"the more spills change... the more they stay the same... "

Started by auroraChloe, June 06, 2010, 11:52:07 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

auroraChloe

except for the depth of course...

not really a great debater or anything, and i don't care if you like Rachel Maddow or not... 
this is just an FYI as to the precedent set before a lot of E people were even born.  yikes.

Rachel Maddow- The more spills change_ the more they stay the same



my thoughts on BP's recovery efforts...  regaining the use of the well and oil is more important than an actual immediate end to the disastrous flow.
i could be wrong of course, but i don't doubt it came up in their meetings. 

(ps... i hope i put this in the right section)

a/a 8/21/17

Tambit

I knew about the Ixtoc but I didn't know it was so damn similar.  Holy monkey balls!  That's ridiculous!  I think we need to drain the profits out of every single oil company and put that money towards cleaning this up, making better forms of energy, paying for the lives they've destroyed, and developing technologies to prevent this mess.

The most ridiculous part?  BP makes well over 100 million in profit daily.  so they've spent 1.5 billion on this, right?  15 days of profit?!  This should HURT them, it should be a YEAR or 15 of profit.  The deepwater horizon cost as much to build as they've put towards cleaning it.

Vekseid

They make closer to 50 million in profit per day.  They've probably spent closer to $2 billion on cleanup and containment at this point, and have agreed to set aside $20 billion into a fund to pay damages. From the stats I could look up, they had less than $7b in cash on hand at the start of this mess.

This doesn't excuse their willful obstruction of volunteer efforts or the media of course, but given they are a publicly traded company who backs a significant portion of Britain's pension system, their complete disruption is probably not an option.

I'm more disgusted at the portions of Congress and the Senate who are still trying to shill for them.

auroraChloe

Quote from: Vekseid on June 19, 2010, 12:30:18 PM
I'm more disgusted at the portions of Congress and the Senate who are still trying to shill for them.

exactly.  f'ing traitors. 

a/a 8/21/17

Wolfy

And the more idiots that never change, the more money BP keeps making.

>_> Seriously..they've already shown that they don't give a damn about the Gulf, or any of the Wildlife and Human lives that are effected by it. I say they all need to be fired and replaced.

Zakharra

Quote from: Wolfy on June 21, 2010, 12:59:55 AM
And the more idiots that never change, the more money BP keeps making.

>_> Seriously..they've already shown that they don't give a damn about the Gulf, or any of the Wildlife and Human lives that are effected by it. I say they all need to be fired and replaced.

Their actions state otherwise.  Are they showing a lack of care we'd want them to show? Yes. But they DO care. This is hurting them badly and they are loosing a  lot of oil that was potential money every single day. They care for the PR aspect at the least. Unfortunately this leak is so deep, it's hard to get too.

Congress cannot do much other than fine them or yank their permit to drill in US waters.

auroraChloe

Quote from: Zakharra on June 21, 2010, 12:16:11 PM
Their actions state otherwise.  Are they showing a lack of care we'd want them to show? Yes. But they DO care. This is hurting them badly and they are loosing a  lot of oil that was potential money every single day. They care for the PR aspect at the least. Unfortunately this leak is so deep, it's hard to get too.

Congress cannot do much other than fine them or yank their permit to drill in US waters.


it's also hurting Britain as a whole it seems. 
a friend in the UK told me he's not happy with their flag being trounced upon.  i've not seen that on our news but they have. 
and i think BP is some how linked to the nations retirement fund. 

a/a 8/21/17

Vekseid

They're still obstructing volunteer efforts and the media, lying to Congress and and happily let Fox News and Sky Networks give them the reacharound, all to improve their short term image.

Of course they care. Everyone sane wants this problem to simply vanish. That doesn't change their actions or their priorities.

Caela

Of course BP gives a damn, if for no other reason than because their profits are flowing out into the water every day. All that oil in the Gulf, and reaching the shore is money down the drain for them.

