roundaboutness" which also favours the 
corporations); for the corporations excel at growing proof-of-compliance 
machines of whatever complexity is required. It is exactly that sort of 
proof-of-compliance capability that both the corporate parvenu start-up and 
the mom-and-pop economy lack.

Consequently the activist community is being played, by entities quite capable 
of pulling it off. How often are small victories not found in small bits of 
restrictive regulation (more often than not suggested and led by the offending 
corporation itself) when true victory would be the abolition of the privileges 
- 
which arise from structures of legislation, e.g. company law, etc. - that allow 
corporations to operate in the first place?

The old private-v-public distinction no longer applies as it did before. The 
corporations are as much part of the State as the government. There is no 
relief 
in socialism, for Régie GM is still the same animal, only potentially moreso. I 
suggest that the operative distinction in the current context is, rather, 
personal/community/local v corporate/government/transnational.

Regards

Dawie Coetzee






From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org" 

Sent: Sun, 26 December, 2010 23:14:50
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

Alot of the US has a strange attraction to worshipping the almighty
free market. Any sort of public or regulated business ideas
Socialism, public health care, etc is attacked with a fervor usually
reserved for religious disagreements.  People might claim to believe
in God, but what their rhetoric points towards is believing that the
free market is infallible and incapable of doing wrong.  This belief
persists completely in the face of facts and reality in many cases.
You might as well be trying to convert Christians to shamanism if you
try to talk public health care capitalists.

Z


On Sunday, December 26, 2010, Doug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
> mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a
> Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
> (sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, depending on the
> market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia
> as yet.
>
>  The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
> residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with Private insurance
> if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
> Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian citizen is
> covered.
>
>  If I was an American (US) citizen, I feel I would want much more for my tax $
> than is currently seen in the US system: I really cannot see where the
> inefficienci

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Keith Addison]

America in Decline: Why Germans Think We're Insane

A look at our empire in decline through the eyes of the European media.

December 26, 2010
By Democrats Ramshield

As an American expat living in the European Union, I've started to 
see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America 
does. Though it spends less -- right around 9 percent of GNP on 
medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 
percent of GNP on medical -- the EU pretty much insures 100 percent 
of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million 
without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 
million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has 
cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. 
The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid 
maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to 
understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called "A Superpower in 
Decline," which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd 
phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or 
attempts at "balance" found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea 
Parties:

Full of Hatred: "The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who 
claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host 
Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, 
is angry. Beck doesn't quite know what he wants to be -- maybe a 
politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know 
what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn't come up with any 
specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."

The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America's 
actual unemployment rate isn't really 10 percent, but close to 20 
percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped 
looking for work.

Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or 
fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer 
investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? 
Isn't it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large 
criminal justice system? (In America over 2 million people are 
incarcerated.)

Jobless Benefits That Never Run Out

Unlike here, in Germany jobless benefits never run out. Not only that 
-- as part of their social safety net, all job seekers continue to be 
medically insured, as are their families.

In the German jobless benefit system, when "jobless benefit 1" runs 
out, "jobless benefit 2," also known as HartzIV, kicks in. That one 
never gets cut off. The jobless also have contributions made for 
their pensions. They receive other types of insurance coverage from 
the state. As you can imagine, the estimated 2 million unemployed 
Americans who almost had no benefits this Christmas seems a 
particular horror show to Europeans, made worse by the fact that the 
U.S. government does not provide any medical insurance to American 
unemployment recipients. Europeans routinely recoil at that in 
disbelief and disgust.

In another piece the Spiegel magazine steps away from statistics and 
tells the story of Pam Brown, who personifies what is coming to be 
known as the Nouveau American poor. Pam Brown was a former executive 
assistant on Wall Street, and her shocking decline has become part of 
the American story:

>American society is breaking apart. Millions of people have lost 
>their jobs and fallen into poverty. Among them, for the first time, 
>are many middle-class families. Meet Pam Brown from New York, whose 
>life changed overnight. The crisis caught her unprepared. "It was 
>horrible," Pam Brown remembers. "Overnight I found myself on the 
>wrong side of the fence. It never occurred to me that something like 
>this could happen to me. I got very depressed." Brown sits in a 
>cheap diner on West 14th Street in Manhattan, stirring her $1.35 
>coffee. That's all she orders -- it's too late for breakfast and too 
>early for lunch. She also needs to save money. Until early 2009, 
>Brown worked as an executive assistant on Wall Street, earning more 
>than $80,000 a year, living in a six-bedroom house with her three 
>sons. Today, she's long-term unemployed and has to make do with a 
>tiny one-bedroom in the Bronx.

It's important to note that no country in the European Union uses 
food stamps in order to humiliate its disadvantaged citizens in the 
grocery checkout line. Even worse is the fact that even the humbling 
food stamp allotment may not provide enough food for America's 
jobless families. So it is on a reoccurring basis that some of these 
families report eating out of garbage cans to the European media. 

