BP is a braintrust….

They figured out how to take all the carbon out of the
ground, bypass the SUVs, and put it right in the
atmosphere.

What a great idea it is to burn off the excess oil.
I wish I would have thought of that idea, but I didn’t
understand that oil burnt so well and so black, I do
remember the County fire department years ago, while
I was at work , reprimand my wife for burning a big
piece of plastic, said it was against the law and sent
poisonous gases into the atmosphere.

One does not have to examine any more than the days
of the Robber Barons to understand the shape this
country would be in without any federal gov regulations.

Sinclair’s Jungle well depicts the standard of living
without these regulations.

More and more our society is reflecting those times
of the Original Robber Barons.

BP’s hypocrisy on the matter of that oil spill
shouldn’t come as a surprise to everyone, taking the
long-term history of theirs, into the consideration.

I’ve come to read an
interesting article on the history of BP and its predecessors
and, which is much more important, on the issues of
their connection to the Wall Street financiers and
their shared profiteering.

glider,

Agreed. Insurance companies must hold the capital reserves, why shouldn’t a company that chooses to self-insure. Personally, I don’t like the idea of self-insurance. It is irresponsible, to say the least. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable hiring an electrician to wire my house that wasn’t insured, regardless of how much money he has in the bank.

ofersince72,

That’s a different type of insurance. It’s not liability insurance. Here’s an article from 1993 that explains how health insurance evolved in the US.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1094/is_n2_v28/ai_13834930/?tag=content;col1

<blockquote>These hospital plans changed the concept of insurance and forever changed the American health care system. Unlike other forms of insurance, the primary purpose of these plans was not to protect consumers from large, unforeseen expenses, but rather to keep hospitals in business by guaranteeing them a regular income. While these plans benefited consumers by giving them a predictable method of paying for their medical care, they contained serious flaws that would become increasingly apparent as our health care system developed.</blockquote

That insurance company idea has worked well in
the health care industry.

?/?

Fat Freddy,
I like that idea.  But too make it effective one must not allow liability limits!  Simply make oil companies responsible for all damages and require them to be insured or put up the required multi-billions in a separate reparations account up front.

ofersince72

Ron Paul has advocated eliminating all government subsidies. As far as RP being a Republican, well, that is an ongoing debate amongst Libertarians.

I strongly believe in a well regulated
OSHA, FDA, MMS, ect.
that is the job of government, look out for the public
in those areas,

I agree, however,

We must realize that much of the government-sponsored regulations put in place for “safety” or “fair trade” merely serve to increase bureaucracy, which increases the end cost to the consumer, prevents competition from smaller firms, and creates a higher barrier of entry for new businesses.

That was from Jake Towne, a libertarian minded independent running in PA’s 15th district.

I can tell you first hand, that many regulations are also antiquated. Having worked in construction most of my life, that insurance companies place much higher safety standards on construction sites than OSHA ever will. In fact, on the really big jobs, an insurance company may place a safety inspector on site, full time, with the authority to shut down the job and remove any person, at any time, for any reason. At some point, the government is just doing the job of the insurance companies. Insurance companies are much more culpable for ensuring workplace safety, because they have a vested, financial stake in it. Government employees can’t even be held accountable, unless they get caught taking bribes, and even then it can be difficult. Half of government employees are corrupt, and the other half are incompetent, and most are in their positions because of Cronyism.

http://towneforcongress.com/mission/

Where Paul and I disagree, is on government
regulation of the Health , Safety, and Welfare of
the laboring class.

I strongly believe in a well regulated
OSHA, FDA, MMS, ect.
that is the job of government, look out for the public
in those areas,

finanaces, no

Freddy,  it is called

OFERECONOMICS,  don’t put your money in places that
          have know idea what is happening to it
          for if you do, and loose, it is shame
          on you !!!

Freddy, I will add this,

As long as Ron Paul is in the Republican Party,
he is not a Libertarian no matter how much he wants to
profess this,,,,,he is a Republican… my observations
of that party and listening to republican lawmakers on
Capitol Hill,  I don’t want anything to do with that
party,,, but I am not prejudice,  I feel the same exact
way about the Democrat Party.

Wall Street, for many, many years has been nothing but a
legal place for illegal activity, even with Glass-Stegall
and all the other government watch ........
So if you want to buy stock, do it at your own risk.

I know that many of my views make me sound like
a Ron Paul libertarian, (I do have respect for Paul)
but my ideology really is different.
I don’t believe in government subsidizing any industry
if they are selling stock. period.
That is not a free market…
If the the government is going to subsidize any
manufacturing, then the public ought to be the ones
benifiting from the profits.
Once you mix, you get what we have to day, a big mess.
Either socialism, of hands of capitolism, one or the other

Hey Feddy, you are right about that.
Finance is a whole different world, that takes much
education to understand…
I was going around the back door to make this point.

