SERCO IS ABOUT A LOT MORE THAN SABOTAGING OBAMACARE APPLICATIONS

What does this have to do with public transportation in St. Louis?  Serco is the macrocosm of everything that is wrong with this country.  And possibly the entire world.

KMOV St. Louis has been running a lot of spots about the Wentzville offices of Serco that were given a $1.2 billion contract to process ACA, or Obamacare, applications.  If you have been following the news story, you know that they basically paid employees to do nothing, and processed almost no applications.
http://www.kmov.com/news/investigates/News-4-investigates-Workers-paid-taxpayer-dollars-to-do-nothing-259002161.html

They were just given a big fat $98 million government extension.
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Controversial-ACA-contractor-receives-contract-extension-from-government-265783851.html

Serco is NOT a local company.  They began as the British arm of RCA, supplying services to the cinema industry.  They are a global defense and everything else contractor.

They run the Dubai and Copenhagen Metro's (mass transit).  They run parking meters in Chicago..  They own railway worldwide.  They do cyber-intelligence for the U.S. government and other large entities. They supply electronic tags (those leg bands) to the UK Ministry of Justice.

They run a school district  in the UK. They own prisons.  Leisure and vacation facilities.  Waste management services.  Facilities management at hospitals. Run the Iraqi airport.  (EDIT: They were in charge when this utterly bizarre loss of 12 billion dollars happened: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1 )

They run immigration Detention Facilities in the UK.  Give driver's licence and driver exams in Ontario. 

They are one of the largest defense contractors in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco_Group

They acquired SI International, in Reston Virginia in 2008.  This gave them their U.S. address.****

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/12/29/daily19.html

Serco just lost London's Dockland Light Railway.
 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/04/serco-loses-dlr-franchise-docklands-light-railway

People in the UK hate Serco, and rightfully so.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/sick-serco-meet-protesters-outside-outsourcing-giants-london-agm-1447747

http://politics.co.uk/news/2014/05/08/bucking-the-trend-poll-show-huge-opposition-to-privately-run

Serco haven't just overbilled the US.  Check out their contracts and follow the pattern of scandal. In the UK they billed the Ministry of justice for (electronically) tagging offenders THAT WERE DEAD.

Oh, and their hospital management?
From the Wikipedia link:
In health services, Serco's difficulties include the poor handling of pathology labs and fatal errors in patient records. At St Thomas' Hospital, the increase in the number of clinical incidents arising from Serco non-clinical management has resulted in patients receiving incorrect and infected blood, as well as patients suffering kidney damage due to Serco providing incorrect data used for medical calculations.^[59] A Serco employee later revealed that the company had falsified 252 reports to the National Health Service regarding Serco health services in Cornwall.^[60]

And isn't it nice to know that all of that personal medical information is in the hands of one of the largest intelligence contractors in the world?

Yes, they are rapists, too:
(Also from the Wikipedia article)
In September 2013, Serco was accused of extensive sexual abuse cover-ups of immigrants at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre prison in Bedfordshire, England ^[30] 

AND

The Union of Christmas Island Workers highlighted the systemic failure by Serco to manage the Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre. The centre detains a large number of refugees including 1,000 children.^[36] Under Serco, there has been an increase of deaths in custody, self-harm, and of Serco staff beating prisoners. As well, there has been a deterioration of facilities leading to the decline of the physical and the mental health of detainees and of staff. Ombudsman Allan Asher on the Australian radio show AM said, "In the first week of June when I visited Christmas Island, more than 30 incidents of self-harm by detainees held there were reported."^[36] Serco, in a staged memo leaked to The Australian, blamed the detainees for "creating a culture of self-harm," in order to use it as a "bargaining tool."^[36]

How did they do with that School district?
Serco held a 10-year contract with Bradford City Council between 2001 and 2011 to manage and operate the local education authority,^[65] providing education support services to the City's schools. This period was marked with "real problems" according to senior council officials and was taken back in house by the local authority after this period.^[66] Serco similarly manages and operates Walsall^[67] and Stoke-on-Trent local education authorities.^[68] Serco is one of Ofsted's three Regional Inspection Service Providers, responsible for school inspections in the English Midlands.^[69] Serco is also the provider of a Student information system, Facility, used in schools and colleges in several countries.[70


What DOESN'T Serco have it's fingers in?