>For Pam Brown, last winter was the worst. One day she ran out of 
>food completely and had

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Keith Addison]

get") have a skewed 
>idea of what
>they are worshipping. For in logic a free market would be a local, 
>mom-and-pop,
>and largely agrarian economy, which would work just fine, and which is exactly
>what the world doesn't have.
>
>The first myth is that the intercourse of the corporations represents a free
>market. It does not. I must admit to being drawn to many of the principles of
>libertarianism. Where the libertarians lose me is where they afford 
>corporations
>that owe their existence (or incarnation) to legislation the same spiritual
>status as you and me. I find myself on libertarian websites, having sought an
>appreciation for personal liberty, and find discussions of stock-market
>wangling. Libertarians want an economy without State interference, 
>but in which
>State-borne institutions like a stock market persist. So too with Companies
>Acts, currencies, trademarks and patents, etc.
>
>The second myth is that the corporations fear regulation. The 
>current situation
>could be described as "regulated capitalism", and the unprecedented level of
>corporate power is an essential part of it. Corporations cultivate regulation,
>often by subtle means, in order to establish for themselves
>invulnerable positions. CORPORATIONS NEST IN REGULATION. Corporations cannot
>exist, in their present form or anything even vaguely like it, without it. The
>effect of regulation is to ensure that economic activity may happen 
>only in ways
>of which the corporations alone are capable. This does assume that the
>regulation is so structured as to achieve that, and that the 
>strictures thereof
>do not take the form of excessive direct cost (which is quite high: cf. BP.
>Moderate direct cost represents "roundaboutness" which also favours the
>corporations); for the corporations excel at growing proof-of-compliance
>machines of whatever complexity is required. It is exactly that sort of
>proof-of-compliance capability that both the corporate parvenu start-up and
>the mom-and-pop economy lack.
>
>Consequently the activist community is being played, by entities quite capable
>of pulling it off. How often are small victories not found in small bits of
>restrictive regulation (more often than not suggested and led by the offending
>corporation itself) when true victory would be the abolition of the 
>privileges -
>which arise from structures of legislation, e.g. company law, etc. 
>- that allow
>corporations to operate in the first place?
>
>The old private-v-public distinction no longer applies as it did before. The
>corporations are as much part of the State as the government. There 
>is no relief
>in socialism, for Régie GM is still the same animal, only 
>potentially moreso. I
>suggest that the operative distinction in the current context is, rather,
>personal/community/local v corporate/government/transnational.
>
>Regards
>
>Dawie Coetzee
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org"
>
>Sent: Sun, 26 December, 2010 23:14:50
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning 
>(NYT-article)
>
>Alot of the US has a strange attraction to worshipping the almighty
>free market. Any sort of public or regulated business ideas
>Socialism, public health care, etc is attacked with a fervor usually
>reserved for religious disagreements.  People might claim to believe
>in God, but what their rhetoric points towards is believing that the
>free market is infallible and incapable of doing wrong.  This belief
>persists completely in the face of facts and reality in many cases.
>You might as well be trying to convert Christians to shamanism if you
>try to talk public health care capitalists.
>
>Z
>
>
>On Sunday, December 26, 2010, Doug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>  I just do not understand the US system. I am an Australian, & we have a
>>  mandated Pension system that inputs from memory 9% of a workers wages into a
>>  Superannuation scheme (of our choosing). Most seem to use an Industry fund
>>  (sort of Union related: has low fees & usually good returns, 
>>depending on the
>>  market.). To my kmowledge there has been no Super Fund collapse in Australia
>>  as yet.
>>
>>   The Australian Health scheme is similar to the Canadian one. The cost to
>>  residents is low, & you can also increase the benefits with 
>>Private insurance
>>  if you so desire (but the basic benefits are adequate). The cost to our
>>  Government is less than the US per-person cost, & every Australian 
>>citizen is
>>  covered.
>>
>&

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Doug]

Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by 
volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt 
funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations, 
but there is no compulsion.
 I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on 
occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US (& 
the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).

 The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the 1800´s: 
there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had 
insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a 
levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire Services 
are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads. 

regards Doug 


On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > Ivan
> > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
> > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
> > fire in your house you are out of luck!
> 
> Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do work
> like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
> over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
> things are going.
> 
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/
> 
> 
>  No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn  Tennessee house in ashes
> after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee
> 
>Below:
>1.
>   - x
>  -
>Jump to video People step up to help Gene Cranick
>   
>   -   video
>   
>2.
>   - x Jump to vote Results below
>   
>   -   vote
>   
>3.
>   - x Next story in Life Storm, blizzard warnings stretch along
> Atlantic 
>   -   related
>   
> 
> 
>-
>-
> 
>   Advertisement | ad info 
>msnbc.com msnbc.com
>  updated 10/6/2010 12:48:23 PM ET 2010-10-06T16:48:23
> 
>- Share <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>- Print 
>- Font:
>- +
>- -
> 
>  Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week
> because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.
> 
> Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions
> in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.
> 
> "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do
> it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
> 
> The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the
> family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the
> fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.
> 
> "We wasn't on their list," he said the operators told him.
> 
> Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he "forgot" to pay the
> annual $75 fee. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting
> service, but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a
> fee.
> 
> Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to
> have the fire put out.
>  advertisement | ad info 
>  Advertisement | ad info 
>   Advertisement | ad info 
> 
> His offer wasn't accepted, he said.
> 
> The fire fee policy dates back 20 or so years.
> 
> "Anybody that's not inside the city limits of South Fulton, it's a service
> we offer. Either they accept it or they don't," said South Fulton Mayor
> David Crocker.
> 
> The fire department's decision to let the home burn was "incredibly
> irresponsible," said the president of an association representing
> firefighters.
> 
> "Professional, career firefighters shouldn’t be forced to check a list
> before running out the door to see which homeowners have paid up," Harold
> Schaitberger, International Association of Fire Fighters president, said in
> a statement. "They get in their trucks and go."
> 
> Firefighters did eventually show up, but only to fight the fire on the
> neighboring property, whose owner had paid the fee.
>   Story: 'No pay, no spray' case: Firefighters 'threatened'
> 
> 
> "They put water out on the fence line out here. They never said nothing to
> me. Never acknowledged. They stood out here and watched it burn," Cranick
> said.
> 
> South Fulton's mayor said th

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Ivan Menchero]

Well said!

Now see if you could rewind time and try to explain THIS to Pam Brown when she 
was making 80K USD and living on a SIX bedroom house (may be she should have 
lived in a three bedroom house and save some for harsher times, I know, 
hindsight is 20/20).

