Re: Obama gearing up to sieze BP?

[Guest guest]

You have rather more faith in government and the lobbyists that I do. Keep in mind that a lot of these oil companies are also moving into "alternative" energy sources as well and are counting on Cap and Trade to be passed so they can make vast, imaginary profits by trading carbon credits. This will not only profit them directly but indirectly as energy costs rise, and thirdly by the government contracts to build the windmills and other silly things.

I agree about what BP should do. BP should have agreed only to pay for the clean up which is all they are responsible for. The government has a vast welfare system that could handle the people put out of work and it could also bail out the small businesses that are in trouble. I agree that BP could either shut down or sell its US assets. It would be interesting to see who would actually buy them since doing so would entail accepting responsibility for the spill site as well. Then again, maybe government could take over that particular site and show its superior ability and wisdom by plugging the spill without expert guidance. Like that panel they just recently set up, the one with one engineer (who's specialty is optics) and 6 policy and management wonks: maybe they could set up a committee of policy people to legislate and regulate the spill into stopping. Knowing government they would drag it out for the 3 or 4 years it will take for the field to empty completely then smugly claim credit for ending the spill themselves.

In a message dated 6/23/2010 11:20:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

I don't think they will seize BP or any portion of it for the simple reason that oil company lobbyists are too powerful in Washington, as are lobbyists for the New York Stock Exchange.

[Guest guest]

I don't think they will seize BP or any portion of it for the simple reason that

oil company lobbyists are too powerful in Washington, as are lobbyists for the

New York Stock Exchange.

When they talk about seizing dividends meant to go to shareholders, they are

talking about dividends that will be going to hundreds of thousands of people if

not millions. Dividends don't just go to people who hold stocks, but to people

who own mutual funds which have BP stocks in them.

Seize those dividends and a large number of people will see a significant

portion of their quarterly income fall.

What BP ought to do is sue the government for defamation. Everyone knows the

government did not enforce its own regulation that special valves be installed

on the sea floor to cut off the flow of oil during accidents, and now the

government is trying to make it look like it is all BP's fault. BP could take

its innings and give it to people who lost their livlihood as a charitable

donation.

Then it could sell its company or shut it down to demonstrate to US citizens

that the US isn't worth living in anymore.

Administrator

It certainly looks like they are, given the quotes in this article. Simply they

are going to try to play up the emotions of the undereducated sheeple so they

can pass laws to legalize the theft of the an entire multinational company. That

happened in Atlas Shrugged, the government passing laws to make its stealing

legal. I wonder if they do this how long other foreign multinationals will keep

working in the US or how fast foreign investment will flee our shores? For that

matter, how long before England gets a little payback and demands we pay up for

the debt of ours it holds, and not with dollars which will be worthless by that

time, but gold or other things of value? Then Japan and China?

[Guest guest]

The sabre rattling by government officials over this business is just that. Most

of the people yammering at BP have investments in the energy sector, which is

one of the most lucrative areas of investment today. They are not going to

jeopardize that by squashing the people providing them with dividends.

Also, the carbon credits thing is politically useful. Huge energy companies

which are notorious for leaving a large carbon footprint have bought up vast

tracts of rainforest in politically unstable countries, thereby preventing

modernization and development in those areas.

Keep these countries economically suppressed and the result is less of a need to

intervene in the short term. You might see some coups and overthrows in these

paltry countries, but you won;t see them acquiring weapons of mass destruction

either.

Administrator

You have rather more faith in government and the lobbyists that I do. Keep in

mind that a lot of these oil companies are also moving into " alternative " energy

sources as well and are counting on Cap and Trade to be passed so they can make

vast, imaginary profits by trading carbon credits. This will not only profit

them directly but indirectly as energy costs rise, and thirdly by the government

contracts to build the windmills and other silly things.

[Guest guest]

What it is is a essentially a tax. In a ay, it's worth it, because vast sectors

of land will be set aside for growth of greenery which will soak up carbon.

However, the areas producing the carbon will continue to produce it, and there

will more likely than not be an INCREASE of carbon emissions in those areas.

I watched a PBS show on this and many of the local tribesman in the Amazon have

been told they can no longer harvest trees and grow crops because of this. They

don't understand why, of course, and are having trouble with their governments.

Wait a while and the governments in these countries will eventually raise a

stink, being unable to sell wood or mine for ore, or grow crops hich are their

primary sources of trade.

Administrator

Carbon trading has not worked well in Europe. In fact, I've seen a number of

articles that say the biggest beneficiaries have been organized crime and a

handful of the super rich. At the same time, they have done nothing to cut

carbon emissions. Since the trading board for the US will be located in Chicago,

you know that's going to be crooked as 9 miles of bad road. Lots of people are

going to become overnight billionaires on that market while the rest of us get

much higher prices for energy and everything else. Its the evil version of the

rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer like they used to say about

Reagan.