EDIT: Consider the fascist possibilities of a corporation that control's driver licencing, education, prisons, medical care, detention, as well as intelligence gathering, cyber-spying, etc, globally.  If we made a map that showed the influence of Serco and their other corporate peers (CACI, Lockheed, etc), would we see a world dominated by U.S./British private intelligence corporations?  

Also, consider that Serco does the same work as USIS, LLC, the company that put Snowden at the NSA, 
 http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-gives-new-contract-to-firm-that-cleared-nsa-leaker-1404344583

In fact, here is Serco's protest of a contract award to USIS, LLC:
http://www.gao.gov/products/d02600#mt=summary 

So what does this have to do with public transit in St. Louis?  It's not a direct link.

Serco is the macrocosm, and Bi-State Development Agency is the microcosm.  This is the template for agencies and companies that receive government funding.  Developing infrastructure (transportation or intelligence gathering) makes the private company wealthy, and they in turn feed the politicians with power in the infrastructure-- and of course massive campaign funds.

All government money comes from the taxpayers.  The macrocosm and the microcosm are nothing more than means to rob the public.  Serco is just an extremely transparent example.

Happy Fourth of July! 

***** SI International is worth investigating on it's own.  Ray Oleson founded the company in 1997.  He'd worked for CACI before that.  CACI formed in 1962.  CACI has strong ties to Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush regime. A British American defense, spy, and intelligence contractor, with massive global operations.  CACI was sued in 2004 by a group of tortured Iraqi Abu Ghraib prisoners.  The result of the suit is on-going today.  Since 2007 they have rather suddenly began purchasing over 20 other IT companies, at a rate of several per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CACI

SI International's 2008 purchase date is not coincidental to the global financial collapse.  It is too big to go into in this post, or in a blog post at all, it is book length, but SI ties to the Bush family and W's presidency, and probably back to WW2 and St. Louis investment banker Herbert Walker (GW Bush maternal grandfather, and founder of the bank that GW Bush's brother William "Bucky" still runs.  And let's not forget the banker that laundered gold for the Nazi's, Thomas McKittrick, from St. Louis.  After WW2 he brought Reichbank's Emil Puhl to NYC.) 

https://www.twst.com/interview/15562 

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/vprr/03/9999999997-03-020592 

Unravel the knot of SI International, CACI, Serco, the Bush Family's St. Louis and WW2 activities and ties to BIS and the Nazi's, and you could unravel every conspiracy theory, illegal war and scandal since the "Great War." (It was great for them!)

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/143053/hitlers-american-banker 

This list includes Serco, CACI, and all those like them (from 2008):

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalmilitarism19.htm 

It is worth reading the whole list.  Guess who else?

USIS= (listed as a consortium sub-contractor under the Boeing project listing)= the contractor that vetted Edward Snowden, however, mostly famous for their ties to the Bush regime's Carlyle Group, who are famous for their Iraqi war profits, and sub-prime mortgage crisis insolvency.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_carlyle15.htm

SECOND EDIT: Not big on 9/11 conspiracy theories, but Serco comes up in doc's a lot on such sites.  Their CEO (he retired just last year) was on the 47th floor of one of the towers on 9/11
https://decryptedmatrix.com/live/serco-the-biggest-company-youve-never-heard-of/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hyman

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/10/Serco-Group-plc.html

I can't work out what these links are actually saying, both badly written and unclear, but apparently someone tried to sue them for a military death:
http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/06/1999-marine-links-serco-red-switch.html

http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/06/2001-marines-wrongful-death-suit-in-re.html 

METRO DOES NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR TRASH CANS, OR MAYBE IT IS AN EXCUSE TO REMOVE BUS STOPS

Oh Metro is in the news again: 
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Metro-might-eliminate-bus-stops-where-there-is-too-much-littering-257268111.html


There is a good chance that the trash issue is an excuse.  There are a lot of trashy bus stops.  Clayton does provide a decent amount of trash cans.  Shrewsbury not so much, but still moreso than the other places these signs are posted.

But they are mostly on the north side.  News crews only venture north of the "Delmar Divide" for violent crimes and fires and theft.

So this being newsworthy is really only that someone at K-MOV (called the "Evening Whirl" of newscasters by a friend of OPTINSTL's) noticed the signs.

Or maybe they want a good excuse to move these bus stops for another reason?  I would have to actually go to that Clayton location to be certain, but Google Earth confirms this is pricey area.  It's a stop for the "Gold Line", the #1, a Washington University subsidized bus line.