As for the volunteer thing, I can actually sort of see BP's point in not wanting them. They are already going to be shelling out millions upon millions of dollars to people effected by this spill. From the families of men who died in the explosion, to people that will be making claims on them due to their businesses being negatively impacted by it and many more I'm sure. If they took on volunteers (as opposed to trained contract employees who will, likely, have signed dozens of waivers) they would most likely be looking at even more lawsuits when those people became sick because the crap hitting shore is toxic. Granted many of the people trying to volunteer are already trained but it takes a lot of time (and more money) to check the qualifications of nearly 8000 people trying to volunteer when you can simply turn and hire contractors at a much faster rate without having to do all the extra background paperwork.

BP screwed up, and screwed up badly but I'd like to see the gov't stop trying to only demonize BP. They named four other companies as, at least partially, at fault and they themselves should be carrying some of the blame to. The MMS gave BP the permits to put up a rig in such a manner as to make it unsafe, where are the people who signed those permits and why aren't they being dragged through as much shit as BP?

Vekseid

For the same reasons individuals at BP aren't being held individually responsible yet.

Welcome to politics, where you deal with people who are in place to solve the problem, not paragons of virtue.

Caela

Quote from: Vekseid on June 21, 2010, 02:19:14 PM
For the same reasons individuals at BP aren't being held individually responsible yet.

Welcome to politics, where you deal with people who are in place to solve the problem, not paragons of virtue.

Hehehe..I get that you deal with real people, not saints when dealing with business and politics. My point was simply that there's a lot of blame to go around and it's all pretty much being dumped on BP. There's plenty to share.

Vekseid

Transocean's issues with rig safety are certainly a matter of interest, as is Halliburton's complacency in working with BP's accelerated schedule and a desire to shave a few million dollars off a well that would give them billions. BP owns 65% of the well, Anadarko 25% and Mitsui's corporate stooge MOEX 10%. The Bush administration deserves a share of blame for putting MMS in this shape and the Obama administration for not cleaning it up. Out of all of these, the only group I haven't seen take any public heat is MOEX. Most of it is being given to BP, with MMS coming in second, and Transocean third.

It's difficult to work out 'percentages of blame', here, but a couple of things come to mind.
- In terms of regulatory blame, that's entirely a political situation. In an honest media environment (of which we are desperately lacking) there would be a genuine expose on how MMS got to where it is, who needs to be sacked, who needs to have their ill-gotten gains seized, etc. But no amount of money extorted from these people will fix the problem, for one, and two, the reality is that they should not have to exist. We need them as a safeguard against crap like this - but all that means is that shield failed.

- That leaves the five companies involved. There's a bit of a clean divide, here - there's the fault of the rig explosion itself (divided between Transocean and BP some way), and the fault of the failed blowout prevention at the well (BP, Halliburton, Anadarko, and MOEX). BP owns 65% of the well, and had the lion's share of the say in its development. The other three are going to fight hard to paint themselves in an innocent light, but that will be a matter for the courts to decide over the next years. The cleanup and containment needs to happen anyway.


Trieste

I had thought they sacked the head of the MMS and are now dividing it into two sections. It may not be the ass-whipping they deserve, but they're not being ignored.

auroraChloe

haliburton?  *shudders*  isn't that dick cheney's baby.  pretty soon blackwater will be guarding the shoreline from citizens. 
... and the jamoke who apologized to bp is linked to transocean and it's profits.
 
yeah, the blame train is adding cars.

a/a 8/21/17

Vekseid

Quote from: Trieste on June 21, 2010, 03:39:19 PM
I had thought they sacked the head of the MMS and are now dividing it into two sections. It may not be the ass-whipping they deserve, but they're not being ignored.

The split is still ongoing. It takes time to shift bureaucracies around.

consortium11

Quote from: auroraChloe on June 21, 2010, 12:20:31 PM

it's also hurting Britain as a whole it seems. 
a friend in the UK told me he's not happy with their flag being trounced upon.  i've not seen that on our news but they have. 
and i think BP is some how linked to the nations retirement fund.

