19 ms·

The scandal of the Alabama poor cut off from water

97 points by eftpotrm 15y ago

donaldc 15y ago
But the bill soared to $3.1bn after construction problems and a series of bond and derivatives deals that went sour in the financial meltdown of 2008. Investment bank JP Morgan Securities and two of its former directors have been fined for offering bribes to Jefferson County workers and politicians to win business financing the sewer upgrade. Fined? That level of punishment seems insufficient.
- scarmig 15y ago
  One thing that you can almost admire about China: the bribers would as likely as not have been executed for this. (Assuming they weren't well-connected to the upper ranks of the Party elite...)
  - bmunro 15y ago
    I don't really think that that is something to admire.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  People have gone to prison over this scandal http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/09/five_men_convicted_in_jefferso.html http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/09/five_men_convicted_in_je...
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    Including commissioner Chris McNair, whose daughter was one of the four little girls killed in that KKK church bombing.
noonespecial 15y ago
He says he finds it cheaper to buy drums of water from a petrol station and pay a sanitation company about $14 a month to remove waste from his "porta-potty" than pay the combined sewer and water rate bill, which some months can reach $300. What really happens at the very end after all of the brouhaha about derivatives, crooked politics, and mortgage disasters? The people go back to using outhouses. Pardon the pun: Shit just got real.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  More like the market made something that should be more expensive cheaper due to crony behavior.
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    Ironically the creditors are going to force the city to face FTA potentially 10-25% yearly increases in sewer rates, they'll never make their money back because the portable toilet distributor is going to start selling water by the drum too. Once people see their neighbour doing it, they'll do it. Especially when it's potentially saving them hundreds of dollars. So then the creditors will want hikes of 50-100% annually. It's an awful mess of crooks and greed. I don't get why the creditors decided to fight these people in court and add in legal expenses when they could have just said "we'll cut the interest rate if you pay over a longer term". I'm sorry but my business mind tells me that some money is better than no money.
    - waterlesscloud 15y ago
      Looks like the bankers did agree to forgive $1 billion and refinance another $2 billion. The higher rates are part of the plan to avoid bankruptcy even under those terms, though. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44552659/ns/us_news-life/#.TulFlFy9glh http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44552659/ns/us_news-life/#.TulFl...
      - electromagnetic 15y ago
        Given that the budget was set at $300 million, any payments over $1 billion are absurd by even the worst crooks in regular government. A 1000% markup on a project should be illegal however it happens. Sorry, if a company wants to overrun the same should apply as to my mechanic 30% above estimate and you pay the rest. Government would have paid $400 million, sounds about right for a cost overrun to me, not $3 billion.
      - UrbanPat 15y ago
        Actually that settlement fell through. Per Bloomberg, "The county’s efforts to negotiate a definitive settlement were frustrated by the recent sale of sewer debt to investors who didn’t want to restructure the bonds under the terms of the September agreement, according to the bankruptcy filing." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson-county-votes-for-biggest-municipal-bankruptcy-in-u-s-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson...
muhfuhkuh 15y ago
So, corrupt banks corrupted some politicians. Again. And, now I read that Goldman Sachs is literally hoarding aluminum in gigantic warehouses to manipulate the market. I wonder when people start to realize that concentrating money like this is not a good idea.
- Cushman 15y ago
  The same system has capture of the media... so don't wait on it.
- scottkduncan 15y ago
  Sometimes, even GS finds itself on the wrong side of a bet. This certainly doesn't invalidate your point, but might give you the tiniest bit of solace. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-14/aluminum-glut-at-record-as-traders-bet-on-price-decline.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-14/aluminum-glut-at... "Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Aluminum stockpiles rose to a record and orders to withdraw metal from warehouses fell to a 15-month low amid speculation traders are adding to bets the commodity will extend its biggest slump since the global recession."
  - ImprovedSilence 15y ago
    Maybe that's just what GS wants you to think. I'd be surprised if their thinking is that short term on their own bets. This is perfect for them, as it takes the heat off of them for stockpiling, but once AL does bounce back, BOOM, they own it all. Not sayin this is fact, or a deeply thought out theory, or that I know too too much about the subject, but I wouldn't say that current price of AL gives me much solace just yet....
