BP in Perspective

[Bruce Gourley]

Since there have been some discussions about BP of late, I find it interesting that a number of historians have argued that big corporations have essentially "run" the government since the early 1970s (with taxpayer money oftentimes), and as a part of the preeminence of big corporations in America, many industries (including Big Oil) have been allowed to in essence police themselves for many years. And now the fallacy of the corporation-over-government model has come home to roost in the Gulf. The oil industry, long left to its own devices essentially, was too self-absorbed and greedy to think about catastrophic failure ... while the government was essentially shoving money to the oil industry and allowing them to write their own rules (which, come to think about it, also describes the recent meltdown on Wall Street).

So, we have a situation for which no one really knows the solution.

The take-away from this, I hope, will be a reversal over the unsustainable corporation-over-government model.

[Michael]

Given the board we are on, Bruce, I thought you were talking about Baptist Press!

[KeithE]

It is painfully obvious to me that big business (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin) run the business I'm in. Just try to point out some efficiencies (or new technologies) possible with moderate or small sized businesses and you quickly find yourself ignored. I could tell many, many stories to back this up. And yes I have worked for both Lockheed and Martin (pre-merger) and I have worked at Boeing (though not for Boeing) and for small/moderate sized businesses.

[Chris]

[Howard V]

Just a couple of thoughts [on deep ocean oil drilling and the financial melt down].

Is it not true that the oil companies have had to venture into very deep water to drill for oil because they have been forced off the more shallow shelf by environmental concerns? Drilling on the ocean floor a mile below the ocean surface is complicated and full of many risks.

I find it very interesting that the financial crisis, being blamed on the banks, was primed by government regulations which, in essence, forced banks and lending agencies to make loans to people who did not have the means to repay the loans. The same people in congress now castigating the banks were in the forefront of the legislation forcing the banks into the impossible situation which caused the failure.

Neither banks nor oil companies are without their greed. And neither is the government.

Howard

[KeithE]

[Jim]

A far more serious look: .

[KeithE]

[Jim]

Try this:

[KeithE]

[ET]

[ET]

[Jim]

One could go and on listing the dysfunctions of Obama’s presidency, especially noting the czars who apparantly can bypass cabinet secretaries in decision-making and the nearly hysterical push to take over industry, banking, and other financial institutions while planning for more takeovers. Strangely, Obama has a “plantation mentality,” i.e., government as benevolent slave-master. As he drives the nation toward bankruptcy, perhaps even the members of his own party will awaken to the fact that they’ve been had, actually admitting their compliant incompentency. Then at least hopefully, things will actually CHANGE. Don't hold your breath. The only hope is in elections.

With the chance to make the first African-American presidency a superb endeavor, Obama up to this point has completely blown it, accepting victimhood as the ideal human condition and apparently never realizing how most Americans (labor and management) despise that concept. The tipoff on his approach came in the campaign when he promised that electricity rates would skyrocket in his presidency. The House, without any member reading the bill, began fulfilling that promise but the Senate has put it aside, realizing in an election year the foolhardiness of cap/trade, perhaps even realizing that global warming is not even slightly affected by people. Again, don't hold your breath. November will tell.

[Jim]

The rumor seems to be holding that, according to all the best data available, Obamessiah colluded with BP, Halliburton, and Osamessiah bin Laden in planning and carrying out the Gulf oil-well explosion in which 11 people died and many others were injured. According to more data now being developed, the toxic oil is supposed to kill at least some 3,000 more people in a few weeks as it permeates the shorelines of four states. However, the bureaucrats/analysts at NSA, FBI, CIA, DEA, USA, USN, USMC, USCG, and the 9th precinct have decided not to connect the dots since the Bush administration left no dots to be connected, their spy agencies having failed to see this catastrophe in the planning and are therefore culpable. Motive has been established, however, by the CIA of Uzbekistan, to wit, that the administration now has $20 billion in the bank to be doled out by the administration’s pay czar posing as an objective third party and the rumor is, according to data from various intel sources in Tajikistan, that yachts, mansions, and private golf courses are being purchased in quantity throughout Europe and Asia by U.S. government officials, who are preparing further data indicating that no such purchases have even been contemplated, much less activated, and that no more purchases will be made.

Retired General Wesley Clark and former CBS guru Dan Rather are in the process of proving, however, that the Bush/Cheney/Osama/Halliburton cabal that brought on the WTC catastrophe of 9/11 is responsible for the oil-attack on the beaches and Rather is in possession of a document prepared on a Texas Air National Guard word-processor of 2000 proving that Bush was preparing this explosion long before the well was even drilled. Data that’s being suppressed unsuccessfully indicates that sonar at Pensacola picked up an ultra-sound recording of “God **** America” with a Southside Chicago accent just before some suicide/homicide bombers apparently flew their submarine into the spill cutoff at the base of the well, rendering it useless. According to White House data, the president has declared that BP acted stupidly and has promised, in between giving speeches, to read the reports proving that to be the case.

[Chris]

If I owned a home in any of the cities and towns along US-90 between Houston and Pensacola......I wonder how much my house and land has depreciated in the past 4 months. Has anyone seen figures?

I keep hearing that BP is helping people whose businesses have been ruined....but what if I have to sell my house and/or land for 75% of what I owe on it. Is BP going to fix that?