Greatest Sleazeballs of the 21st Century

Pulse of the Twin Cities

by Ed Felien

Dick Cheney is trying to push through the Senate a bill that would create a national trust fund for victims of asbestos poisoning. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? It does until you realize he’s doing it to cover his and Bush’s butts.

A little background:

While he was CEO of Halliburton in 1998 he negotiated the purchase of Dresser Industries for $7.7 billion. The Bush family has owned and controlled Dresser since the 1920s. There’s no evidence of a lot of cash turning over, so it could be assumed that the Bush family got stock in place of cash for the sale. So, it looks like the mouse ate the cat. It looks like Dresser ended up controlling Halliburton.

Cheney said at the time, the merger was a “win-win” situation. The stock market thought otherwise. Halliburton lost more than a third of its value on news of the deal. Some of the liabilities that Dresser brought to the table were 200,000 lawsuits for damages as a result of asbestos poisoning. Halliburton now estimates its asbestos liability at $2.2 billion with about $1.6 of that covered by insurance. Wall Street analysts think it’s much higher, and the stock has taken a hit of about $4.5 billion directly related to the asbestos problems.

The Hatch bill in the Senate would void many of the legal settlements and reduce Halliburton’s overall liability from $4 billion down to $450 million.

It’s kind of heartwarming to know that even though Bush and Cheney are busy with a lot of other important matters they can still take the time to screw widows and orphans to put money in their own pockets. ||

Ed Felien is Publisher of Pulse and Southside Pride newspapers.