They shouldn't have all their eggs in one basket. Or in other words, tough shit. I'm more concerned about the safety of our food supply. We don't have clue #1 yet what disasters like this mean in terms of damage to fisheries, and the effects on our health. My concerns would be best addressed by designating BP's type of negligence as a felony, if someone had the balls to write laws like that.
On 6/10/2010 5:24 PM JoeSpareBedroom spake thus:
Amen.
It was something above 5.5% dividend in early April. Not at all shabby in this day and age. (Currently at 9% if you are ready to roll the dice)
6.5% dividend doesn't have to be remotely all your eggs to have a major impact on your income.
Failure to diversify? Too bad. Tough shit.
My concerns would be best addressed by
BP is the majority owner of the alaska pipeline that had a major leak a couple years ago. The pipe was rotted worn out and needed rebuilt.
BP headed by tony haward who wantsd his life back, and says shareholder value is number ONE.
Profits before safety:(
Its like the housing collapse, unlimiteed greed without proper regulation.Hey its making great profits why worry?
I DONT want to see BP merged!! creating yet another even larger oil company..
BP needs to go BANKRUPT, and be sold off piecemeal to all other oil companies...
to maintain at least the appearance of competition.
the management of companies who ignore safety need to be used as a example.
5 yeas in maximum security prison would send other companies the message that safety must come first.companies like BP who pay fines jst looking at violations as a cost of doing business.....
The fines should go up EXPONENTIALLY so they couldnt afford poor safety.
BP had over 800 safety citations exxon mobil ONE, sunoco 8.
Our country better fix this or the next cost cutter could be a nuclear power plant turning a big chunk of our country into a dead no humans live here for thousands of years
Can he do that, for an international company? The largest in the UK?
leak crude is exppected to make it to the beaches of britian, so bp better save their money to pay for that clean up too
China is drooling now, at a chance to buy it.
...
You're kidding, right? Level 6 MAX is for the recalcitrant!
We have Club Fed for CEO's, politicians, etc.
Golly Gee Bob. Before they pay, do you think a forensic exam should be done and determine if this crude is the same (Texas Tea)?
Someone posted a link recently about oil spills from super tankers. Most of those seemed to be around Europe?
Crude leaks naturally from the world's ocean floors.
You're beginning to sound suspiciously similar to the low-functioning organisms who say that because mercury occurs naturally, it's OK to pump more of it into our air & water.
You don't want to sound like a low-functioning organism, do you? Of course not.
No Joe. I find that what BP has done is vial, disgusting and contemptuous. Their feet should be held to the fire. I think we agree.
But the reality is that once the news organizations find a bigger story the issue, no matter how vile, will fade away. Exxon's still in business, and they were driving drunk!! The ultimate liability and negligence. They skated and they didn't have two other companies and a lax Federal government to even share the blame.
After 20 years of fighting that bankrupted many of the claimants, the punitive award was wittled from $5B to 500M by CJJR & Co. The big cleanup cost estimates (but not the damage) were off by 100X. Exxon got a free pass, just like Union Carbide in Bhopal.
The sad truth is that no one will hold anyone's feet to the fire, they never do. Business can count on a pliant press, a government that wants everyone to forget as fast as BP does and a politically very weak set of states that proved how little clout they had after Katrina. Congress will hold endless hearings to make people think something's being done and in the end, they'll do what they did before: gut the protections for PEOPLE and give Big Oil another bonus like the $75M cap on payouts for spills.
That's what happened before, and sadly, that's often the best predictor of what will happen again. Oh, and after their drunk captain wrecked the ship, Exxon spun off ship ownership to protect their assets. Trying doing something like that if *you're* arrested for drunk driving and you try putting your car under someone else's name to escape future liability. Off to jail you go. Face it, when Roberts said, basically "corporations have the rights of people" the US pretty much came to an end as we knew it. People don't live forever, your Honor. That's a big difference and should have invalidated that contention, ipso facto.
The only hope for a bigger reaction is when the oil washes up on tony Palm Beach or reaches the Gulf Stream and European waters. Otherwise this news story will die in the way that the endless war on terror did, the way the Exxon spill did and the way the need for tough financial reform did. This is the MTV nation. Attention span 5 minutes maximum.
-- Bobby G.
Tough shit?
A retiree can't buy groceries and you are "concerned" about what MIGHT happen?
Explain to me how preventing BP from paying its quarterly dividend has any effect on your "concerns" for the safety of your food supply.
