Daily Agitator
Last night the President made his first speech from the Oval office…this was his opportunity to take the lead on the Gulf oil spill….to show the American people that he is in charge and BP will be made to pay……..(pause for reflection)……..he failed! I heard NOTHING that had not been said before…..mostly it was his optimism that all will be made right……he told me all about the Noble Prize winners in his cabinet and the commission he has appointed to deal with the spill…..commission?……we do NOT need a commission…we need a CORK!
There has been so much back and forth on how Obama has handled the Gulf oil spill…Repubs are making it a politically weapon for their elections…the Dems are defending the actions of Obama and his response to the spill….and the media is just doing nothing more than fanning the flames of discontent……everyone on the air whether politician or journalist seem to be having an agenda to pursue…and while they are doing this the people effected by the spill keep getting further and further screwed by the very people that are there to “help”…..
in an article written by Hiram Lee…….
Last week the Interior Department released a statement to the press with a new estimate placing the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf at 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day. The numbers came from a survey conducted by the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group, a team consisting of government scientists and representatives from universities across the US. The White House stood by the new estimates and BP executive Robert Dudley appeared on national television to promote them.
In reality, the scientists conducting the survey reported this estimate only reflected the “lower bounds” of their findings, meaning that the numbers represented the very least possible amount of oil flowing into the Gulf.
The escrow account that the Dems are proposing…..is it a way to protect BP from the massive lawsuits heading their way?
“The BP chiefs will suggest to Mr. Obama that the rhetoric from the White House and other parts of the administration is destabilising markets and damaging US investors, who hold 40 percent of its shares,” the Times writes. “The BP executives will tell the administration that the company can afford to pay an already announced first quarter dividend as well as meet its bill for coping with the Gulf of Mexico spill.”
Any “truce” will be on the backs of the those devastated by the crisis. This is because all sides in the discussion—the Obama adminstiration as much as BP—start from the premise that the BP and the oil industry as a whole must remain under the control of private investors, whose money-mad drive for profit created the disaster and has dictated every step of the response.
I have NO doubt that BP will NOT be held totally accountable for the is spill….just as Exxon was NOT held accountable for the Valdez incident……,IMO, BP will be protected from the entirety of the spill….and in doing so…this whole scenario will be re-visited again in the future….just like the financial crisis….in 10 years we will be deal with it again…..Why? because NONE of the SLUGS in Washington have the guts to really repair a broken system….they just throw minor diatribes at it and hope that it will go away….
We-ell – yes and no. Yes I agree that most of what you suggest is likely to come to pass, but that is because the system is busted and has been for a long time – in fact it’s worse than broken – it’s corrupt in my opinion.
THAT fact, however, is the source of the problem! So, what is this “the oil industry must remain in private investor’s hands” comment? How else would you propose doing it – public ownership? The oil industry like many others may be pretty cynical and unresponsive to public opinion and needs, but run by some huge, bloated and even more bungling bureacracy? If you think it’s bad right now, just try that route and you’ll see just how bloody awful “bad” can really be.
If you want to be “picky” about it, America doesn’t own or have any jurisdiction over enough of BP to have a serious say in who owns it!
Oops! My bad!
That was a brain fart! Thanx for catching it for me. That was part of the quote by Lee…apparently he is a “commie”…LOL
You are right…American shareholders own only about 40% of the stock……and I would NEVER suggest that it needs to be government control….however (there is always one of those) if you read the media all the probs they are having with the spill is all the governments fault…accuracy in reporting is sadly missing on this issue.
Yeah, I know. It all gets pretty silly, doesn’t it? The fact is that it has happened. All the recriminations in the world won’t change that and dealing with it as far as is possible and more importantly dealing with the CONSEQUENCES is what everyone should be concentrating on at this moment in time.
There are MAJOR aspects of this that no amount of money will fix and people and wildlife affected should receive all the help it’s possible to give – NOW! If that means the government (and therefore the taxpayer) paying for the time being, then that’s what should happen. Pressure of course does need to be kept onto BP, but I imagine they’re doing pretty much all they can think of at the moment.
BP SHOULD in my opinion have been much more prepared than they were and they SHOULD be made to pay in the long term IN FULL, but to my mind that’s really all another question for another day when this thing has run its course and those affected have been helped and recompensed to the greatest extent possible.
Bitching about who’s to blame instead of looking for answers right now, as much of the media appears to be doing, is in my opinion missing the point entirely – but then there’s nothing new in that for them, is there?
Did the media report over there that all 5 MAJOR oil companies had the same plan for a Gulf disaster response? Each one of them Xeroxed a report and submitted it….the same even down to the protection of Walruses…there are NO walruses in the Gulf and all 5 had the same expert to contact in case of a spill…he has been dead since 2005……
I agree with you on the bitching…..the making the finger pointing worse…..
Interesting concept – do they propose to contact this guy through a medium?
I does though demonstrate how UNprepared they were. If the US governments (several of them) had really screwed Exxon over the Valdez incident, I suspect they’d have been a lot more “on the ball”.
Or they would have gone to the Ghost Hunters and locate the guy in Hell……do you use up your roaming charges calling Hell?
Exactly! And I am afraid that BP will get a pass down the line….
Well, there’s always http://www.reserveaspotinhell.com/
Excellent site…now I have to decide where to use it…lol