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      Um, Goldman tends to focus exclusively on short term bets. That's why they won the financial crisis. If Goldman looks like they lost in the short run, they probably did. They'll take the losses, learn from their mistakes, and try to make it up next time.
JWLong 15y ago
At the risk of being accused of trolling: Am I the only one here that believes that running water is a luxury, not a right? I've been in some pretty shitty situations myself, though none as tough as this. That much I freely admit. But the overall tone of the article seems to be one of horror that people might not have a ceramic toilet which flushes the waste away to a sewage treatment plant. Also, an attitude of "This is a first world country; this shouldn't be happening to anyone". (Yes, I noticed the sidebar on "corruption") Does everybody else think that running water/sewage is a right?
- iopuy 15y ago
  "...been in some pretty shitty situations myself..." I see what you did there.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I do. This isn't 1511, it's 2011. We can make all kinds of appeals to the "noble savage" who survived just fine without porcelain bowls, but that would be disingenuous. Even disregarding the sanitation, hygiene, and emotional impact of cutting people off from modern sewage, there are efficiency issues. The more time people spend digging latrines and putting up outhouses the less time they have to improve their own lot. Imagine if we took away roads, and it took you two hours each way to get to the general store! Infrastructure, luxury or not, are key to pulling this country out of the shit-pit (no pun intended) it's found itself in. Cutting people off from these essential services certainly won't help matters. Sitting around debating whether or not people are crybabies for demanding modern sewage services, also doesn't help.
- mquander 15y ago
  "Right" is a word made for arguing about. Let's forget the word "right". Clean water and sanitation are pretty much the two things which most enable us to maintain population-dense cities. Lack of modern sanitation repeatedly led to horrific pandemics in the Middle Ages in Europe, culminating in the Black Death. I don't have any statistics handy, but one would expect the presence of sanitation to be as big a contribution to personal health as diet, and what's more, poor sanitation is sure to harm other people through disease transmission. So yes, I believe that clean water and sanitation are very important to human life at scale; important enough that we should pay a sufficient tax, so that we can give them to people who can't afford to pay.
Newgy 15y ago
The real scandal is the long pattern of corrupt political leadership of Birmingham. Birmingham was once an industrial capital, and in the middle of the last century was bigger than Atlanta, and in many ways better positioned economically to lead the south east. High taxes and a corrupt political culture drove Birmingham into the dirt. A couple generations later, Atlanta has one of the busiest airports in America, world-class universities, and hosted the Olympics, while Birmingham can't provide running water. Elections matter.
- dp1234 15y ago
  And this is why instead of a large city of Birmingham, you have a large amount of spun off mini-cities in the area each with their own schools and municipal infrastructure (Hoover, Mountain Brook, etc). Of the many friends I know that live in Birmingham, none of them actually technically live in the city of Birmingham.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    The separate school districts of Birmingham suburbs aren't exactly due to corruption... many of them emerged in the 1950s-70s as a way of evading desegregation.
- UrbanPat 15y ago
  Elections DO matter. A major difference between Birmingham and Atlanta is that Birmingham became the poster city for racism because of the way Bull Conner responded to civil rights protesters in 1963. Atlanta, on the other hand, became known as "The City too Busy to Hate", and ever since the two cities have had drastically different fortunes.
- absconditus 15y ago
  I was watching a video of some Alabama state legislators discussing changes to the state's alcohol laws and came to the conclusion that Alabama is going to remain poor for a long time to come. Alvin Holmes in particular seems like an idiot. I do not write this just to be vulgar and insulting; the man honestly seems dumb and foolish. Several of his colleagues seemed to be almost as bad.
leoh 15y ago
Does this remind anyone else of "Brave New World?"
- splat 15y ago
  It's admittedly been a while since I've read Brave New World, but I don't see the connection at all. Care to elaborate?
eibrahim 15y ago
what a disgrace!!! the richest country in the world can't provide running water to its citizens... what a shame!!!
- Stormbringer 15y ago
  That was my initial reaction too. But then I saw that the real problem is that they were gambling on derivatives to fund critical infrastructure projects. The obvious solution is more bailouts. The libertarian solution would be to let them 'stew in their own juices'. I suspect there is no 'right' answer because the people who created this disaster. can never repay the money, even if they wanted to.
  - ebiester 15y ago
    The problem is that the people making the bad decisions and the people suffering for those decisions are not the same people.
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      The people suffering elected the people who made the bad decisions.
      - JamisonM 15y ago
