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!
Exactly – and that’s why I don’t think government should be involved at all except in so far as they should simplify (should already have simplified – years ago!) all the convoluted, bureaucratically driven bullshit legislation that makes it too expensive for ordinary people to sue and get what they deserve. If that were done, then the people wouldn’t NEED to sue at all because corporations like BP would know that they CAN and WILL do so, so they’d settle very simply, easily and PROPERLY because it would be cheaper for them in the longer term.
Just a thought – Russia had a whole bloody revolution to get rid of the Czars – maybe the US needs to think along those lines – politically at least. Like I say – the system’s broken – dump it and start again!
Exactly! But the American people will continue down this line…..everybody involved in this is doing crap to look like they really care…..I do not believe that Americans have the cajones for a revolution…a real revolution….they prefer to bitch and moan and keep voting for the same people over and over….
You’re probably right. Incidentally (and you need to bear in mind that we in the UK have much better things like state healthcare for ALL, etc., than you do in the US) take a look at this… http://www.number10.gov.uk – it’s quite long but well worth watching all the way through. IF it happens anything like that way and the bureaucrats don’t manage to block it and f*ck it up (which I think they’ll find it fairly hard to do), THIS is close to what I’ve been burbling on about for YEARS!
He sounds like a true politician…his accountability sounds a lot like Obama’s transparency….he sounds familiar on the welfare thingy….and once again…he sounds like every other politician…I wish him luck but he will be bucking the bureaucracy….and we know what that means…just look at what has happened with FinReg….
Thanx for the link….I marked the transcript…found some good points….
The difference is that (I THINK) this guy actually means business. However, as we both said, it remains to be seen what actually happens, though (as I pointed out) we do have vastly better services available (in theory) to all in the UK – we just want it done even better and one heck of a lot more efficiently.
The thing I find attractive is the idea that LOCAL services will be accountable to LOCAL people instead of some giant government central machine that knows nothing and cares less. THAT would be a huge step forward. We’ll see…
As usual it is at the mercy of the bureaucrats and we know how that seems to always work out….
True – I’ve go EVERYTHING crossed though (unless and until Holland wins the world cup that is)
I was pulling for Paraguay…..a local big breasted model would run naked thru the streets of the capital if they won….crap! But a hummer is sooooo much better.
http://www.sportsgrid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/larissariquelme-220×165.jpg
Now here is a more realistic reaction….I like naked…..
http://www.sportsgrid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/larissa-riquelme-220×146.jpg
http://www.sportsgrid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/article-1293060-0A5C851D000005DC-849_235x397_popup-220×170.jpg
http://www.sportsgrid.com/media/paraguays-larissa-riquelme-fulfills-couraegeous-world-cup-promise-gets-nakey-nsfw/
Feinberg talks like he is behind the people that suffered due to oil leak in Gulf of Mexico. The people have to jump through his whims and rules to get a nickle, and then they give up any right for a redress of grievances in court. He is a one man king and rule maker. B.O. has no time for the peasents to use the BP funds. B.O. has his eye on using the funds for his own vision of the world. These guys fit into Dante’s Inferno closest to the devil.