By Sam
Published Tuesday, January 27th, 2009, 3:43 pm
Filed under: This Week in Capitalism
This week in capitalism, Marvin E. Schur, a 93-year-old man living in Bay City, MI, froze to death in his home days after the City Electric Light & Power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills.
Schur died “a slow, painful death,” said Dr. Kanu Virani, who performed the autopsy. “Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly,” Virani said. “It’s not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”
Schur’s neighbors discovered Schur’s body on January 17th. They said the indoor temperature of Schur’s house was below 32 degrees. George Pauwels Jr., who discovered Schur with his wife, said Schur “had a little bit” of dementia. The temperature in Bay City, according to weather.com, reached as low as -9 degrees between January 13th, when the power company placed a limiter on Schur’s electrical service, and January 17th, when Schur’s body was found.
“His furnace was not running - the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him,” Pauwels said. “This (limiter) is supposed to regulate the amount of electricity he was using, but still allow enough power to run the furnace. Obviously, it didn’t work.”
Phil Newton, director of the electric department, said the company has “almost two full-time people just dedicated to going around and turning people on and off and putting on limiters. It’s just really bad.”
Schur owed around $1,100 in unpaid bills. Some states have laws making it illegal to shut a person’s power off in the winter, presumably to prevent power companies from killing customers.
The Bay City Manager, Robert V. Belleman, said he didn’t believe the city did anything wrong. “Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors.”
Nine days after Schur’s death, the Bay City Commission voted 5-3 to raise the prices of electricity by 3%.
In case you forgot, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
5 Responses to “This Week in Capitalism: 93-year-old man Freezes to Death in Home”
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And this is why it behooves us, yet again, to be our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper.
01/28/09 at 10:42 am
Are you certain you don’t want to blame a mixed economy instead? After all, this country hasn’t seen capitalism in a long, long time. Really though, I am sure waiting in line all day for half a loaf of bread is going to be much more fun when the socialists take over. It’s cool you see, because not only do the people who don’t pay the bills suffer, but everyone else gets to suffer with them.
Wake the hell up… If we become “Our brothers keepers…” we will all lose.
01/28/09 at 11:52 am
@ Shawnotron
Yes, you’re right. The US economy is not a pure capitalist economy. Nor has it ever been.
It is a market-oriented mindset, however, that looks at this situation, as the Bay City manager did, and says there’s nothing wrong with shutting off the power of an isolated 93-year-old man with dementia in the middle of -9 degree weather, i.e., if he didn’t pay his bills, he doesn’t deserve electricity, meaning he doesn’t deserve heat, meaning he doesn’t deserve to live.
Everyone I’ve told this story to recoils in horror at the callousness of the electric company and the city manager. Everybody, that is, accept for libertarians, who instantly assume I’m advocating state-directed quotas, food rationing, and gulags since I dare question the company’s “right” to refuse electricity and thereby kill a man who can’t pay for his heating in -9 degree weather.
01/28/09 at 6:46 pm
No Shawnotron, pure capitalism is actually much harsher than what we have in this country. This particular story does not help you make the case that we aren’t capitalist enough.
As for the Soviets, they never were socialists. They had a capitalist system as well. You should try learning more about what socialism is before you parade your ignorance around here again.
01/28/09 at 8:57 pm
Hey guys its just survival of the fittest, right? Now, go put on your gas masks and your hazmat suits so we can all join hands and sing our countries’ national anthem, “Kill The Poor”
P.S. Shawnatron, youre a douche, grow up.
01/30/09 at 2:29 am