        Of course the people they elected ran on detailed platform of how to use derivatives to fund infrastructure projects and those voters are very familiar with complex financial instruments!
        tedunangst 15y ago
        I don't think it is asking too much to not elect people who will be bribed into screwing you over. At the community level candidate integrity should still be measurable. But the likely problem, given voter apathy, is not that they elected the losers, but that they sat by and allowed them to be elected.
hmottestad 15y ago
So I wonder...should I point and laugh or sit down and cry. It's not my country, and I would never want to live in the US. How a country treats it's least fortunate says a lot about the country in general. I don't think lowering the standard of living is going to get us very far in this world. What we desperately need is for everyone to contribute to society. This is usually done by having healthy citizens with a high level of education so we can find better ways of solving today's problems. But sure...two steps back, one step forward.
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  > But sure...two steps back, one step forward. Two steps back (lack of affordable clean water and lack of affordable sewage), hopefully the one step forward is going to be lack of government. The leading problem in the western world is that the free market doesn't extend to government. I want to choose my politicians based on lowest expense and highest reward, because the electoral system seems to keep giving me the highest expense and the lowest rewards.
  - bandushrew 15y ago
    The leading problem in the western world is that the free market does extend to government. I get the politicians I am willing to pay for. Unfortunately corporations have more money, and can afford to pay more than I can. That is the free market at work.
    - electromagnetic 15y ago
      Yeah; that's where the definition of "free" market gets really fucked up.
    - anon808 15y ago
      Yup, the free market is a strategy. How it's applied depends on the values of the people participating in that market. A free market of thieves isn't going to result in any good outcome.
    - 15y ago
ck2 15y ago
Didn't Alabama just export virtually all of it's migrant workers recently too? Some crazy decisions going on there. Let's see if people keep voting against themselves.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
One wonders if the 'fine' for this sort of behavior could be 'JP Morgan will provide the city of Birmingham the infrastructure to provide sewer and water service to the town, once complete they will transfer all titles and interest over to the town at no charge.' The current consequence of 'pay some fines' doesn't serve the public, nor does it discourage the abuse. Restitution here is that the city doesn't have a sewer and water system. By having JP Morgan fund the building and provisioning of such a system and then handing it over debt/bond free to the city, the city is made whole (they have their sewer system), JP Morgan is punished (they paid for it), and hopefully they are discouraged from future attempts at bribing folks.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  It's pretty clear from the article that JP Morgan is not the sole cause of these problems: "But the bill soared to $3.1bn after construction problems and a series of bond and derivatives deals that went sour in the financial meltdown of 2008...[the county] faces a budget shortfall next year of $40m after a local tax was declared illegal." Clearly, someone involved with the construction is partially at fault, as are politicians for basing their budget on an illegal tax. So it would certainly be excessive and unfair for JP Morgan to foot the bill for the entire sewer and water system.
  - UrbanPat 15y ago
    I live in Birmingham, so I need to correct a couple things. First, the "illegal" tax has been around a long time. In this particular case, it was overturned on a technicality [1]. However, because the state government is hostile to Birmingham, it has been impossible to replace the lost revenue. However, that's relatively unimportant, because the sewer budget is separate, and funded only by sewer system revenues. Secondly, the construction problems, common among massive public projects, really weren't the problem. The problem is that County Commissioners were BRIBED by bankers into taking out unwise interest rate swaps in 2003. I believe all five commissioners from that period have been convicted of corruption, particularly Larry Langford, commission president. [2] The reason for the bankruptcy is less that interest rates rose, but primarily the freezing of the market for municipal bonds during the 2008-2009 recession. Bloomberg explains, "After some bond insurers incurred losses on subprime- related securities, threatening the credit ratings they used to guarantee other Jefferson debts, investors in 2008 dumped the sewer securities on banks that had agreed to act as buyers of last resort. That triggered contractual requirements for the county to pay off $850 million of the debt in four years instead of the 30 or 40 under the original agreements, according to government records." [3] So it is clear that BOTH bankers and our local politicians are at fault for this problem. Both acted illegally. Our politicians are in jail, but the guilty bankers are not. So, yes, I think JP Morgan should pay a substantial penalty for this. 1: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/03/alabama_supreme_court_rules_je.html http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/03/alabama_supreme_court_ru... 2: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/case/jp-morgan-investment-consulting-fraud http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/case/jp-morgan-investment... 3: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson-county-votes-for-biggest-municipal-bankruptcy-in-u-s-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson...