There's a whole load of stuff with the UK/US at the moment and the way Obama's handled the situation falls right into the script of the, at the very minimum, regular insults to Britain from the US Administration which could also be seen as outright hostility. The constant use of British Petroleum as the name if not by Obama than by those close to him, the very harsh language about BP while the US companies are escaping relatively lightly... especially considering that the Bhopal Gas Tragedy was in the news at the same time. It all adds up.

It's not that BP are linked to the nation's retirement fund, it's that almost all pension funds invest in BP due to their dividend policy and general profitably. Obviously shareholders expect the shareprice to drop significantly and any dividends to be reduced but when they see someone seemingly trying to deliberately demonise BP for political gain (and the benefit of US companies) it sort of rankles.

In and of itself it would be perhaps more understandable, but put in the context of the regular insults by the Obama US to the UK it starts to look pretty bad...

Vekseid

Quote from: consortium11 on June 21, 2010, 07:11:49 PM
There's a whole load of stuff with the UK/US at the moment and the way Obama's handled the situation falls right into the script of the, at the very minimum, regular insults to Britain from the US Administration which could also be seen as outright hostility. The constant use of British Petroleum as the name if not by Obama than by those close to him, the very harsh language about BP while the US companies are escaping relatively lightly... especially considering that the Bhopal Gas Tragedy was in the news at the same time. It all adds up.

Now you're sounding like a conspiracy theorist. Is anyone but Sky News and Murdoch's collection of lying corporate shills pushing that bullshit?

Transocean is not American. MOEX is not American. Halliburton is getting accused of blame outside of Murdoch's collection of lying corporate shills. As in the same collection of lying corporate shills that sued for and won the right to lie to its own audience, Fox News. Liberals are assigning partial blame to Anadarko as well.

That leaves the only stakeholder involved that isn't getting significant heat for the spill to be MOEX. Which... is Japanese. Ultimately, however, British Petroleum had a 65% stake and was responsible for the decisionmaking, BP has a 65% responsibility - minimum - for the cleanup. Mitsui can afford a 10% share of the losses, if Anadarko ends up paying 25% they will be destroyed. It is quite possible that neither will be found responsible. It is quite possible that Halliburton will genuinely be found legally innocent.

What is not at all possible, is for British Petroleum to be absolved of even a majority of the blame. The best they can possibly hope for is for Transocean to take full blame for the rig explosion (highly unlikely), and for Halliburton rather than BP not to be found criminally liable for the wellhead (looking less likely each week). In that miraculously advantageous scenario, BP is still going to be responsible for more than 60% of all costs associated with this.

So that line of argument is, put simply, so patently false as to be delusional. The only people pushing it are those who are actively trying to drive up tension.

consortium11

Quote from: Vekseid on June 21, 2010, 07:41:19 PM
Now you're sounding like a conspiracy theorist. Is anyone but Sky News and Murdoch's collection of lying corporate shills pushing that bullshit?

Transocean is not American. MOEX is not American. Halliburton is getting accused of blame outside of Murdoch's collection of lying corporate shills. As in the same collection of lying corporate shills that sued for and won the right to lie to its own audience, Fox News. Liberals are assigning partial blame to Anadarko as well.

That leaves the only stakeholder involved that isn't getting significant heat for the spill to be MOEX. Which... is Japanese. Ultimately, however, British Petroleum had a 65% stake and was responsible for the decisionmaking, BP has a 65% responsibility - minimum - for the cleanup. Mitsui can afford a 10% share of the losses, if Anadarko ends up paying 25% they will be destroyed. It is quite possible that neither will be found responsible. It is quite possible that Halliburton will genuinely be found legally innocent.