We KNOW that $400 million will NOT go to the participants in New Jersey, California, and Texas retirement funds. We KNOW that billions more will not go to individual retirees so they can buy (perhaps tainted) food.
This notion of unthinking Draconian penalties for transgressors irrespective of the collateral damage to the innocent is my complaint.
Another complaint is the knee-jerk reaction to suspend all oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Another 45,000 people immediately out of work, 33 oil rigs idled, hundreds of thousands of downstream jobs lost.
At least with Bill Clinton's administration they had Lloyd Bentson as the designated adult. All the current administration has is a couple of folks who play adults on TV.
Bah!
The New Jersey pension fund is about as diversified as a fund can get. It still will take a $400 million hit under Obama's plan.
40% of pensioners in the UK own BP stock and will not get their anticipated quaterly dividend.Forty percent of BP's stock is owned by American pension funds. Another 14% is owned by individual Americans.
In BP's case, it has $2 billion in quarterly profits to disburse. To BP, it matters not whether it's held in escrow or sent out in checks. The disbursements DO matter to: a) The people who will NOT get the expected checks, and b) The Obama administration that feels it is somehow punishing BP.
If a retiree's income is so closely tied to just ONE of their investments, they made a terrible investment mistake.
It really doesn't, but if the company becomes insolvent, it's
*******POSSIBLE*********that it may claim it can no longer afford any further cleanup efforts, and it can't afford to reimburse the people whose livelihoods have been eliminated by the disaster.
snipped-for-privacy@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote in news:huruca$9hv$ snipped-for-privacy@reader1.panix.com:
Texas City is supposedly the largest refinery in the USA.
It sure gives Comrade Obama the excuse to ban offshore drilling. It permits Saul Alinsky's "never waste a good crisis" rule.
BTW,look what Comrade Obama did WRT nukes;he says he "supports" nuclear power,but not without "safe storage",then immediately cancels Yucca Mountain Repository,then institutes a new study/search for a new site,that will take at least 10 years (how convenient..Comrade will be long gone by then) and WASTES the millions of dollars already spent on an almost completed Yucca Mtn. Thus,Comrade Obama has effective killed new nuclear power for a couple of decades. That's some "support"... Comrade Obama has said he wants gas prices to rise to $10 a gallon,but "just not so fast",and he's said he wants "to bankrupt the coal industry". Cap and Trade/EPA carbon control is the mechanism for that. Coal supplies ~50% of US electric,nuclear is next as ~20%. There's no way solar and wind would make up the difference,and that doesn't allow for new capacity needed for the plug-in electric cars.
See a pattern here?
The end result is a drastic rise in energy prices,which will have a cascading NEGATIVE effect on our economy. That in turn weakens our nation,and then Comrade Obama is weakening our military. It also means a sharp reduction in peoples standard of living.
then remember that Comrade Obama spent TWENTY YEARS in the Very Racist Rev.Wright's America-hating church,and that Comrade Obama was raised by and mentored by marxists,all his friends and associates are marxists.
Read what Comrade Obama has said or written,examine his actions in that light,then connect the dots....
Were you equally outraged when pension funds were burned by their investments in funny real estate crap invented by companies like Goldman Sachs?
Along those lines, the most damning thing I saw so far was a news report weeks ago. They went back several years and compared the OSHA records of BP and other oil companies. Keep in mind this is AFTER the BP Texas City explosion. In the category of willful, serious violations, BP had accumulated 762, making them #1 on the list. But far worse was the fact that the #2 violator had 6 violations, and by the third worst, like 2. And those other guys were companies like Conoco/Philips, Mobil, etc, so they were making a fair comparison.
The incredible thing, once again, is how could this go on. OSHA was just fining BP millions and they just paid it out of pocket change. One would think with any reasonable oversight they would have been shut down until they changed their ways long ago.
Along those lines, the most damning thing I saw so far was a news report weeks ago. They went back several years and compared the OSHA records of BP and other oil companies. Keep in mind this is AFTER the BP Texas City explosion. In the category of willful, serious violations, BP had accumulated 762, making them #1 on the list. But far worse was the fact that the #2 violator had 6 violations, and by the third worst, like 2. And those other guys were companies like Conoco/Philips, Mobil, etc, so they were making a fair comparison.
The incredible thing, once again, is how could this go on. OSHA was just fining BP millions and they just paid it out of pocket change. One would think with any reasonable oversight they would have been shut down until they changed their ways long ago.
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I believe this closely related phenomenon explains "the incredible thing" nicely:
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