qas1981 15y ago
I suffered in Birmingham for almost 3yrs of my life. I realized the error in my ways and moved. The closet thing to a real politician was forced out a few years ago. Everyone else is bought
- UrbanPat 15y ago
  What politician are you referring to? And just for the record, I really like Birmingham. It's a good city. It has had some really terrible politicians, but despite that, it's a really nice place to live. (Though, I must confess, I don't have to pay a water bill).
jamgraham 15y ago
Larry Langford For Life!! http://www.bhamweekly.com/birmingham/article-1190-the-life-and-crimes-of-larry-langford.html http://www.bhamweekly.com/birmingham/article-1190-the-life-a...
grannyg00se 15y ago
There are people who form groups that voluntarily get off of the grid to seek independence. No city water, no city sewage, no grocery shopping. It seems to me that if most of these people are on welfare in an area with a pretty good climate and what appears to be (from the photos) low population density, this would lend itself very nicely to getting off of the grid. Instead of relying on the government to support them, they could farm. Instead of worrying about running water and sewage, they could irrigate and fertilize. Instead of worrying about hydro bills for lighting they could use small scale solar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
bdunbar 15y ago
How a country treats it's least fortunate says a lot about the country in general. what a disgrace!!! the richest country in the world can't provide running water to its citizens... what a shame!!! Did anyone else notice that the linked article doesn't come right out and tell us how many people are using outhouses instead of the city sewer? One lady who may cut off service, one guy who has. The number of guys like this is said to be growing. Outrage is fine and dandy. But shouldn't you find dig around so you know what you're outraged about?
- lftl 15y ago
  I'm a resident of Jefferson County and a ratepayer for the sewer system, and as such I can confirm that while the portion of this article dealing with the political history and issues was fine, the opening personal part was quite misleading. If you have a $300 water/sewer bill you're doing something absurd. We're a family of 6, and I am by no means conservative with my showers, wife takes a bath every night, 4 kids bathing regularly, and our bill has never been more than $100 for a month. Having the sewer portion of the bill be the same as the water portion is bad, and there's no doubt it's a screwed up situation, but this is a typical case of a reporter seeking out outliers and presenting them as commonplace.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kamaal 15y ago
This might be a cultural difference. I'm from India. But 'poor' people have cars in America(From the photos)? You guys get $600 per month for doing nothing(Social security)? Don't pay taxes and yet infrastructure benefits must reach you? I don't really know what more the country can do for you guys. I mean paying individuals $600 per month for doing nothing, with which they can afford home, cars, food and clothing all this when the individual isn't even working. I mean if this isn't sufficient, what is? You really must come out of US and check the definition of 'poor' in other countries. Here is a reason why you guys can never beat China. Because there people tend to be happy with ever little they get. But here in this case you have people complaining for stuff which is offered to them free at the first place. P.S : I am software engineer here, who can barely afford a motorcycle and fuel. Let alone a car.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  But 'poor' people have cars in America(From the photos)? About 70% of them. 25% actually have two or more cars. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf Forget learning what poor is in India, most Americans should come to India and see how the top 5-10% lives. Someone on welfare in the US probably has a nicer house than most people in Bandra or Koregoan Park. Sad but true.
  - kamaal 15y ago
    Someone on welfare in the US probably has a nicer house than most people in Bandra or Koregoan Park. Sad but true. I always think about this. That life in India and countries alike is so difficult, merely meeting the ends meet and getting yourself food, clothing and shelter requires you fight daily battles. I mean with farmers committing suicide, crores of people below poverty line. Hunger and Malnutrition in one part of country. Children starving to death. And middle class earning barely enough to survive. We still consider ourselves fortunate if we can get the basic stuff right. Now here some one is giving you $600 for doing nothing in a wonderful residence, food, clothing and shelter with a car to drive. And all the time in the world to spare. And people are complaining? I agree there is some corruption and scam going on in here, but really if you can buy a car you are anything but poor.

