OT: Oil spill size

[The Daring Dufas]

Um, wuts a "hear" attack? Is that when someone dies after being yelled at?

TDD

[Kurt Ullman]

But they still came out of it without Fed help. Largely because their management saw the problems and addressed them ahead of time.. barely. Ford had better management overall.

>

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I enjoy seeing the way some people use various means to focus on the word "czar". Who began using the term to describe our own government employees? If I recall, it was Reagan, but I could be wrong about that.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

If you have so much of your money invested in one company that you're hurt by that company's missing dividend, you're an idiot and you deserve to take a hit. This is Investing 101.

[Kurt Ullman]

Actually In the United States, the term czar has been used by the media to refer to appointed executive branch officials since at least 1930s and then the 1940s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1942, The Washington Post reported on the "executive orders creating new czars to control various aspects of our wartime economy." Positions were created for a transportation czar, a manpower czar, a production czar, a shipping czar, and a synthetic rubber czar, all to solve difficult problems in coordinating the resources necessary to fight World War II. In the spirit of bipartisanship, at about the same time, the GOP in Congress was calling for a food czar.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Thank you. Lately, it's seemed that low-functioning organisms have been using the word a lot because they've also been told to say "socialist", and the two things sorta fit together.

[Grumpy]

HeyBub I understand what you are saying that are some people that depend on their dividend from they investments, however I also believe that is very small number compare to the people that will or have lost their livelihood and they future pensions. On other hand one must look at majority and not on individuals. We have soldiers going into war for security and better of our lives and yet they are ding every day for what? You can apply many different scenarios it should always come down who is effected by tragedy most or who gain. Perhaps those that loose they dividends can afford it compare to what is going on and more to come, even if BP is to go Bankrupt it will not compare to the loses caused by oil spill!

[Robert Green]

But still, Dude. Two of the historically biggest disasters down in the SE US (aside from the perpetual hurricane blights) and it's O-rings both times.

It sounds a little bit like "the Butler Did It" to those not familar with what O-rings are asked to do and the environments they are expected to do them in.

Maybe we should rename them "Uh oh" rings . . .

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

The mode of failure is irrelevant to the dead people from both disasters. It might be useful in determining how to prevent future failures.

It's coming to light that the latest coal mining disaster was cause by a failure to properly correct safety violations (mainly venting) and the spoken out loud "profits matter more than safety" attitude.

Look at the bottom of the page for the PDF that details some of the lists of violations that Massey accrued and you'll see why 29 people died. Massey was recently in the Supreme Court in a case about whether a judge's failure to recuse himself from a case in which he received substantial campaign donations from one of the parties violates the Due Process rights of the other party. In other words, did Massey try to buy a judge by giving him over $1M in campaign funds knowing he would be deciding their case? IMHO, that Massey case is a poster child for restricting companies from contributing unlimited amounts in political races.

It's already pretty clear that some companies back candidates that promise less regulation, whether it's fiscal or safety related. It's especially troubling in near monopolies like Comcast. They have the capacity to spend enormous amounts of money (and use any free time on their network) to influence people to vote for legislators that will allow Comcast to maintain its near monopoly. They can charge their customers and their stockholders for the cost of "buying politicians" which has some pretty bad implications for society. Just look at Senator "Disney" Hollings:

he didn't get his name for nothing.

Without proper government regulation, we would have 6 year olds working in the mines because they are small and can fit into tight spaces. Regulation became a dirty word in the last ten years but no one would want to live in a world where businesses could run absolutely wild without oversight. It would be a world flooded with laundry balls, fake mail order drugs, one-sided contracts, mine disasters, oil spills and ever-decreasing quality. Wait, that's US! (-:

-- Bobby G.

[HeyBub]

Your point is well taken. The pension funds of California, New Jersey, Texas and some other states are heavily invested in BP stock. One estimate I saw was that 40% of the pensioners in the UK receive BP dividends. Together, that's easily 50 million people. The number of fishermen in the Gulf don't even approach 1% of that number.

Not really applicable, but they are dying as the risk of their vocation. Like a mountain climber or race-car driver or even a sky-diver. Each soldier knew the risks when he or she signed up but was willing to take the chance for the thrill incumbent with the activity.

[Kurt Ullman]

There was also a round of amendments involved with Glass_Steagal repeal where Community Activist types could intercede to the Fed (and maybe FDIC) when those agencies were looking at mergers and acquisitions. Banks were essentially extorted by the activists into making promises that went way past the CRA or face long regulatory hassles. Actually there were something like 5 different times between 77 and

08 where the Congress made major changes in the law and 4 times when FDIC, Fed or others made major changes to the regs.

[keith]

A relief well wouldn't necessarily be drilled as far as the production well. It wouldn't take three months to drill it to a useful depth. Hindsight, though.

We already know there were serious shortcuts made.

