Still More to Die From WTC Attack

Mrs Vache Folle is acquainted with a man who, due to exposure to dust from the WTC in the aftermath of 9/11, has terminal cancer. A number of volunteers and workers at the site have already manifested severe respiratory illness. Millions of workers and residents were exposed to the dust over long periods, and untold millions of pilgrims visted the site and were exposed short term.

In the 2020s, there may well be hundreds of thousands of cases of mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos from the World Trade Center. This disease takes 20 years or more to manifest and is fatal. What’s left of the asbestos industry by then will pay out the wazoo for claims by folks with mesothelioma or their survivors. I reckon that these companies will all be rendered insolvent by this liability, as many companies have already been so rendered. Some insurers will go under as well.

I suppose it is only fair that the companies who profited from asbestos pay the price rather than socializing it and foisting it on the taxpayers. It is ironic, if I understand the concept of irony correctly, that the corporate form, designed to protect businesses from liability, has actually led to the imposition of massive liabilities as a legacy of business done decades in the past. Many companies with asbestos liability have not been in the asbestos business since the 1970s. The management, the employees, the shareholders, the physical plant of some of these companies have all changed entirely. Not one person who sold asbestos or profited from it remains affiliated with the companies. Yet, because the corporation has perpetual existence, the companies are nonetheless liable for what those other people did a generation ago.

Of course, some companies have only themselves to blame. Dick Cheney was responsible for acquiring an asbestos tainted company and merging it into Halliburton long after the magnitude of the liability was universally appreciated. Dick was no great business genius it seems. The shareholders should have taken some of the billions this cost them out of Dick’s retirement package. They should have a lien on his Vice Presidential salary.

If I were overlord of a company with asbestos liability, I would start restructuring to make sure that we could get avoid the WTC asbestos claims. You can be sure that your insurers won’t be around.