Americans (US) have an aversion for anything to do with social-anything and 
telling them that they need to pay more taxes is just not a political option. 
It will have to be a “revolution” if you want to call it, in order for the 
majority to start to see THIS and then who knows what will happen. But there 
are a few people making a lot of money and they like to be making that kind of 
money..

Since I went to the USA in 1989 I always though the Americans lived very good 
for a long time (at that time a pizza delivery boy would make the same kind of 
money as my engineering dad) . Now I do not think they live that good and their 
future is much more grimmer. And I know how difficult is to have to do with 
less.

Difficult, worrisome times ahead, but... try to have a happy New Year,

Ivan


-Original Message- 
From: Keith Addison 
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 11:28 PM 
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org 
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article) 

<http://www.alternet.org/story/149324/america_in_decline%3A_why_germans_think_we%27re_insane?page=entire>

America in Decline: Why Germans Think We're Insane

A look at our empire in decline through the eyes of the European media.

December 26, 2010
By Democrats Ramshield

As an American expat living in the European Union, I've started to 
see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America 
does. Though it spends less -- right around 9 percent of GNP on 
medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 
percent of GNP on medical -- the EU pretty much insures 100 percent 
of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million 
without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 
million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has 
cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. 
The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid 
maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to 
understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called "A Superpower in 
Decline," which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd 
phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or 
attempts at "balance" found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea 
Parties:

Full of Hatred: "The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who 
claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host 
Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, 
is angry. Beck doesn't quite know what he wants to be -- maybe a 
politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know 
what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn't come up with any 
specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."

The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America's 
actual unemployment rate isn't really 10 percent, but close to 20 
percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped 
looking for work.

Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or 
fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer 
investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? 
Isn't it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large 
criminal justice system? (In America over 2 million people are 
incarcerated.)

Jobless Benefits That Never Run Out

Unlike here, in Germany jobless benefits never run out. Not only that 
-- as part of their social safety net, all job seekers continue to be 
medically insured, as are their families.

In the German jobless benefit system, when "jobless benefit 1" runs 
out, "jobless benefit 2," also known as HartzIV, kicks in. That one 
never gets cut off. The jobless also have contributions made for 
their pensions. They receive other types of insurance coverage from 
the state. As you can imagine, the estimated 2 million unemployed 
Americans who almost had no benefits this Christmas seems a 
particular horror show to Europeans, made worse by the fact that the 
U.S. government does not provide any medical insurance to American 
unemployment recipients. Europeans routinely recoil at that in 
disbelief and disgust.

In another piece the Spiegel magazine steps away from statistics and 
tells the story of Pam Brown, who personifies what is coming to be 
known as the Nouveau American poor. Pam Brown was a former executive 
assistant on Wall Street, and her shocking decline has become part of 
the American story:

>American society is breaking apart. 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Jason Mier]

i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in fact 
volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, foolish.
 
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)
> 
> Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by 
> volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt 
> funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations, 
> but there is no compulsion.
> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on 
> occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US 
> (& 
> the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
> 
> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the 1800´s: 
> there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had 
> insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a 
> levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire 
> Services 
> are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads. 
> 
> regards Doug 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
> > On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > > Ivan
> > > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
> > > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
> > > fire in your house you are out of luck!
> > 
> > Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do work
> > like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
> > over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
> > things are going.
> > 
> > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/
> > 
> > 
> > No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn Tennessee house in ashes
> > after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee
> > 
> > Below:
> > 1.
> > - x
> > -
> > Jump to video People step up to help Gene Cranick
> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
> > - video
> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
> > 2.
> > - x Jump to vote Results below
> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
> > - vote
> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
> > 3.
> > - x Next story in Life Storm, blizzard warnings stretch along
> > Atlantic <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40810424/ns/weather/>
> > - related
> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-4>
> > 
> > 
> > -
> > -
> > 
> > Advertisement | ad info <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26613008/>
> > msnbc.com msnbc.com
> > updated 10/6/2010 12:48:23 PM ET 2010-10-06T16:48:23
> > 
> > - Share <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > - Print <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#>
> > - Font:
> > - +
> > - -
> > 
> > Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week
> > because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.
> > 
> > Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions
> > in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.
> > 
> > "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do
> > it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
> > 
> > The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the
> > family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the
> > fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.
> > 
> > "We wasn't on their list," he said the operators told him.
> > 
> > Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he "forgot" to pay the
> > annual $75 fee. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting
> > service, but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a
> > fee.
> > 
> > Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to
> > have the fire put out.
> > advertisement | ad info <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26613008/>
> &g

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Zeke Yewdall]

Same here.  That's quite common in rural areas here.  Often property
taxes via special levies that we vote upon fund the equipment, etc,
but the staff volunteers their time.  The insurance companies don't
like this and charge higher premiums than houses in town with a paid
fire department but we're also finding out after 170 houses burned in
the forest fire this fall that so called insurance is quite a scam as
they are trying to avoid paying the benefits that were supposedly paid
for.