97 points by eftpotrm 15y ago

But the bill soared to $3.1bn after construction problems and a series of bond and derivatives deals that went sour in the financial meltdown of 2008. Investment bank JP Morgan Securities and two of its former directors have been fined for offering bribes to Jefferson County workers and politicians to win business financing the sewer upgrade. Fined? That level of punishment seems insufficient.

scarmig 15y ago
One thing that you can almost admire about China: the bribers would as likely as not have been executed for this. (Assuming they weren't well-connected to the upper ranks of the Party elite...)
- bmunro 15y ago
  I don't really think that that is something to admire.
waterlesscloud 15y ago
People have gone to prison over this scandal http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/09/five_men_convicted_in_jefferso.html http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/09/five_men_convicted_in_je...
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Including commissioner Chris McNair, whose daughter was one of the four little girls killed in that KKK church bombing.

noonespecial 15y ago

He says he finds it cheaper to buy drums of water from a petrol station and pay a sanitation company about $14 a month to remove waste from his "porta-potty" than pay the combined sewer and water rate bill, which some months can reach $300. What really happens at the very end after all of the brouhaha about derivatives, crooked politics, and mortgage disasters? The people go back to using outhouses. Pardon the pun: Shit just got real.

mahyarm 15y ago
More like the market made something that should be more expensive cheaper due to crony behavior.
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  Ironically the creditors are going to force the city to face FTA potentially 10-25% yearly increases in sewer rates, they'll never make their money back because the portable toilet distributor is going to start selling water by the drum too. Once people see their neighbour doing it, they'll do it. Especially when it's potentially saving them hundreds of dollars. So then the creditors will want hikes of 50-100% annually. It's an awful mess of crooks and greed. I don't get why the creditors decided to fight these people in court and add in legal expenses when they could have just said "we'll cut the interest rate if you pay over a longer term". I'm sorry but my business mind tells me that some money is better than no money.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    Looks like the bankers did agree to forgive $1 billion and refinance another $2 billion. The higher rates are part of the plan to avoid bankruptcy even under those terms, though. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44552659/ns/us_news-life/#.TulFlFy9glh http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44552659/ns/us_news-life/#.TulFl...
    - electromagnetic 15y ago
      Given that the budget was set at $300 million, any payments over $1 billion are absurd by even the worst crooks in regular government. A 1000% markup on a project should be illegal however it happens. Sorry, if a company wants to overrun the same should apply as to my mechanic 30% above estimate and you pay the rest. Government would have paid $400 million, sounds about right for a cost overrun to me, not $3 billion.
    - UrbanPat 15y ago
      Actually that settlement fell through. Per Bloomberg, "The county’s efforts to negotiate a definitive settlement were frustrated by the recent sale of sewer debt to investors who didn’t want to restructure the bonds under the terms of the September agreement, according to the bankruptcy filing." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson-county-votes-for-biggest-municipal-bankruptcy-in-u-s-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson...

muhfuhkuh 15y ago

So, corrupt banks corrupted some politicians. Again. And, now I read that Goldman Sachs is literally hoarding aluminum in gigantic warehouses to manipulate the market. I wonder when people start to realize that concentrating money like this is not a good idea.

Cushman 15y ago
The same system has capture of the media... so don't wait on it.
scottkduncan 15y ago
Sometimes, even GS finds itself on the wrong side of a bet. This certainly doesn't invalidate your point, but might give you the tiniest bit of solace. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-14/aluminum-glut-at-record-as-traders-bet-on-price-decline.html http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-14/aluminum-glut-at... "Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Aluminum stockpiles rose to a record and orders to withdraw metal from warehouses fell to a 15-month low amid speculation traders are adding to bets the commodity will extend its biggest slump since the global recession."
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  Maybe that's just what GS wants you to think. I'd be surprised if their thinking is that short term on their own bets. This is perfect for them, as it takes the heat off of them for stockpiling, but once AL does bounce back, BOOM, they own it all. Not sayin this is fact, or a deeply thought out theory, or that I know too too much about the subject, but I wouldn't say that current price of AL gives me much solace just yet....
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    Um, Goldman tends to focus exclusively on short term bets. That's why they won the financial crisis. If Goldman looks like they lost in the short run, they probably did. They'll take the losses, learn from their mistakes, and try to make it up next time.