What is not at all possible, is for British Petroleum to be absolved of even a majority of the blame. The best they can possibly hope for is for Transocean to take full blame for the rig explosion (highly unlikely), and for Halliburton rather than BP not to be found criminally liable for the wellhead (looking less likely each week). In that miraculously advantageous scenario, BP is still going to be responsible for more than 60% of all costs associated with this.

So that line of argument is, put simply, so patently false as to be delusional. The only people pushing it are those who are actively trying to drive up tension.
b

I'm not trying to absolve BP of blame here... of course they should be on the hook for the majority of claims and costs and, despite several moves seemingly to block free investigation and help, they've done a relatively good jo of accepting responsibility prior to the political pressure heaped on them.

The point is more why people in the UK are looking at this pretty negatively. The Obama administrations dealings with the UK have been pretty poor since he came into power: from the relatively minor/farcical events (returning Churchill's bust, a gift of DVD's that may or may not work in the UK) to the slightly more serious (Obama constantly avoiding meetings with Brown while having time for 1 on 1 meetings with the leaders of Japan, China and Russia, the lack of a joint press conference on the official visit) to the genuinely hostile; this administrations position on the Falklands...

And now you have Obama administration using a name for a company that is a decade out of date that emphasises the company is British, using exceptionally hostile language and mentioning criminal charges (while still blocking the moves that would lead to the prosecution of US company officers whose industrial accident led to the deaths of 10,000 plus) in actions that will almost directly lower the value of UK pensions... it's not a surprise really that people on this side of the pond are thinking "hold on... there's something a little strange here..."

Vekseid

Quote from: consortium11 on June 21, 2010, 08:10:22 PM
I'm not trying to absolve BP of blame here... of course they should be on the hook for the majority of claims and costs and, despite several moves seemingly to block free investigation and help, they've done a relatively good jo of accepting responsibility prior to the political pressure heaped on them.

That's a bit spurious. They are still working to downplay the magnitude of this, which our administration foolishly took at face value, delaying proper mobilization.

Obama's naivette regarding executive experience aside - BP still lied about the magnitude of what was coming. It still is.

Quote
The point is more why people in the UK are looking at this pretty negatively. The Obama administrations dealings with the UK have been pretty poor since he came into power: from the relatively minor/farcical events (returning Churchill's bust, a gift of DVD's that may or may not work in the UK) to the slightly more serious (Obama constantly avoiding meetings with Brown

What?

All I can find about this is Obama not giving Brown a proper welcome weeks after he assumed office. Given the clusterfuck he inherited, uh, what?

Quote
while having time for 1 on 1 meetings with the leaders of Japan, China and Russia, the lack of a joint press conference on the official visit) to the genuinely hostile; this administrations position on the Falklands...

Genuinely hostile would be an intent to intervene. I wonder how Fox News (again, the same company pushing this sort of language on your side of the pond) would have reacted if he did. (Edit: Did support Britain's claim, I mean)

Quote
And now you have Obama administration using a name for a company that is a decade out of date that emphasises the company is British

This is a linguistic tendency and has little to do with intent, claiming otherwise is - again - simply delusional. It originally stood for British Petroleum, it is still headquartered on the British Isles. They are naturally going to get interchanged. It might get used as a political stick against Rand Paul and others shilling for them, but it has nothing to do with hostility to the British people.

This is the 21st century, for crying out loud.

Quote
, using exceptionally hostile language and mentioning criminal charges (while still blocking the moves that would lead to the prosecution of US company officers whose industrial accident led to the deaths of 10,000 plus) in actions that will almost directly lower the value of UK pensions... it's not a surprise really that people on this side of the pond are thinking "hold on... there's something a little strange here..."

25 years ago - so claiming that judicial obstruction for Dow Chemical is an Obama administration problem is simply false.

We let BP off the hook for leading to the deaths of American citizens, as well. We turned a blind eye to their genuinely abysmal safety record, and let them be the suppliers of oil to our military despite it all.