On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, Jason Mier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
> paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
> which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in 
> fact volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, 
> foolish.
>
>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
>> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
>> Warning(NYT-article)
>>
>> Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
>> volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>> funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>> but there is no compulsion.
>> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>> occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US 
>> (&
>> the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>>
>> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the 1800´s:
>> there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
>> insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
>> levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire 
>> Services
>> are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.
>>
>> regards Doug
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
>> > On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>> > > Ivan
>> > > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
>> > > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
>> > > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>> >
>> > Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do work
>> > like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
>> > over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
>> > things are going.
>> >
>> > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/
>> >
>> >
>> > No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn Tennessee house in ashes
>> > after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee
>> >
>> > Below:
>> > 1.
>> > - x
>> > -
>> > Jump to video People step up to help Gene Cranick
>> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
>> > - video
>> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
>> > 2.
>> > - x Jump to vote Results below
>> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
>> > - vote
>> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
>> > 3.
>> > - x Next story in Life Storm, blizzard warnings stretch along
>> > Atlantic <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40810424/ns/weather/>
>> > - related
>> > <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-4>
>> >
>> >
>> > -
>> > -
>> >
>> > Advertisement | ad info <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26613008/>
>> > msnbc.com msnbc.com
>> > updated 10/6/2010 12:48:23 PM ET 2010-10-06T16:48:23
>> >
>> > - Share <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> > - Print <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#>
>> > - Font:
>> > - +
>> > - -
>> >
>> > Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week
>> > because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.
>> >
>> > Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions
>> > in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.
>> >
>> > "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they di

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Guag Meister]

Hi All ;

>  Nice, Dawie.

Yes, very succinct and insightful.

> This piece be might be pertinent:
> 
> Game Changer
> Why Wikileaks will be the death of big business and big government.

Keith, let me say that nothing would make me happier than if you were correct, 
alas there is another more sinister viewpoint.  Is WikiLeaks.org “the 
Internet’s 9/11?”

Best Regards,
Peter G.
Thailand
www.gac-seeds.com


WikiLeaks: Now a Household Term
By Josh Ogden

Neithercorp Press – 12/24/2010

A couple of months ago, if I had stood up at a dinner party and proudly
declared that I had to take a “Wikileak,” nobody would have gotten the
joke. I would have made a fool of myself! What changed? Well, I may
still be a fool, but now everybody and their grandmother knows what
WikiLeaks is, and I think if I hear Assange’s name one more time, I’m
going to have a brain aneurysm.

Did WikiLeaks do something
different? The November 28 release of US diplomatic cables (dubbed
‘Cablegate’) may have been larger in file size than previous data
dumps, but has it yet revealed anything as visceral or intense as the
17-minute video (released in April of 2010) in which 12 people,
including two Reuters journalists, are gunned down by an AH-64 Apache
helicopter?

The difference lies, almost entirely, in the way the
corporate media is now treating the subject. There has been a clear
shift in the posture and strategy of mainstream news sources, US
officials and prominent political figures. WikiLeaks.org has been
thrust to the forefront of the global news cycle.

As we all know, the most important news is often that which is reported
least; those stories which are aggressively censored and sometimes even
retro-actively removed from mainstream news feeds. Suddenly, the
innermost circles of controlled media appear to be playing a different
game with WikiLeaks. They have pointed their spotlight at it. This is
what originally raised my suspicions that something must be amiss.

Perhaps most suspicious of all was when Time magazine began extensively
covering WikiLeaks, and named Julian Assange as Readers Choice for
Person of the Year. Though that “honor” officially went to Facebook.com
creator and NSA darling Mark Zuckerberg, the sustained focus on Assange
and WikiLeaks by Time and other elite publications was a major red
flag. It became apparent that the globalist establishment had taken a
special interest in WikiLeaks, and that they wanted it to become a
household term.

Many people believe that when a story dominates
the international news cycle for weeks on end, it’s because that story
is important, or because it’s something the public wants to read about.
They have it backwards.

Media monopolists have known for a long
time that they are the ones who decide what’s “important,” and they get
to decide what the public “wants” to read about. In the spirit of the
examples set by Time Magazine and old Bill Hearst, media does not
reflect public interest and opinion, it aims to manufacture it. It’s
this reversal of causality that makes media consolidation so dangerous.

Julian Assange and his associates may have made WikiLeaks.org, but the 
mainstream media made it famous.

Questions Abound

Is Mr. Assange an asset? Is the intelligence cooked? Did some George Soros 
foundation provide funding for WikiLeaks?

What games are afoot here???

First off, let me address the Soros angle. John Young of Cryptome.org has
conducted an investigation into the allegations that WikiLeaks was
financed through some George Soros organization, and could not confirm
any of these claims. You can read that thread here, along with email
responses from representatives of Soros’ Open Society Foundations and
tax reports which make no mention of WikiLeaks. Do we trust Soros’
underlings to tell the truth? Not likely! Conclusion: this can be
neither confirmed, nor denied. (But if Glenn Beck’s talking about it,
it’s probably a dead-end.) Moving on…

Julian Assange has a long
history of outspokenness against corruption, and considerable “street
cred” among hackers. His skills and intelligence are beyond question.
But we all know that there are innumerable ways by which people can be
made to compromise their ethics.

Although I have modified my
stance several times already as new information comes to my attention,
I do not currently believe that Julian Assange is an intelligence
asset. However, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt on that,
especially considering his troubling remarks about 9/11. Forgive me if
I’m out of line here, but I think the guy who invented deniable
encryption should be smart enough to know that skyscrapers don’t just
magically demolish themselves when the smoke detectors go off. Which
leads me to the next question…

Where’s the hard-hitting 9/11
evidence? Among all the data released thus far, I don’t think there has
been so much as a single memorandum, or even a sticky note, pertaining
to that 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Keith Addison]

Hello Peter

Yes, I saw that piece by Josh Ogden. There've been quite a few such 
conspiracist pieces about WikiLeaks of course, some of them rather 
obviously orchestrated, if rather ineptly. I think Young Master Ogden 
should perhaps try reading what he's written in the mirror (and the 
forthcoming instalment too while he's at it).

I could deal with it point by point, but it's hardly worth the 
effort, it kind of debunks itself. He just can't see past the labels, 
can he? The mainstream media is this, and therefore... Time Magazine 
is that, and therefore... And so on. (Yawn.)