It is made way too complicated, to many futures,
to much study to understand what a derivitive is, how
many different types there are, ect…

For just this reason,  I believe I am one of the only
lefties that believies their shouldn’t be ANY government
regulation of the Stock Market.
If someone is going to invest money in something that
they have no understanding of how it works, shame on them
if they loose. Once again, buyer beware.

ofersince72

Economics and finance are two different areas of study. Unfortunately, one does not have much knowledge of the other.

Only about 6% of high school students are taught personal finance. In a world where money is so important, you would think that number would be a little higher. In my high school we were taught how to balance a checkbook. I don’t even use a fucking checkbook for my personal finances, anymore.

Everybody tries to make economics a whole lot harder
than it really is.

Like you need a PH.D from Harvard or Yale to understand
debit and credit.

whoa,  It is a free market,

if one chooses to put their savings and retirement
in funds of the Stock Market and loose, shame on them,
buyer beware,  you lose. Don’t expect me to have to
pay your bill when known crooks handle your money that
you willingly handed over to them.

Tobysgirl,

I certainly agree with you that people need to take a more pro-active approach towards their investments and retirement accounts, but there’s an underlying issue at play here. That is, investments in risky paper is highly encouraged in or current economic climate.

First of all, most people invest in ETFs (exchange traded funds), and mutual funds. Some are transparent, some are not. Meaning you buy into a fund, which is comprised of a combination of different stocks and bonds, sometimes you know what’s in them, sometimes you don’t. These funds are intended to decrease risk, and increase returns, and are extremely popular.

Second, take a look at interest rates of traditional investments. 10-year T-Bills are at what, 3.5%? At the height of the bubble they were as low as 2.5%. Have you checked the rate on a savings account or a 2-year CD lately? Banks have been buying out CD holders that have higher rates of return. They are not being allowed to roll them over, and in some cases, they have been bought out mid-term.

Add to that fact, people have been borrowing against their retirement and pension funds. Once you borrow against a 401(k), you are basically locked into it.

Many pension and trust funds are handled by bureaucrats. They hire asset management companies to make all or most of the decisions, and only look at the bottom line. In my state of NJ, some bureaucrat decided to invest a large chunk of the state worker’s pension fund in Enron.

These economic conditions that exist have not been addressed by politicians, policy makers, or the media. In fact, they have been intentionally ignored. When our parents and grandparents invested, many years ago, money actually had some amount of a “store of value”. It no longer does.

Read this article, it may shed some light on the situation:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/02/we-are-all-austrians-now/

And please do not confuse Austrian economics with supply-side or “Reaganomics” economics, as many people on the left seem to do.

Why doesn’t Obama reactivate ie. fund, OTA—Office of Technology Assessment?  My understanding is that it it still exists but has not been funded since (and due to) Reagan and his corporation-friendly Republicans.

It is fairly evident by now that Obama as president is not the guy I voted for.  I agree very much with John Ellis’s assessment(above)of the man and his character. He is ill-equipped for the job and worse, has surrounded himself with all these brilliant guys who are turning out to be jerks.

Where are the “wise men” in public life who might have counseled him?

ofersince72, June 13 at 6:52 am #

A must read IMO.
Here’s a link to The Oil Drum;

http://tinyurl.com/3xawxf8

Dougr, the commenter, will scare the hell out of you
with his knowledge of the facts.
We can kiss off the gulf.

Ouroborus,,,,go to Pacalert and read,  and weep.

this is a sing-a-long

The ocean floor has a hole in it
the ocean floor has a hooolllle in it
the ocean floor has a hhhhhooollllleeee in it
right down to the core….......

Oil and magma spewing out of it
oil and magma spewing out of it
and there is nothing we can do….

has anyone seen the flames coming out with the oil??
it is very impresive watching flames five thousand feet
under water…....wow.
THE OCEAN FLOOR HAS A HOLE IN IT…. come on, sing a long

I posted this elsewhere and it seems relevant here;

I would venture a guess this will be the largest…
...human caused environmental catastrophe in our
short history on this planet. We’ve actually uncorked
the Genie and can’t get it back into the bottle.
Further; I do not think the government or BP will
make this right and this whole disaster isn’t going
to turn out okay! The entire gulf coast and possibly
the gulf itself will become a dead zone; a kind of
monument to big oil and 1st world philosophy of life.
Corporations are the ones running things; governments
are the handmaidens of corporations.
Words and rhetoric will flow like the oil, but in the
end, the people living on the gulf will be forgotten
and corporations and the government will find another
distraction and move on.
We’re like stupid little children playing with big
dangerous toys.