It's been awhile since I've been on the #1, but I suspect it is still a "maid and busboy" route.  That particular bus stop might mostly be maids and busboys, students being more likely to use the Metrolink.

It's probably not just the litter they want out of the area.  It is very vulgar to have one's maid standing out on the street for 30 minutes after her shift, waiting for the bus.  And why should Clayton have to provide a maid with a trash can while she waits for her "proletarian limousine"?

That area in Shrewsbury is really just across the highway from Webster Groves' Old Orchard shopping center.  The #46- a bus line I don't recall ever having ridden- looks like a connection for employees of St. Anthony's Medical center from the Shrewsbury Metrolink.

A trash can placed there would serve only the bus stop patrons, and no one cares about us.  It's not really about trash, it's about whose trash it is.  A public transit rider represents only 22% of the revenue of Metro.  We don't pay for cars or car insurance or gas or vehicle property taxes.

We are only considered worthy of cleaning up other people's trash.

Metro doesn't even consider putting up bus schedules on bus stops, I actually left the trash can and light off the idea and design in this post:
 http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-should-be-metros-new-bus-stop-plan.html

And actually I think trashcans and lighting are the city and towns responsibility.  Street services in every community should be full partners in providing great public transportation.  And the necessary maintenance and facilities required to make riding transit a wonderful--instead of dismal-- experience.

If Metro were truly a public transit agency, gathering meaningful statistics about the transit needs of its' riders, working to develop strong community support with neighborhood liaisons, we would have trash cans at every bus stop.  (They are too busy juggling all their "IOU's".)

Metro doesn't have any control over where bus stops are placed, and they do not think it is important to put trash cans near their bus stops.

Now, if the executives of Metro were required to use public transportation, they would understand why the bus stops in certain areas have a lot of trash around them.  The city and counties are also woefully negligent on the need for more trash cans.  Especially in low income areas.

But no one with any power is ever on the streets in poor neighborhoods.  Or they would see lots of "trashy" bus stops.  I have eaten my daily meals at many bus stops.  If it takes two or three hours to get somewhere, and then work, and then two or three hours home (and sometimes even just a one hour ride), yes you are going to eat and drink at the bus stop.

A lot of people in this city litter.  It would be nice if everyone carried their trash around with them, too. But I don't think the city should expect that, and further, it would be nice if they took the lead on this issue.

A trash can says "it is important to us that you do not litter."  If there are waste cans at these stops and they aren't being used, that is another issue.   But even without travelling to these stops first hand, it seems pretty likely there aren't any provided.

Once again, Public Transit Rider, Metro has left you with their waste.

MAN GETS GRAZED BY BULLET BOARDING BUS

This just in from Channel 4: http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Police-Man-grazed-by-bullet-while-boarding-St-Louis-Metro-bus-255211851.html

What do people in that neighborhood call it?  "DUB-ville"? ("Dead Upon Birth")

All of the powerful, brilliant men that run this city seem unable to comprehend why North St. Louis is so violent.

It couldn't possibly be the $8,000 average yearly income, or lack of jobs in the community, or the deplorable state of the neighborhoods, or the schools that keep closing, or the lack of decent public transportation.

No.  It must be all those crazy people.  You know, the descendents of slaves that had to fight to get equal rights.  That are still living in poverty despite the wealth their ancestors created for this country.

There are two cities in St. Louis.  Not north and south, but black and white.

If you keep ignoring the poverty and hopelessness, surely it will just go away, right?

Of course, urban African-Americans have always had to deal with a high level of violence and crime in their neighborhoods.  The violence in the "hood" follows the same patterns as the Irish in New York in the 1800's or the Sicilian Mafia in the latter half of the 20th Century.

Crime and violence in poor neighborhoods and among poor people follows certain patterns.

But now the whole society has gotten more violent.  Especially at schools.

It's the Adam Lanza's and the James Holmes' and the Boston Marathon bombers that no one can predict.

There isn't much we can do about the suicidal random shooter.

But there is a lot we could do to make our poor communities less violent, and more prosperous.

But that would mean actually doing something that benefits ALL the people, and not just the greedy few.

The answer is not more police and more guns, the answer is community development and improvement.  The solution is understanding that we all live in this city together, and the better it gets for those on the bottom, the better it will be for all of us.

Wake up St. Louis!  Occupy!