I don't altogether agree with Noam Scheiber's piece, and I certainly 
wouldn't bank on it, but it does have some substance at least, 
something to chew on. I'd agree that WikiLeaks is a powerful shove in 
that direction, as Scheiber says, but the important point is that 
it's not the only such shove. If it were it would probably amount to 
nothing in the end, but it's a part of a well-established, 
multi-faceted, and ever-spreading trend in that direction, nearly all 
of which goes under the MSM radar, and which will eventually succeed 
- this direction:

>For in logic a free market would be a local,
>mom-and-pop,
>and largely agrarian economy, which would work just fine, and which is exactly
>what the world doesn't have.

Actually it does have it. Even when it's overshadowed, marginalised 
and dysfunctional, it's still there, and in a growing number of cases 
it's not at all dysfunctional.

All best

Keith


>Hi All ;
>
>>   Nice, Dawie.
>
>Yes, very succinct and insightful.
>
>>  This piece be might be pertinent:
>  > 
>>  Game Changer
>>  Why Wikileaks will be the death of big business and big government.
>
>Keith, let me say that nothing would make me happier than if you 
>were correct, alas there is another more sinister viewpoint.  Is 
>WikiLeaks.org "the Internet's 9/11?"
>
>Best Regards,
>Peter G.
>Thailand
>www.gac-seeds.com
>
>
>WikiLeaks: Now a Household Term
>By Josh Ogden
>
>Neithercorp Press - 12/24/2010
>
>A couple of months ago, if I had stood up at a dinner party and proudly
>declared that I had to take a "Wikileak," nobody would have gotten the
>joke. I would have made a fool of myself! What changed? Well, I may
>still be a fool, but now everybody and their grandmother knows what
>WikiLeaks is, and I think if I hear Assange's name one more time, I'm
>going to have a brain aneurysm.
>
>Did WikiLeaks do something
>different? The November 28 release of US diplomatic cables (dubbed
>'Cablegate') may have been larger in file size than previous data
>dumps, but has it yet revealed anything as visceral or intense as the
>17-minute video (released in April of 2010) in which 12 people,
>including two Reuters journalists, are gunned down by an AH-64 Apache
>helicopter?
>
>The difference lies, almost entirely, in the way the
>corporate media is now treating the subject. There has been a clear
>shift in the posture and strategy of mainstream news sources, US
>officials and prominent political figures. WikiLeaks.org has been
>thrust to the forefront of the global news cycle.
>
>As we all know, the most important news is often that which is reported
>least; those stories which are aggressively censored and sometimes even
>retro-actively removed from mainstream news feeds. Suddenly, the
>innermost circles of controlled media appear to be playing a different
>game with WikiLeaks. They have pointed their spotlight at it. This is
>what originally raised my suspicions that something must be amiss.
>
>Perhaps most suspicious of all was when Time magazine began extensively
>covering WikiLeaks, and named Julian Assange as Readers Choice for
>Person of the Year. Though that "honor" officially went to Facebook.com
>creator and NSA darling Mark Zuckerberg, the sustained focus on Assange
>and WikiLeaks by Time and other elite publications was a major red
>flag. It became apparent that the globalist establishment had taken a
>special interest in WikiLeaks, and that they wanted it to become a
>household term.
>
>Many people believe that when a story dominates
>the international news cycle for weeks on end, it's because that story
>is important, or because it's something the public wants to read about.
>They have it backwards.
>
>Media monopolists have known for a long
>time that they are the ones who decide what's "important," and they get
>to decide what the public "wants" to read about. In the spirit of the
>examples set by Time Magazine and old Bill Hearst, media does not
>reflect public interest and opinion, it aims to manufacture it. It's
>this reversal of causality that makes media consolidation so dangerous.
>
>Julian Assange and his associates may have made WikiLeaks.org, but 
>the mainstream media made it famous.
>
>Questions Abound
>
>Is Mr. Assange an asset? Is the intelligence cooked? Did some George 
>Soros foundation provide funding for WikiLeaks?
>
>What games 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Tyler Arnold]

Yes, that's because insurance companies' business model is to 1) accept money 
in return for a promise to give it back when needed and then 2) don't give it 
back.  That's it.  Their profit is inversely related to their payouts. I used 
to work for a small software startup which made a kind of auto insurance claims 
management/decision support software that was supposed to account for the fact 
that newbie claims adjusters were all over the map when it came to payouts.  
Our software would use custom calculations based on different scenarios to set 
the upper and lower limits of a given payout and would prompt the claims 
adjuster to find a number between those limits.  It worked really well -- I 
learned that our main customer was thrilled with it when they discovered that 
after using our software for one year they had saved $50 million USD in 
payouts.  That's $50 million that was given to them by California drivers in 
the expectation that the money would be paid back out in the event of an 
accident; money which the company kept for itself instead.  So instead of 
buying $50 million worth of car repair and medical bills or whatever people 
needed, it paid for $50 million worth of hookers and blow for insurance company 
executives.*  I no longer work for this company, but I hear they are doing very 
well.


* This may not literally be true.  I don't care.


