Most people agree that private prisons are
bad, but they don't understand just how bad
these companies really are. Let's put it this
way. When Wall Street banks think that you're
too corrupt to do business with, then something's
definitely wrong. I have Farron Cousins here
with me to talk about private prisons, and
you know, I don't really see this as the banks
leaving for any moral reason. Look, these
are banks that pay for fracking, they wash
money for terrorists. Back in the last bubble,
they kept running it out. They knew what was
going to happen to the American public. It's
not that they're pulling away from funding
prisons because they believe that it's the
moral thing to, do you agree with that?
Oh, absolutely. What they're doing is they're
pulling out because there's been massive public
pressure over the last two years to get them
to pull their money out of these programs.
Now, there has been public pressure for a
lot of the things you said like, hey banks,
stop funding fossil fuel companies. Stop funding
fracking, but they figured private prisons
was one they could actually easily pull out
of and not, you know, maybe gain a few more
points with the public. So that's what they're
doing, but now these private prisons, to make
up for the fact that the banks aren't going
to be in charge of their loans and financing
them, they're going to DC and they're doing
two things with their lobbyists. One, is obviously
they want more government contracts. They
want more prisoners come in their way, but
two, and this is a sneaky or thing, they're
lobbying for banking deregulation. So the
prisons are trying to come out and say, listen
banks, we're on your side. We're paying a
couple of million dollars to have our guys
fight your fight for you.
So it's really trade off. Okay, first of all,
the private banks, the banking industry knows
if they hang in there long enough, they're
going to make a big profit. So yeah, this
could be part of the show, which at the end
of all of this, the banks are really not going
to be that far away from funding these organizations.
I think it's interesting to note that some
of the banks pulling out in saying, Gee Whiz,
we can't be part of this, are some of the
bags that have defrauded consumers by making
up fake checking accounts and fake savings
accounts completely out of the air. They've
gamed the system on mortgages to where consumers
were victims there. So if you look at this
list, I mean wells Fargo, I mean really? Like
there's some high ground that Wells Fargo
wants to take?
This is purely about, and this is the way
I see it, yes, they've gotten pushback from
consumer groups or advocacy groups. Yes, they
want to make it look like they want to do
the right thing. Truthfully, when the numbers
look like they're attractive enough, it's
not gonna make any difference. We saw that,
as I said, with fracking. We saw it in the
Wall Street burn down on mortgages. They knew
for years what was coming, but they kept it
up. We've seen it where they're actually financing
terrorism. So there's really no morality here.
We'll exactly, and the reason that banks think
this is a safer group to pull out of than
the fracking, or any of the others, is because
they see that something's going to happen
with the private prisons. We know that there's
more assaults there. It actually costs taxpayers
more to put prisoners and private prisons.
So they see on the horizon there is likely
going to be some kind of changes with the
private prison industry because of how bad
it is, and they're getting out while it's
hot and they're using the cover of, oh, the
public wants us out, so we're doing what the
public wants.
Here's what's important. It's a $4 billion
industry, a $4 billion a year industry already.
Right now, the private prisons are about 8%
of the prisons. They see that climbing every
year. So we're going to see them back. This
is kind of a show.
A Peruvian farmer traveled across the globe
to file a lawsuit against the German energy
company, RWE, over greenhouse emissions. He
says the company should have to pay for the
toll climate change is taking on his community.
Legal journalist Mollye Barrows with the national
Trial Lawyer Magazine has more. Why should
the community have to pay for it? Shouldn't
the company who caused it pay for it?
Yes.
Isn't that kind of the, the question we ask
all the time? About why is it that we're letting
these companies externalize all the costs
and all the problems and then they're taking
all the profits and leaving us with this disaster.
And saying it's a political problem.
Yeah. What's your take on this?
Well, I think it's fascinating. I think this
could very well set a good precedent. One
that's needed. You have a lot of organizations
like cities and counties which are suing these
individual energy companies, but this is the
first guy who's brought an individual lawsuit
and he's from the Andes Mountains in Peru,
surrounded by glaciers and you can see that
they're visibly starting to deteriorate. And,
and he's basing his suit on a study that was
done by an organization that found that this
particular company, so he filed against RWE
in Germany. He traveled all the way to Germany
in 2015 to file this lawsuit. And at first
it was dismissed and then it was revived three
years later, basically a higher court in Germany
ruled that he did have legal ground to bring
this suit. And so it is being pursued in that
regard. But basically he's saying, you know,
your company, this study that was done found
that your company is 0.5% responsible for
the greenhouse gases that are being admitted.