No sympathy with shareholders, including widows and orphans, the spectre of whom has been a sentimental favorite of oligarchs for decades.

If you choose to put your hard-earned money into risky, high-return plans, you deserve whatever happens. My husband works with a woman who has her retirement fund at work in the highest-risk category. The plan clearly offers everything from an extremely conservative, safe investment with a low return to the category this woman chose.

I grew up in a family in which investment in stocks was considered gambling and an exploitation of workers for profit. See, e.g., Tuesdays with Morrie. I have never invested money in the stock market or bonds, and of course consequently don’t have a lot of money. However, what I do have is in a local credit union which uses it to lend to other members.

If people choose to remain ignorant of what their money is doing, they may end up suffering the consequences. But of course human beings never see much connection between their choices and what happens.

Old Man Turtle has the human species down pat.

Dear Ed:

You are totally right and there is nothing paranoid or conspiracy-theory about it.  It is simply raw unchecked power as you said.  And it is power for which checking is virtually impossible.

I grew up in an oil family, my mother worked for it, her husband worked for it, my sister worked for it and my uncle eventually became the president they all worked for it.  I also worked for it before going to college.  The numbers in the oil industry are astounding.  An exploratory well for example can easily run a budget of $1 million per month. That is the budget of a small city. The company my family worked for normally had between 150 to 250 of those wells operating at any given time.

When my uncle was president, he went to Japan to receive and christen two supertankers the company bought and hung out with the presidents of Mitsubishi and Toyota for days.  He also wined and dined with Japanese government officials.  He confided to me in detail how Adnnan Kashoggi tried to bribe him once, it was a favorite story of his after he retired.

When we discussed politics he would always tell me:  The oil industry’s dimensions are beyond the comprehension of most politicians, including powerful presidents.  I didn’t know then exactly what he meant but now when I watch Obama literally paralized in inaction I can totally see what he meant.

Thanks again Ed, that was awesome.

BIG Oil has the USA power structure by the balls. Petroleum is what makes the world go around.

Why lose sleep over a few dead pelicans, roughnecks, or fishermen? They can be replaced.

It is the total picture that counts. It is the underpinnings of our national security. Without an adequate supply of petroleum we as a world power might as well pack it in.

The power players within these organizations are the ones who are very difficult to ID. The CEO’s and their ilk are the chore boys and spear carriers for the industry. The big boys keep a very low profile, but wield the power. That’s the way they like it.

They have hidden wealth in all counties of the world that they can tap in to anytime.

The personal income taxes these gangsters of the oil cartels pays to the US is miniscule compared with their true worth and what they owe.

These are the guys who have access to private jets and yachts and a fleet of limos. Not one mode of transportation in their own names. Just unlimited access anytime to any place by any means at their disposal. Their traveling companions carry the credit cards so no paper trail can be traced to them.

If you have the misfortunate to get on their bad apple list they have the connections either to set you up or completely eliminate you.

These big boys are neither Democrats or Republicans. They can buy through lobbyists the politicians who will do the bidding for their corporations.

This is an power structure that is not accountable to no one.—totally corrupt.

I’m not sure whether it’s big oil or labor unions that are in the way, but a little known law entitled, “The Jones Act” is actually stopping advanced technology and expertise from entering the gulf!  Many foreign countries extracting oil from the ocean floor have experienced underwater releases and have the technology to combat and clean up the spill.  The Jones Act is a maritime law protecting American labor from foreign competition and prevents foreign flag ships from entering American waters for certain activities and the gulf spill is one of them!  If the US had allowed such foreign technology to be used, the situation would have been well in hand by now.

As a side note there is much clamor about oil douse pelicans, but when a drone takes out a family of ten there is hardly a peep——no pun intended!

???????????????????????
  ***********************
  ???????????????????????
      Do What

p.s. the guardian ????????????

Predident Obama is doing just fine on this crisis. I have heard that Great Britain wants him to tone down on BP because their econ is being trashed. Our econ & our precious animals are being trashed. It’s time to step on BP with everything that is within us while we get off oil & coal & on solar & wind.
This article may also be of interest to you. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/oil-spill-fallout-could-pollute-the-special-relationship-1997395.html

There goes the neighbourhood.
All the oil companies should help and get the military in there too!
Its only a century or so of cancers the area and its inhabitants will face, as the
food chain is exterminated and pestilence and disease sets in.
Time to sell the condo in Florida and maybe a little upstream where the gulf
goes, like Great Britain.
Glad I was born in 1946 because the planet is screwed and we, you and me
trashed it.

Big oil is definitely a huge political power, especially in the oil-producing
states.