-Original Message-
>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Dec 28, 2010 6:41 PM
>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org" 
>
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning  
>(NYT-article)
>
>Same here.  That's quite common in rural areas here.  Often property
>taxes via special levies that we vote upon fund the equipment, etc,
>but the staff volunteers their time.  The insurance companies don't
>like this and charge higher premiums than houses in town with a paid
>fire department but we're also finding out after 170 houses burned in
>the forest fire this fall that so called insurance is quite a scam as
>they are trying to avoid paying the benefits that were supposedly paid
>for.
>
>On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, Jason Mier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
>> paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
>> which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in 
>> fact volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, 
>> foolish.
>>
>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
>>> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
>>> Warning(NYT-article)
>>>
>>> Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
>>> volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>>> funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>>> but there is no compulsion.
>>> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>>> occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the 
>>> US (&
>>> the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>>>
>>> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the 
>>> 1800´s:
>>> there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
>>> insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
>>> levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire 
>>> Services
>>> are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.
>>>
>>> regards Doug
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
>>> > On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>>> > > Ivan
>>> > > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
>>> > > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
>>> > > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>>> >
>>> > Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do 
>>> > work
>>> > like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
>>> > over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
>>> > things are going.
>>> >
>>> > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/
&g

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Dan Beukelman]

The situation cited below is interesting.  The person who’s house burned for
$75.00 actually lived in the country.  The rural residents don’t pay taxes
for fire service (they could if they wanted to).  So, since the rural
residents didn’t want to tax themselves to provide a fire service a nearby
town said they could provide to any individual that wanted to pay for it.
This guys son had a house fire also, also hadn’t paid his $75.00 annual fee,
but was allowed to pay it once the house caught on fire.  Once that happened
many people conveniently forgot, assuming that they could just pay when the
fire happened, if no fire, save your $75.00.  Anyway a new rule was
implemented saying that if you don’t pay your $75.00 you are out of luck,
that was done to encourage as many as possible to pay for this service and
not wait until their home catches on fire.  Had it not been for the nearby
town offering fire service for a fee, no one would have responded.  The
neighbor to the guy who’s house burned, had paid his $75.00 and his house
was protected from the fire spreading.  The system actually works pretty
good, if you pay, but these residents decided themselves that they didn’t
need government provided fire service.

 

 

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Doug
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 4:17 AM
To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a
Warning(NYT-article)

 

Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
but there is no compulsion.
 I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US
(&
the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).

 The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the
1800´s:
there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire
Services
are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.

regards Doug


On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > Ivan
> > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
> > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
> > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>
> Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do
work
> like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
> over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
> things are going.
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/
>
>
>  No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn  Tennessee house in ashes
> after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee
>
>Below:
>1.
>   - x
>  -
>Jump to video People step up to help Gene Cranick
>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
>   -   video
>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
>2.
>   - x Jump to vote Results below
>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
>   -   vote
>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
>3.
>   - x Next story in Life Storm, blizzard warnings stretch along
> Atlantic <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40810424/ns/weather/>
>   -   related
>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-4>
>
>
>-
>-
>
>   Advertisement | ad info <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26613008/>
>msnbc.com msnbc.com
>  updated 10/6/2010 12:48:23 PM ET 2010-10-06T16:48:23
>
>- Share <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>- Print <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/> >
>- Font:
>- +
>- -
>
>  Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week
> because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.
>
> Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions
> in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.
>
> "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't
do
> it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
>
> The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the
> family home. As it grew out of control, 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Tyler Arnold]

Except that $75 has very little to do with the actual cost of fighting the 
fire; and accepting the money at the time of the fire would have done just as 
much to offset the cost of the fire as accepting it earlier would have.  So 
saying the system works "if you pay" isn't quite true: the luckless resident 
offered to pay, would have paid, could have paid -- so if the system works "if 
you pay" then the system could have worked right then and there.  But it 
*didn't* work because the $75 and the refusal to put out the fire is nothing 
more than a childish moral scold that benefits nobody, penalizes everybody, and 
only gratifies the shriveled hearts of right-wing authoritarians. 


-Original Message-
>From: Dan Beukelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Dec 30, 2010 12:26 PM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension isa   
>Warning(NYT-article)
>
>The situation cited below is interesting.  The person who’s house burned for
>$75.00 actually lived in the country.  The rural residents don’t pay taxes
>for fire service (they could if they wanted to).  So, since the rural
>residents didn’t want to tax themselves to provide a fire service a nearby
>town said they could provide to any individual that wanted to pay for it.
>This guys son had a house fire also, also hadn’t paid his $75.00 annual fee,
>but was allowed to pay it once the house caught on fire.  Once that happened
>many people conveniently forgot, assuming that they could just pay when the
>fire happened, if no fire, save your $75.00.  Anyway a new rule was
>implemented saying that if you don’t pay your $75.00 you are out of luck,
>that was done to encourage as many as possible to pay for this service and
>not wait until their home catches on fire.  Had it not been for the nearby
>town offering fire service for a fee, no one would have responded.  The
>neighbor to the guy who’s house burned, had paid his $75.00 and his house
>was protected from the fire spreading.  The system actually works pretty
>good, if you pay, but these residents decided themselves that they didn’t
>need government provided fire service.
>
> 
>
> 
>
> 
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
>Doug
>Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 4:17 AM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a
>Warning(NYT-article)
>
> 
>
>Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
>volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>but there is no compulsion.
> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US
>(&
>the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>
> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the
>1800´s:
>there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
>insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
>levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire
>Services
>are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.
>
>regards Doug
>
>
>On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>> > Ivan
>> > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
>> > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
>> > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>>
>> Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do
>work
>> like that. Here's a story about one that let a house burn, and the outrage
>> over it was slim to none, that I saw. I'm very disappointed in the way
>> things are going.
>>
>> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/
>>
>>
>>  No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn  Tennessee house in ashes
>> after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee
>>
>>Below:
>>1.
>>   - x
>>  -
>>Jump to video People step up to help Gene Cranick
>>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
>>   -   video
>>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-2>
>>2.
>>   - x Jump to vote Results below
>>   <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/#slice-3>
>>   -   vote

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Dan Beukelman]

What insurance company was your main customer?