So I want to hold you 0.5% responsible for
paying for the, the risks to prevent flooding
or paying to prevent, you know, whatever it
takes to shore up a town in his community.
In other words, he can quantify the damage.
Just like, just like we did on tobacco.
Right.
You know, our Law Firm handled the tobacco
litigation. We looked at each company said,
you have this much of the market. This is
what you should have to pay for this particular
bill. We could, it's easy to quantify. What
I like about this is it's, it's taking place
in Germany. I liked that we have a better,
can you imagine that, that we've become, our
judicial system has become so cranked. It's
become so peculiar that we have to go to Germany
to handle something as significant as this.
And as I look at it, as I compare notes on
what his possibilities are over there, he's
got a better possibility in Germany than he
has in the United States.
Right, and the reason he even went to Germany,
is his lawsuit's being supported by a nonprofit
called Germanwatch group. And basically he
gave tours in his little town in the Andes
and he met a tourist there who said, you're
right, your town is at risk. You know, they've
had problems with flooding from a lake that
was fed by glaciers before as the glaciers
started to deteriorate. So they've see, feel
like this is their real danger of this particular
lake being impacted by this glacier. So when
you talked to this tourist, this tourist said,
why don't you look into this organization?
So they are supporting him and his efforts
to bring this because they recognize that
again, you have, whether it's this man's community
or communities all across the country, all
across the world, they're facing flooding
issues from this. And if they open this door,
it could help.
Here's what I really like about this. The
trial that takes place, if he can get that
far, it won't be a jury trial. It'll be, it'll
really be kind of, it'll be what we call it,
a bench trial, a judge trial. This will be
a list. This will be several administrative
judges probably, that will decide. They'll
listen to the science, they'll listen to the
case in a different kind of way that a, that
a jury would, and they'll make decisions that
will have a huge impact on any subsequent
cases that are brought around the world. It's
going to be admissible, for example, in Germany,
if there's particular findings where he says,
yes, I told you I could quantify the amount
of damage that was caused by this company.
Here it is. We can break it down. There's
no guesswork here. It's, it's, it's very specific.
When he can get to that point, then we can
then borrow that in the United States and
say, here's the formula.
And that's what they're hoping for. And in
fact, the court has appointed two hydrology
experts who are going to go to this guy's
community. Take a look at the measure of the
risk essentially from the glacier. Then determine
what role climate change is playing in that
risk. And then again, boiling down to if it,
if it's not, if it's not universally rooted,
in, in, well that's the argument. I'm sorry
I jumped ahead. But basically they're going
to take a look at these hydrology experts
are going to take a look at a situation and
evaluate if this particular company, you know,
if climate change was involved, did this particular
company play a role on it. And so there's,
that's where some folks are saying the suit
may not have much of a chance and that you
can't prove that a specific company is specifically
responsible for this specific climate change.
Let me talk about that just a second. It's
always, we can't, we can't, don't do it. Usually
the people that are feeding that line is corporate
America.
You're right.
You can't prove, we heard the same thing on
tobacco. We've heard it on pharmaceutical
case after pharmaceutical case. I heard it
in the environmental case I tried up in, up
in the Ohio River valley. You can't prove
this. No, you can prove it. There are experts
that can take it down to, look, we can put,
we can put a man on the moon. We can send
a rocket to Mars. You don't think experts
can figure out how much damage was done by
this company? What impact that had. Quantify
the impact and say, you know what, the bill
is $80 billion and you know what, you're responsible
for 0.5% of this. Easily done. This is not,
you know, this idea, it's just beyond us,
is such a ridiculous argument.
Right, and he's only asking for $20,000. That's
0.5% of the bill. If you're 0.5% the contributor
of this problem, then he's saying, we're gonna
need $20,000 to shore up this town from flooding
that can be potentially catastrophic.
Well, I don't care if it's twenty thousand,
ten thousand, eighty billion, what's going
to come out of it hopefully if it goes right
is some precedent that we can't use directly,
but we can use a lot of the information that
comes out of it.
Well, I'm excited for him. I hope it moves
forward.
Me too, thanks for joining me, okay.
Thanks Pap.
