The billionaire who brought you the Sago coal mine disaster will now be Secretary of Commerce....

Wonder what the coal miners and their families are thinking now?




Mountain State Blues
?@MtnStateBlues

The billionaire who brought you the Sago mine disaster will now be Secretary of Commerce....


Reply
Heath Harrison ?@Heath_Harrison 2h2 hours ago


As he said about black lung victims, Trump believes the miners weren't imaginative not to work at Sago




Trump taps Ross for commerce, owned Sago mine at time of fatal explosion
By Josh Boak


The Associated Press
November 24, 2016

- See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20161124/trump-taps-ross-for-commerce-owned-sago-mine-at-time-of--fatal-explosion#sthash.BhlqYYOT.dpuf




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FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump, left, stands with investor Wilbur Ross after meeting at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J. Trump is poised to offer the position of commerce secretary to the head of a private-equity firm, Wilbur Ross. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)


http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20161124/trump-taps-ross-for-commerce-owned-sago-mine-at-time-of--fatal-explosion#sthash.BhlqYYOT.dpuf





........With a Florida home down the road from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat, the 78-year-old Ross played a role in crafting and selling the president-elect’s tax-cut and infrastructure plans. Ross has suggested that much of America is disgruntled because the economy has left middle-class workers behind and says Trump represents a shift to a “less politically correct direction.” ................

Ross most prominently created four companies through mergers and acquisitions that focused on steel, textiles, autos and coal. In some cases, Ross has sold the companies he packaged to even larger globe-spanning companies. In 2005, he sold the International Steel Group, which included the former Bethlehem Steel, to the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.

And while his investments appear to have proved generally lucrative, they have also at times brought troubling publicity.

Ross had formed his international Coal Group by buying a collection of smaller and financially troubled coal operations in the mid-2000s. Then on Jan. 2, 2006, one of those operations — the Sago Mine in Upshur County — exploded, killing a dozen miners. Federal safety inspectors in 2005 had cited the West Virginia mine with 208 violations.

Ross said afterward that he knew about the safety violations but that the mine’s management had assured him that it was a “safe situation.”...............