But “boss”? That implies that no other lobby is more powerful, and that’s simply
untrue.

When it comes to lobbies in Washington, the Israel lobby is definitely more
powerful. Politicians of both parties, from all regions of the country, are not
only afraid to cross Israel, they are even afraid to voice criticism, even in the
face of the most outrageous acts by the Israeli government, and even when
those acts are committed against American citizens.

In the case of the ongoing BP disaster, many politicians in Congress, and our
President as well,  have not been afraid to criticize, even condemn BP. Not so in
the case of Israel’s outrageous flotilla raid. Virtually every Senator and member
of Congress has expressed nothing but praise and support for dear little Israel.

Obama should definitely think twice about surrounding himself with brainiacs.  “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.”  Shermer, “Why People Believe Weird Things.”

And it’s always a good idea to seek ‘advice’ from other than people you think have all the answers. 

Take the invention of the outside elevator.  Needing to increase the number of elevators in a high-rise, advice was sought from, of course, engineers who design and install elevators/shafts.  The building janitor, hearing of the impending mess inevitable when walls and floors etc. get torn up - conditions that would definitely increase his work load - suggested why not put the extra elevators on the outside of the building. People we least suspect will have answers to much of anything often are the very people who have the best answers.

there is evidence that supports the fact that this whole thing was done to send a message to the British who have, for months sought to get payment for monies owed by the US treasury to The Crown.
Obama and his cronies have been deliberately withholding these payments even though the world court in Brussels has made a demand for them. This is a distraction.
THE GULF OF MEXICO OIL PLATFORM EXPLOSION:
CEMENT CASING THAT BLEW WAS INSTALLED BY HALLIBURTON :
MORE U.S./DVD SABOTAGE AGAINST THE BRITISH? YES… SEE UPDATE
http://worldreports.org/news/288_endemic_corruption_in_brussels_and_halliburton

It is also a good way to further undermine the economy which is necessary if we are to move to the New World Order.
Now I realize most folks think that is conservative talk against progressive programs but actually more supposedly conservatives have been involved in the past few decades than liberals.

Big Oil still boss, huh.

A lot of liberals are making hay out of this classic
“good guy - bad guy” storyline. Like George Bush
struttin’ on an aircraft carrier, it gives them a
platform for sounding tough. Why, we ought’a go get
them there varmints, dead or alive.

But how do you feel about Google? Oh, not them,
because they do special home page graphics, and
people think they’re cool, right?

Okay, maybe Apple. But Apple wears turtle necks and
makes programs look like metal, and people think
they’re ultra cool, right?

What’s the beef anyway! We’re talking Big Oil!

Well, Google went around collecting personal
information through its little scooter mappermobile,
and, despite claiming to have rigorous control of
projects, is trying to “pr” the notion that this was
just an errant, eager beaver engineer.

And Apple? In their rush to harvest the public’s
monetary resources, they put out an iPad with a flaw
that allows personal data to be obtained by
unauthorized persons, and is trying to “pr” that
episode by saying little critical data is at risk.

Just a small spill, you see.

The fact is the “death grip” big oil has on us is
nothing compared to the “death grip” all business has
on us, due to a conservatism that makes us all
servants of business. We are the gulf, tappable, and
obliged to forgive all oopsies.

Bash big oil, if you need to get your jollies, meet a
deadline, or just want a few extra bucks for the
weekend. Just don’t loose site of the Big Picture,
and undermine what little liberal power we DO have,
just so you can strut your impressive intellectuality
and help elect another Bush.

Nationalize big oil.

You betcha

BTW,

RIG is TransOcean Ltd.

DO is Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc

APC is Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

OK. Friends at zerohedge have posted a list of the largest shareholders of BP. Care to take a gander? Think you can handle the truth? What is the truth? Pension funds, investment firms and banks, which includes many 401(k)s, charities, and foundations. Guess what America and Euro zone, you own BP.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/here-are-todays-very-unhappy-campers

BlackRock: 1.1 billion shares

BlackRock is a truly global firm that combines the benefits of worldwide reach with local service and relationships. We manage assets for clients in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. The firm employs more than 8,500 talented professionals and maintains offices in 24 countries around the world. Our client base includes corporate, public, union and industry pension plans; governments; insurance companies; third-party mutual funds; endowments; foundations; charities; corporations; official institutions; sovereign wealth funds; banks; financial professionals; and individuals worldwide.

[my emphasis]

http://www2.blackrock.com/global/home/AboutUs/index.htm

How about the Scottish Widows Investment Partnership Limited with 81 million shares? I just know they are just a bunch of greedy Capitalists who are only interested in profits.

I guess there will be a government bailout of BP, after all.