Inkwell Institute

Oil Spill Series

Look under any rock in Washington and you will find a “czar” of some sorts…..a czar is the cute name given to anyone that heads a program for the government….an education czar, auto bailout czar, intel czar….on and on…..you get the idea (i am a bit presumptuous here)…..but you will get it, eventually…..appointing a “czar” does NOTHING to solve the problem, more matter what the problem is…..

By now we all are aware of the problems in the Gulf and the clean-up that is in progress…..okay, BP owes a ton of cash for their ownership of the massive opil spill now in progress….how will we be sure that the bills are paid?  Obama has done what ALL recent presidents have done…….he appointed a czar….a “Claims Czar”…..

And his name forevermore will be known as Kenneth Feinberg……

But what do we know about the Decepticon known as Kenneth Feinberg?

Tom Eley has a good piece on the new czar……

The career of “claims czar” Kenneth Feinberg leaves little doubt that the escrow account set up by the Obama administration to compensate victims of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil blowout will have as its overriding aim the defense of the oil giant’s profitability.

Feinberg’s task has been to present the image of objectivity and concern while pursuing the interests of the state and big corporations.

In a number of high-profile disputes since the 1980s, Feinberg has repeatedly proven himself a reliable “fixer” for the ruling class:

Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation

A class action lawsuit was gaining steam against Agent Orange’s manufacturers when Feinberg was brought in to resolve the case. Within six weeks, he had ended the eight-year-old lawsuit by establishing a $180 million fund, a small amount for Agent Orange’s producers, the chemical giants Dow and Monsanto. For his labors Feinberg was paid $800,000. Affected veterans were given $1,200 in exchange for disavowing their right to litigate.

The Dalkon Shield case

Feinberg was appointed Trustee of the victim compensation fund for Dalkon Shield, a notorious birth control device that manufacturer A. H. Robins sold in the 1970s in spite of evidence that it caused serious injury among women.

It was established that A. H. Robins knew of the dangers to women’s health, but suppressed the information, even destroying evidence. In 1985 A. H. Robins filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to protect itself from Dalkon Shield litigation. A trust fund was established, overseen by Feinberg, by which injured women forfeited their right to go to court and a cap was set on company liability.

While Feinberg’s trust gave most women $725 or less.

September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

Appointed by Bush administration Attorney General John Ashcroft, Feinberg’s assignment was only secondarily to limit damages to the federal government and the airlines. This time the primary purpose was political—to avoid lawsuits that might bring to light uncomfortable truths about the Bush administration’s role in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks and what the preponderance of evidence suggests was an ordered stand down of the US military-intelligence apparatus.

Signing up for the fund meant that families would forgo the right to sue.

The list shows that if the people effected by the Gulf oil spill are expecting justice then they are sadly mislead.  All the twitter about every dime owed for the clean-up is just what I have said from day one…….hollow promise that will not ever see the light of day…..sorry to say……

People….People….People……SCOTUS let Exxon off the hook for the Valdez incident and if you think that BP will pay all that is owed then you are delusional!