JWLong 15y ago

At the risk of being accused of trolling: Am I the only one here that believes that running water is a luxury, not a right? I've been in some pretty shitty situations myself, though none as tough as this. That much I freely admit. But the overall tone of the article seems to be one of horror that people might not have a ceramic toilet which flushes the waste away to a sewage treatment plant. Also, an attitude of "This is a first world country; this shouldn't be happening to anyone". (Yes, I noticed the sidebar on "corruption") Does everybody else think that running water/sewage is a right?

iopuy 15y ago
"...been in some pretty shitty situations myself..." I see what you did there.
potatolicious 15y ago
I do. This isn't 1511, it's 2011. We can make all kinds of appeals to the "noble savage" who survived just fine without porcelain bowls, but that would be disingenuous. Even disregarding the sanitation, hygiene, and emotional impact of cutting people off from modern sewage, there are efficiency issues. The more time people spend digging latrines and putting up outhouses the less time they have to improve their own lot. Imagine if we took away roads, and it took you two hours each way to get to the general store! Infrastructure, luxury or not, are key to pulling this country out of the shit-pit (no pun intended) it's found itself in. Cutting people off from these essential services certainly won't help matters. Sitting around debating whether or not people are crybabies for demanding modern sewage services, also doesn't help.
mquander 15y ago
"Right" is a word made for arguing about. Let's forget the word "right". Clean water and sanitation are pretty much the two things which most enable us to maintain population-dense cities. Lack of modern sanitation repeatedly led to horrific pandemics in the Middle Ages in Europe, culminating in the Black Death. I don't have any statistics handy, but one would expect the presence of sanitation to be as big a contribution to personal health as diet, and what's more, poor sanitation is sure to harm other people through disease transmission. So yes, I believe that clean water and sanitation are very important to human life at scale; important enough that we should pay a sufficient tax, so that we can give them to people who can't afford to pay.

Newgy 15y ago

The real scandal is the long pattern of corrupt political leadership of Birmingham. Birmingham was once an industrial capital, and in the middle of the last century was bigger than Atlanta, and in many ways better positioned economically to lead the south east. High taxes and a corrupt political culture drove Birmingham into the dirt. A couple generations later, Atlanta has one of the busiest airports in America, world-class universities, and hosted the Olympics, while Birmingham can't provide running water. Elections matter.

dp1234 15y ago
And this is why instead of a large city of Birmingham, you have a large amount of spun off mini-cities in the area each with their own schools and municipal infrastructure (Hoover, Mountain Brook, etc). Of the many friends I know that live in Birmingham, none of them actually technically live in the city of Birmingham.
- _delirium 15y ago
  The separate school districts of Birmingham suburbs aren't exactly due to corruption... many of them emerged in the 1950s-70s as a way of evading desegregation.
UrbanPat 15y ago
Elections DO matter. A major difference between Birmingham and Atlanta is that Birmingham became the poster city for racism because of the way Bull Conner responded to civil rights protesters in 1963. Atlanta, on the other hand, became known as "The City too Busy to Hate", and ever since the two cities have had drastically different fortunes.
absconditus 15y ago
I was watching a video of some Alabama state legislators discussing changes to the state's alcohol laws and came to the conclusion that Alabama is going to remain poor for a long time to come. Alvin Holmes in particular seems like an idiot. I do not write this just to be vulgar and insulting; the man honestly seems dumb and foolish. Several of his colleagues seemed to be almost as bad.

leoh 15y ago

Does this remind anyone else of "Brave New World?"

splat 15y ago
It's admittedly been a while since I've read Brave New World, but I don't see the connection at all. Care to elaborate?

eibrahim 15y ago

what a disgrace!!! the richest country in the world can't provide running water to its citizens... what a shame!!!