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tyler Arnold
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 2:09 PM
To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org; 
sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

 

Yes, that's because insurance companies' business model is to 1) accept money 
in return for a promise to give it back when needed and then 2) don't give it 
back.  That's it.  Their profit is inversely related to their payouts. I used 
to work for a small software startup which made a kind of auto insurance claims 
management/decision support software that was supposed to account for the fact 
that newbie claims adjusters were all over the map when it came to payouts.  
Our software would use custom calculations based on different scenarios to set 
the upper and lower limits of a given payout and would prompt the claims 
adjuster to find a number between those limits.  It worked really well -- I 
learned that our main customer was thrilled with it when they discovered that 
after using our software for one year they had saved $50 million USD in 
payouts.  That's $50 million that was given to them by California drivers in 
the expectation that the money would be paid back out in the event of an 
accident; money which the company kept for itself instead.  So instead of 
buying $50 million worth of car repair and medical bills or whatever people 
needed, it paid for $50 million worth of hookers and blow for insurance company 
executives.*  I no longer work for this company, but I hear they are doing very 
well.


* This may not literally be true.  I don't care.


-Original Message-
>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Dec 28, 2010 6:41 PM
>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org" 
>
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning  
>(NYT-article)
>
>Same here.  That's quite common in rural areas here.  Often property
>taxes via special levies that we vote upon fund the equipment, etc,
>but the staff volunteers their time.  The insurance companies don't
>like this and charge higher premiums than houses in town with a paid
>fire department but we're also finding out after 170 houses burned in
>the forest fire this fall that so called insurance is quite a scam as
>they are trying to avoid paying the benefits that were supposedly paid
>for.
>
>On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, Jason Mier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
>> paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
>> which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in 
>> fact volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, 
>> foolish.
>>
>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
>>> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
>>> Warning(NYT-article)
>>>
>>> Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
>>> volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>>> funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>>> but there is no compulsion.
>>> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>>> occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the 
>>> US (&
>>> the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>>>
>>> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the 
>>> 1800´s:
>>> there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
>>> insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
>>> levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire 
>>> Services
>>> are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.
>>>
>>> regards Doug
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
>>> > On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>>> > > Ivan
>>> > > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
>>> > > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
>>> > > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>>> >
>>> > Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that alread

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Tyler Arnold]

Dan, I'm very sorry to say that I'm paranoid enough to not want to say.  You 
may cynically assume that I am lying, of course, and if corporate power didn't 
routinely stomp little people like me to death worldwide without a second 
thought, I would cynically agree with you.  




-Original Message-
>From: Dan Beukelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Dec 30, 2010 12:47 PM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension isa   Warning 
>(NYT-article)
>
>What insurance company was your main customer?
>
> 
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tyler Arnold
>Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 2:09 PM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org; 
>sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)
>
> 
>
>Yes, that's because insurance companies' business model is to 1) accept money 
>in return for a promise to give it back when needed and then 2) don't give it 
>back.  That's it.  Their profit is inversely related to their payouts. I used 
>to work for a small software startup which made a kind of auto insurance 
>claims management/decision support software that was supposed to account for 
>the fact that newbie claims adjusters were all over the map when it came to 
>payouts.  Our software would use custom calculations based on different 
>scenarios to set the upper and lower limits of a given payout and would prompt 
>the claims adjuster to find a number between those limits.  It worked really 
>well -- I learned that our main customer was thrilled with it when they 
>discovered that after using our software for one year they had saved $50 
>million USD in payouts.  That's $50 million that was given to them by 
>California drivers in the expectation that the money would be paid back out in 
>the event of an accident; money which the company kept for itself instead.  So 
>instead of buying $50 million worth of car repair and medical bills or 
>whatever people needed, it paid for $50 million worth of hookers and blow for 
>insurance company executives.*  I no longer work for this company, but I hear 
>they are doing very well.
>
>
>* This may not literally be true.  I don't care.
>
>
>-Original Message-----
>>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Sent: Dec 28, 2010 6:41 PM
>>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org" 
>>
>>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning  
>>(NYT-article)
>>
>>Same here.  That's quite common in rural areas here.  Often property
>>taxes via special levies that we vote upon fund the equipment, etc,
>>but the staff volunteers their time.  The insurance companies don't
>>like this and charge higher premiums than houses in town with a paid
>>fire department but we're also finding out after 170 houses burned in
>>the forest fire this fall that so called insurance is quite a scam as
>>they are trying to avoid paying the benefits that were supposedly paid
>>for.
>>
>>On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, Jason Mier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>> i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
>>> paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
>>> which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in 
>>> fact volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, 
>>> foolish.
>>>
>>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>>> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
>>>> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
>>>> Warning(NYT-article)
>>>>
>>>> Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed 
>>>> by
>>>> volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>>>> funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>>>> but there is no compulsion.
>>>> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>>>> occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the 
>>>> US (&
>>>> the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>>>>
>>>> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the 
>>>> 1800´s:
>>>> there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

[Dan Beukelman]

If the fire department accepted the payment at the time of the fire, no one 
would pay until their house was on fire, the $75.00 - $150.00 / year wouldn’t 
pay for much of a fire department.  The residents were the ones to decide they 
didn’t want fire service.  It’s like saying that I shouldn’t have to pay for a 
military, until the invaders try to take over my property, then I could be 
charged a fee for defense.  It costs something to have these services available 
and if it were a – pay at the time of the fire – service the cost would not 
have been $75.00 but likely hundreds of thousands, which I am sure this guy 
couldn’t have paid.

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tyler Arnold
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 3:17 PM
To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning(NYT-article)

 

Except that $75 has very little to do with the actual cost of fighting the 
fire; and accepting the money at the time of the fire would have done just as 
much to offset the cost of the fire as accepting it earlier would have.  So 
saying the system works "if you pay" isn't quite true: the luckless resident 
offered to pay, would have paid, could have paid -- so if the system works "if 
you pay" then the system could have worked right then and there.  But it 
*didn't* work because the $75 and the refusal to put out the fire is nothing 
more than a childish moral scold that benefits nobody, penalizes everybody, and 
only gratifies the shriveled hearts of right-wing authoritarians.