Not going to happen, unless Obama forces it. There is a *lot* of money there. ...so far only exceeded by incompetence.

[Robert Green]

While there's clearly some truth to what you are saying, I was responding to the specific, oft-repeated, easily refuted claim "The CRA caused the entire Greater Depression." There were many players. A good summation can be found here:

no, wait, that's the URL about enforcement actions brought about by violations of the CRA. I'll get to that.

Here's Time's list of the 25 biggest party crashers.

Phil Gramm, Bush II AND Clinton, the FHA, Angelo M., Dick Fuld and even the American consumer. I just naturally sort of recoil when I hear claims like "The CRA did it!" that just don't add up when you look at the pieces -- it's VERY important to do that post-mortem to determine what went wrong. We may even determine there's nothing we can do to counter the boom/bust cycle. and that it's a natural process, just like hurricanes and just as unstoppable.

In this case, everyone wanted to climb on the bubble on the way up and no one wanted to fall off the bubble on the way down.

I can't see blaming Congress for the runaway corporate compensation. That's been happening for a long time because boards select compensation consultants that are adept at justifying some honcho making 200 times or more what a common worker makes. Not one of these guys is worth what they are paid except perhaps the original founders of a company like HP because they were true entrepreneurs and not second string caretakers.

Now, corporate execs get what they do because no one can stop them. It's all part of the "Good Ole Boy" system at the top where Presidents appoint former Wall St. honchos and tax cheats like Tim Geithner to become government bosses and the first thing they do is flip $40 billion in tax payer money to their old buddies to "avoid a meltdown" (which seems to have happened anyway). The system is breathtakingly corrupt down to the rusty foundation rebar.

Obama and Bush have both rewarded Big Business, which caused this mess, instead of letting them fail, free-market style, and have just made life harder for the small businesses that have been the source of new jobs in America for decades.

We won't get out of the hole we're in by richly rewarding the people that pushed us into it, but that's what we are doing. Bush, the champion of the free market, was the first to write the big bailout checks to the banks but he won't be the last. Very little will change because banks have so many lobbyists and plain old folks have none. No one is barraging the Congress with reminders that small businesses are the seedlings of greatness, and we just cut off their water and sunlight to feed the huge beasts that will bury us alive.

Bzzz! You're talking about what "might" have happened - in a million years!!!

"All they had to do" never happened. To cite it as a factor is disingenuous.

Here's some information about the woefully toothless CRA act:

Virtually NO enforcement powers whatsoever. Read it. Pelosi and Frank weren't going to "scare" banks into making loans they didn't want to make to people they didn't want to make them to. It didn't happen nor would it EVER happen. The act had no enforcement power.

I can't understand why people are still making such claims about the CRA. They fall under the heading of plain lies. There are so many ways to disprove the lies it's almost laughable to still hear them being made.

But I would be interested in hearing refutations of the statements of judicial record. Remember, they need to be factual ones and not events that never happened. That means you DON'T get credit for remarks like "all they had to do" when it's clear that they did no such thing. Here's the truth about the CRA:

"The court stated that "[t]he CRA itself does not provide for any sanctions for an unsatisfactory record, nor does it even define what an unsatisfactory record would be. The CRA merely requires that the Board assess an institution's community credit record and consider that record when evaluating branch applications."

It's bizarre to see a toothless 30+ year old law being blamed for the economic collapse when it's so clear where the fault lies. With AIG selling insurance it couldn't back up, with outfits like Countrywide making "no doc" loans and with the American consumer, falling all over themselves to suck out the equity of their houses to buy cars, campers and flat screen TV's. Those acts constituted so much more of the collapse that it's preposterous to blame the CRA for being much more than a bystander in the slaughter of our economy.

But I am waiting anxiously to hear how instead of following naked greed and the ability to pass off the risks of bad mortgages to investors via CDO's, banks gave away money to poor people because the were SO afraid of Barney and all the other Congress critters.

Afraid enough to give Dodd (and lots of others who might pass laws to rein them in) interest free mortgages.

Afraid enough to get them to repeal Glass-Steagall.

Afraid enough to prevent Congress from regulating these wonderful new financial products until they brought the house down.

The unvarnished, un-Limbaughed truth is that the banks weren't afraid of anyone. Not Pelosi, not Reid, not Frank, not anyone.

It doesn't make sense to blame the CRA, and as Judge Judy says, if it doesn't make sense, it usually isn't true.

-- Bobby G.

[Oren]

A "real" Nigerian Prince, documented in Federal court (Miami) , accused me of brutality.

After all the facts were obvious. I beat him to save myself. (dat sum beach has teeth)

He dropped his complaint and understood what a prison is like in America.

I only learned he was a Prince, after I body slammed him with several punches to his nut sack.

[Kurt Ullman]

I thought it was a little over top calling out the head of HGTV. Probably related to Time-Warner and Scripps not getting along too well.