Stormbringer 15y ago
That was my initial reaction too. But then I saw that the real problem is that they were gambling on derivatives to fund critical infrastructure projects. The obvious solution is more bailouts. The libertarian solution would be to let them 'stew in their own juices'. I suspect there is no 'right' answer because the people who created this disaster. can never repay the money, even if they wanted to.
- ebiester 15y ago
  The problem is that the people making the bad decisions and the people suffering for those decisions are not the same people.
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    The people suffering elected the people who made the bad decisions.
    - JamisonM 15y ago
      Of course the people they elected ran on detailed platform of how to use derivatives to fund infrastructure projects and those voters are very familiar with complex financial instruments!
      - tedunangst 15y ago
        I don't think it is asking too much to not elect people who will be bribed into screwing you over. At the community level candidate integrity should still be measurable. But the likely problem, given voter apathy, is not that they elected the losers, but that they sat by and allowed them to be elected.

hmottestad 15y ago

So I wonder...should I point and laugh or sit down and cry. It's not my country, and I would never want to live in the US. How a country treats it's least fortunate says a lot about the country in general. I don't think lowering the standard of living is going to get us very far in this world. What we desperately need is for everyone to contribute to society. This is usually done by having healthy citizens with a high level of education so we can find better ways of solving today's problems. But sure...two steps back, one step forward.

electromagnetic 15y ago
> But sure...two steps back, one step forward. Two steps back (lack of affordable clean water and lack of affordable sewage), hopefully the one step forward is going to be lack of government. The leading problem in the western world is that the free market doesn't extend to government. I want to choose my politicians based on lowest expense and highest reward, because the electoral system seems to keep giving me the highest expense and the lowest rewards.
- bandushrew 15y ago
  The leading problem in the western world is that the free market does extend to government. I get the politicians I am willing to pay for. Unfortunately corporations have more money, and can afford to pay more than I can. That is the free market at work.
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    Yeah; that's where the definition of "free" market gets really fucked up.
  - anon808 15y ago
    Yup, the free market is a strategy. How it's applied depends on the values of the people participating in that market. A free market of thieves isn't going to result in any good outcome.
  - 15y ago

ck2 15y ago

Didn't Alabama just export virtually all of it's migrant workers recently too? Some crazy decisions going on there. Let's see if people keep voting against themselves.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

One wonders if the 'fine' for this sort of behavior could be 'JP Morgan will provide the city of Birmingham the infrastructure to provide sewer and water service to the town, once complete they will transfer all titles and interest over to the town at no charge.' The current consequence of 'pay some fines' doesn't serve the public, nor does it discourage the abuse. Restitution here is that the city doesn't have a sewer and water system. By having JP Morgan fund the building and provisioning of such a system and then handing it over debt/bond free to the city, the city is made whole (they have their sewer system), JP Morgan is punished (they paid for it), and hopefully they are discouraged from future attempts at bribing folks.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
It's pretty clear from the article that JP Morgan is not the sole cause of these problems: "But the bill soared to $3.1bn after construction problems and a series of bond and derivatives deals that went sour in the financial meltdown of 2008...[the county] faces a budget shortfall next year of $40m after a local tax was declared illegal." Clearly, someone involved with the construction is partially at fault, as are politicians for basing their budget on an illegal tax. So it would certainly be excessive and unfair for JP Morgan to foot the bill for the entire sewer and water system.
- UrbanPat 15y ago
  I live in Birmingham, so I need to correct a couple things. First, the "illegal" tax has been around a long time. In this particular case, it was overturned on a technicality [1]. However, because the state government is hostile to Birmingham, it has been impossible to replace the lost revenue. However, that's relatively unimportant, because the sewer budget is separate, and funded only by sewer system revenues. Secondly, the construction problems, common among massive public projects, really weren't the problem. The problem is that County Commissioners were BRIBED by bankers into taking out unwise interest rate swaps in 2003. I believe all five commissioners from that period have been convicted of corruption, particularly Larry Langford, commission president. [2] The reason for the bankruptcy is less that interest rates rose, but primarily the freezing of the market for municipal bonds during the 2008-2009 recession. Bloomberg explains, "After some bond insurers incurred losses on subprime- related securities, threatening the credit ratings they used to guarantee other Jefferson debts, investors in 2008 dumped the sewer securities on banks that had agreed to act as buyers of last resort. That triggered contractual requirements for the county to pay off $850 million of the debt in four years instead of the 30 or 40 under the original agreements, according to government records." [3] So it is clear that BOTH bankers and our local politicians are at fault for this problem. Both acted illegally. Our politicians are in jail, but the guilty bankers are not. So, yes, I think JP Morgan should pay a substantial penalty for this. 1: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/03/alabama_supreme_court_rules_je.html http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/03/alabama_supreme_court_ru... 2: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/case/jp-morgan-investment-consulting-fraud http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/case/jp-morgan-investment... 3: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson-county-votes-for-biggest-municipal-bankruptcy-in-u-s-.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/alabama-s-jefferson...