And comparing this to the deaths ten thousand people over two decades ago is a sick, twisted, disgusting joke. Ignoring the two wrongs != right angle, ignoring the fact that we did put up with BP's negligence in killing our citizens, ignoring the inherently sick nature of trading death and suffering for death and pain...

...it shows a stunning lack of comprehension of the scale involved. Ten thousand. Seriously? Do you have no clue at all of the magnitude of what is going on in the Gulf? British people typically accuse Americans of having no sense of perspective. "Well, it's only a third of your coastline!" ... that thirty million people depend on.

If some private group wrecked London, how would you react if I turned around and pointed to one of Britain's atrocities in the past?

I seriously find it difficult to express the scale of my incredulity.

Trieste

Easy, easy...

Consortium, the name change was not highly publicized and not widely known. I didn't even know they had changed their name until I read something on the oil spill itself that referenced "Beyond Petroleum" and got confused. Going to investigate, I found that British Petroleum had changed their name. It's not malice, it's not a deliberate attempt to smear the descriptor, 'British'. It's misinformation.

As far as the pension system, I understand why it may have seemed like a good idea at the time, and possibly the investments in BP have saved said system from bankruptcy. However, if you invest in an oil company, then you run the risk of getting burned when there is an oil spill, or a leak, or some other thing. Don't tell me nobody could have conceived of this before; we know the effects of oil on the environment, and England itself is subject to intermittent spills, albeit on a smaller scale. There are people whose job it is to think of these eventualities - they are the emergency planners, the oversight committees, and certainly the people who invested public money (if I'm understanding correctly) into a private company should have taken a long look at the risks before doing so. If you're going to reap the benefit, you really do have to deal with the risks. I'm just sorry that it's a lot of retirees who have to feel the effects of the risks. It should be the people responsible for the fund in the first place.

While we have a responsibility to pay respects to other countries, I don't really expect Obama to give two thoughts about Brown coming into office right now, and I doubt many of his other constituents do either. I expect him to clean up his back yard first, and then he can make nice with the neighbors. Really, would you expect any different from your leaders? We elect people that we expect will put our country, our interests, our safety, our needs before those of another country, especially over a matter as small as welcoming someone into office. Come on, now.

Asuras

This is just a fact that may be interesting to throw in:

Markets are betting that BP has a 36% chance of going bankrupt within the next five years, up from 7 percent a month ago.

Vekseid

Trieste, Cameron is replacing Brown. Brown was in charge beginning in 2009, with all the gift gaffes... I'm not sure how often those occur, though. There are thousands of minor disputes between the US and the UK.

BP going bankrupt... if containment fails and the relief wells fail, heads are going to roll, hard, fast, and often. I think also at some point we need to acknowledge - and address - the thoroughly rank corruption of our media.

Trieste

Quote from: Vekseid on June 22, 2010, 01:30:41 AM
Trieste, Cameron is replacing Brown. Brown was in charge beginning in 2009, with all the gift gaffes... I'm not sure how often those occur, though. There are thousands of minor disputes between the US and the UK.

'Pologies, I didn't bother to Google before I posted. However, it makes even less sense to still be worried about it a year later. O_o

*shrugs*

RoxasZhou

Truly for this large of an event i do not understand why they do not take suggestions given by the common people. In a science class for my little cousin they watched a video of a lady pouring a liquid into oil mixed with water, the oil rose to the top and froze, creating a brick of oil. Also a clear chemical that can cause oils to be forced to stop in one area when blocked off by a large coating

auroraChloe

Quote from: RoxasZhou on June 22, 2010, 11:19:05 PM
Truly for this large of an event i do not understand why they do not take suggestions given by the common people. In a science class for my little cousin they watched a video of a lady pouring a liquid into oil mixed with water, the oil rose to the top and froze, creating a brick of oil. Also a clear chemical that can cause oils to be forced to stop in one area when blocked off by a large coating

then the issue is, how will the 'cure' effect the ecosystems.
i am not arguing against considering all options, just raising the question as i'm sure others have.          :-\

a/a 8/21/17