Small Towns in Kentucky are AIG's Latest Victims

KeninNY at Down with Tyranny alerts us to the newest way that Big Corporations have found to squeeze even more turnip blood out of destitute eastern Kentucky.

7. THE PUBLIC ENEMY AWARD

To AIG. We’ve all seen those westerns where the evil, sweaty, filth-encrusted villain holds the water canteen just out of reach of the dying old man in the desert and pours out the contents into the sand. Nothing better represents where AIG is coming from. This company is so guilty, they even had to change their name, just like Diebold had to. The first thing they did was take down their sign so angry citizens couldn’t find them or hassle employees as they slithered out of the building every day.

Check this out, from Yasha Levine at AlterNet, who recently discussed what effect the nice folks at AIG have recently had on two small communities in Kentucky:

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

This is in America in the 21st century, not some Old West town taken over by a gang of outlaws, right? Well, apparently, it’s something quite like that. We’ve heard about people not being able to afford heat and having to choose between their health care and food or between prescriptions and food for their kids. Now it’s running water. You can bet that the insipid, despicable suits at AIG also sit around conference tables on Wall Street laughing as they fantasize about a future of selling us our air too.

Our tax dollars went to bail these vermin out and keep their lawn sprinklers running and their swimming pools filled all summer. If we can send so many troops to Afghanistan, why can’t we send a few Special Forces squads to the offices of AIG? That’s a military action I can get behind! Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the citizens their might want to question what kind of U.S. $enate representation they have gotten from the likes of Jim Bunning and Minority Leader "Miss Mitch" McConnell.

Read the whole Alternet piece here.

When I say President Obama and Congressional Democrats are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Corporations, this is what I mean.