qas1981 15y ago

I suffered in Birmingham for almost 3yrs of my life. I realized the error in my ways and moved. The closet thing to a real politician was forced out a few years ago. Everyone else is bought

UrbanPat 15y ago
What politician are you referring to? And just for the record, I really like Birmingham. It's a good city. It has had some really terrible politicians, but despite that, it's a really nice place to live. (Though, I must confess, I don't have to pay a water bill).

jamgraham 15y ago

Larry Langford For Life!! http://www.bhamweekly.com/birmingham/article-1190-the-life-and-crimes-of-larry-langford.html http://www.bhamweekly.com/birmingham/article-1190-the-life-a...

grannyg00se 15y ago

There are people who form groups that voluntarily get off of the grid to seek independence. No city water, no city sewage, no grocery shopping. It seems to me that if most of these people are on welfare in an area with a pretty good climate and what appears to be (from the photos) low population density, this would lend itself very nicely to getting off of the grid. Instead of relying on the government to support them, they could farm. Instead of worrying about running water and sewage, they could irrigate and fertilize. Instead of worrying about hydro bills for lighting they could use small scale solar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

bdunbar 15y ago

How a country treats it's least fortunate says a lot about the country in general. what a disgrace!!! the richest country in the world can't provide running water to its citizens... what a shame!!! Did anyone else notice that the linked article doesn't come right out and tell us how many people are using outhouses instead of the city sewer? One lady who may cut off service, one guy who has. The number of guys like this is said to be growing. Outrage is fine and dandy. But shouldn't you find dig around so you know what you're outraged about?

lftl 15y ago
I'm a resident of Jefferson County and a ratepayer for the sewer system, and as such I can confirm that while the portion of this article dealing with the political history and issues was fine, the opening personal part was quite misleading. If you have a $300 water/sewer bill you're doing something absurd. We're a family of 6, and I am by no means conservative with my showers, wife takes a bath every night, 4 kids bathing regularly, and our bill has never been more than $100 for a month. Having the sewer portion of the bill be the same as the water portion is bad, and there's no doubt it's a screwed up situation, but this is a typical case of a reporter seeking out outliers and presenting them as commonplace.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

kamaal 15y ago

This might be a cultural difference. I'm from India. But 'poor' people have cars in America(From the photos)? You guys get $600 per month for doing nothing(Social security)? Don't pay taxes and yet infrastructure benefits must reach you? I don't really know what more the country can do for you guys. I mean paying individuals $600 per month for doing nothing, with which they can afford home, cars, food and clothing all this when the individual isn't even working. I mean if this isn't sufficient, what is? You really must come out of US and check the definition of 'poor' in other countries. Here is a reason why you guys can never beat China. Because there people tend to be happy with ever little they get. But here in this case you have people complaining for stuff which is offered to them free at the first place. P.S : I am software engineer here, who can barely afford a motorcycle and fuel. Let alone a car.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
But 'poor' people have cars in America(From the photos)? About 70% of them. 25% actually have two or more cars. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf Forget learning what poor is in India, most Americans should come to India and see how the top 5-10% lives. Someone on welfare in the US probably has a nicer house than most people in Bandra or Koregoan Park. Sad but true.
- kamaal 15y ago
  Someone on welfare in the US probably has a nicer house than most people in Bandra or Koregoan Park. Sad but true. I always think about this. That life in India and countries alike is so difficult, merely meeting the ends meet and getting yourself food, clothing and shelter requires you fight daily battles. I mean with farmers committing suicide, crores of people below poverty line. Hunger and Malnutrition in one part of country. Children starving to death. And middle class earning barely enough to survive. We still consider ourselves fortunate if we can get the basic stuff right. Now here some one is giving you $600 for doing nothing in a wonderful residence, food, clothing and shelter with a car to drive. And all the time in the world to spare. And people are complaining? I agree there is some corruption and scam going on in here, but really if you can buy a car you are anything but poor.