How much did you get for your soul?

$1.8 million for 9 dead, or $200,000 each. Weren't we recently scandalized that the EPA had dropped the price for each of us $1,000,000 to $6.9 million?

I guess the miners' families will have to sue for full value. Good luck to them, although they probably will wind up with pennies for their loved ones' eyes.

Safety? I got mine, you've got mining

Looks as though Murray Energy sent its miners underground with at least glaring neglect of their safety. They died, ho hum. How's that for the investment class?

First clue

Robert E. Murray was completely certain that an earthquake caused his mine's cave-in rather than the other way around, and his certitude was the first clue that might be full of it. The media lapped it up in their usual haste, but at least in this case the AP followed up.

So did the LA Times, which found that the Murray mine uses a dangerous technique called room and pillar:

The final column to be slashed is known among miners as the "suicide pillar."

We may never know what in all likelihood took the lives of six men, but the liability management plan may already be in place. The civil standard of proof is preponderance of evidence, and a plausible story goes a long way toward blunting seismographic records.

It's also interesting that three of the miners are Mexican citizens. I'm guessing this is not a union shop, and I wonder whether they were working legally.

Update: Murray a complete phony. See Crooks & Liars.