And, as suggested, executives are basically looting the ship as it goes down "Arch Coal nearly doubled its CEO pay as it lurched to bankruptcy, drawing SEC attention" — Medium

BG: Another St. Louis coal company demonstrates what we have come to label "coal and criminality".  There are pending issues of who will cover environmental damages at coal-mining sites, and who will cover workers' health costs, let alone how we might imagine new jobs and new economies in these regions.  However, as the company goes into bankruptcy executive salaries are on the rise.  Apparently the idea is to take as much as you can while you can; keep burning coal as long as you can; workers and nature be damned.  Read for yourself and decide:

Arch Coal nearly doubled its CEO pay as it lurched to bankruptcy, drawing SEC attention — Medium (Joe Smyth, via Medium).

"Arch Coal, the second largest coal mining company in the US, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, raising questions about the company’s reclamation obligations for its massive strip mines, its plans to export coal from the Powder River Basin to Asia, the future of its existing and pending federal coal leases, and more. While Arch Coal sold mines, cut wages, and stopped paying dividends as its fortunes fell, one area it didn’t skimp was executive compensation. In fact, while Arch Coal shareholders (or at least those who failed to divest from the company) have lost out, Arch CEO John Eaves somehow got a big raise as his company was failing — which seems to have earned the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)."

As stock prices plummet, CEO salary on the rise:

Read the rest of the article here: Arch Coal nearly doubled its CEO pay as it lurched to bankruptcy, drawing SEC attention — Medium (Joe Smyth, via Medium).