-Original Message-
>From: Dan Beukelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Dec 30, 2010 12:26 PM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension isa   
>Warning(NYT-article)
>
>The situation cited below is interesting.  The person who’s house burned for
>$75.00 actually lived in the country.  The rural residents don’t pay taxes
>for fire service (they could if they wanted to).  So, since the rural
>residents didn’t want to tax themselves to provide a fire service a nearby
>town said they could provide to any individual that wanted to pay for it.
>This guys son had a house fire also, also hadn’t paid his $75.00 annual fee,
>but was allowed to pay it once the house caught on fire.  Once that happened
>many people conveniently forgot, assuming that they could just pay when the
>fire happened, if no fire, save your $75.00.  Anyway a new rule was
>implemented saying that if you don’t pay your $75.00 you are out of luck,
>that was done to encourage as many as possible to pay for this service and
>not wait until their home catches on fire.  Had it not been for the nearby
>town offering fire service for a fee, no one would have responded.  The
>neighbor to the guy who’s house burned, had paid his $75.00 and his house
>was protected from the fire spreading.  The system actually works pretty
>good, if you pay, but these residents decided themselves that they didn’t
>need government provided fire service.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
>Doug
>Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 4:17 AM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a
>Warning(NYT-article)
>
>
>
>Luckily , in Australia, virtually all the Rural Fire services are staffed by
>volunteers (although there are some paid positions in support areas, Govt
>funded). I live on rural acreage, & some fdunds go to the RFS as donations,
>but there is no compulsion.
> I was really surprised with the claim about US rural FS: Australia has on
>occasions sent brigades from Australia to help fight the big fires in the US
>(&
>the US has reciprocated for Australia on occasions).
>
> The insurance link to fire brigades also happened in Australia in the
>1800´s:
>there was a plaque attached to the front of the house proving you had
>insurance. (These are now a collectors item). House insurance now contains a
>levy that helps fund the Urban fire services. AS I stated, Rural Fire
>Services
>are volunteers, with some Govt funding for equipment & overheads.
>
>regards Doug
>
>
>On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:53:34 am Erik Lane wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Ivan Menchero
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>> > Ivan
>> > PS: I am surprise the have not privatize the fire department in the USA!
>> > so you pay a monthly "insurance' and if you do not pay and there is a
>> > fire in your house you are out of luck!
>>
>> Unfortunately there are at least some fire departments that already do
>work
>> like that. Here's a 

Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

[Dan Beukelman]

Well the only reason to ask for me was because many, if not most insurance 
companies in the US (for example State Farm – the largest insurer in the US) 
for property and casualty insurance are “mutual” insurance companies meaning 
they are owned by their customers.  This is not to say that the execs don’t 
spend the profits on hookers and blow, but the customer owner’s should then 
vote for a board that will fire those people.  There is power in being a 
customer of a mutual insurance company.  You can vote for board members and 
make sure they are acting in your best interest.

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tyler Arnold
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 5:02 PM
To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)

 

Dan, I'm very sorry to say that I'm paranoid enough to not want to say.  You 
may cynically assume that I am lying, of course, and if corporate power didn't 
routinely stomp little people like me to death worldwide without a second 
thought, I would cynically agree with you. 




-Original Message-
>From: Dan Beukelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Dec 30, 2010 12:47 PM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension isa   Warning 
>(NYT-article)
>
>What insurance company was your main customer?
>
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tyler Arnold
>Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 2:09 PM
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org; 
>sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning (NYT-article)
>
>
>
>Yes, that's because insurance companies' business model is to 1) accept money 
>in return for a promise to give it back when needed and then 2) don't give it 
>back.  That's it.  Their profit is inversely related to their payouts. I used 
>to work for a small software startup which made a kind of auto insurance 
>claims management/decision support software that was supposed to account for 
>the fact that newbie claims adjusters were all over the map when it came to 
>payouts.  Our software would use custom calculations based on different 
>scenarios to set the upper and lower limits of a given payout and would prompt 
>the claims adjuster to find a number between those limits.  It worked really 
>well -- I learned that our main customer was thrilled with it when they 
>discovered that after using our software for one year they had saved $50 
>million USD in payouts.  That's $50 million that was given to them by 
>California drivers in the expectation that the money would be paid back out in 
>the event of an accident; money which the company kept for itself instead.  So 
>instead of buying $50 million worth of car repair and medical bills or 
>whatever people needed, it paid for $50 million worth of hookers and blow for 
>insurance company executives.*  I no longer work for this company, but I hear 
>they are doing very well.
>
>
>* This may not literally be true.  I don't care.
>
>
>-Original Message-
>>From: Zeke Yewdall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Sent: Dec 28, 2010 6:41 PM
>>To: "sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org" 
>>
>>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning  
>>(NYT-article)
>>
>>Same here.  That's quite common in rural areas here.  Often property
>>taxes via special levies that we vote upon fund the equipment, etc,
>>but the staff volunteers their time.  The insurance companies don't
>>like this and charge higher premiums than houses in town with a paid
>>fire department but we're also finding out after 170 houses burned in
>>the forest fire this fall that so called insurance is quite a scam as
>>they are trying to avoid paying the benefits that were supposedly paid
>>for.
>>
>>On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, Jason Mier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>> i have never, and will never live in an area where the fire department is a 
>>> paid service. all the FD's around me are volunteer, except for the village, 
>>> which is paid via property taxes, and when the opportunity arises, i do in 
>>> fact volunteer my time to the department. any other scheme is by and large, 
>>> foolish.
>>>
>>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>>>> Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:16:45 +1100
>>>> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a 
>>>> Warning(NYT-article)
&g