Blame game begins, law suits have started. yay :(
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Blame game begins, law suits have started. yay :(
Well, all you shrimp and oyster lovers....better get 'em now while you can!
:(
Socialism is OK if it helps corporations, you see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
Make the friggin oil companies buy insurance to pay for their mess ups. Then the market takes care of the risk, like it should.
I somehow doubt that BP will need a bailout...
Do you think BP and Transocean can pay for the whole clean-up? Reimburse the Coast Guard, the environmental groups, the fishermen, etc?
You already said they're facing numerous lawsuits...it's not like they're tight on cash.
But make them pay for the damages. ALL of them. Oh yes, make them pay. MUAhahaha!
I don't think they have enough liability insurance to cover the costs. They'd have to go bankrupt, or the insurers would.
I don't think they go bankrupt that easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
I guess we'll find out! The oyster industry is saying it may take 20 years to get back to normal. Something like 60% of our domestic fish industry is in that region.
Bankrupt? BP had an operating revenue of $240 billion in 2009. I think not.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Yeah, all BP has to pay is $75 million plus clean up.
Taxpayers pick up the rest...Quote:
Under the law that established the reserve, called the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the operators of the offshore rig face no more than $75 million in liability for the damages that might be claimed by individuals, companies or the government, although they are responsible for the cost of containing and cleaning up the spill.
Rainy day fund with limits, huh. From a tax that consumers ultimately pay. :rolleyes:
Funny thing about "insurance"....it doesn't make things safer or better or less risky. Quite the opposite. Aren't we clever?
edit: Florida alone attracts 80 million tourists that spend 60 billion. Per year. Add in the fishing industry and commerce ports, LA and Alabama....what a mess.
BP is laying down chemicals from the air, to make the oil sink. But that's going to kill the shrimp and oyster beds, and effect coral reefs. Not to mention the chemicals the fish and birds will ingest. There's no way to boom the whole Gulf, but the oil has spread three times its size in just two days. It's now larger than the size of Puerto Rico.
:(
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100503/...gulf_oil_spill
Evil corporations.
Hola from the Dominican Republic! Ah! No oil in the sea aqui'!
Yeah, I wonder why they are making certain people understand it's not their fault. :bulb:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Quote:
BP CEO Tony Hayward said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that BP was not responsible for the accident. He said the equipment that failed and led to the spill belonged to owner Transocean Ltd., not BP, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig.
It's my fualt. kY!
BP also tried to get the fishermen to sign hold-harmless indemnity clauses, in order to work in the oil clean-up. Nice.
Maybe because it might not be? :bulb:Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
He said the equipment that failed and led to the spill belonged to owner Transocean Ltd., not BP, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Whose responsibility was it to have contingency plans and the best equipment?
I'm sure that question will take 8 years, and $50 million in legal fees to sort out.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
This question comes up in the IT world a lot, and frankly, it usually comes down to which side paid the better lawyer to craft the contract.
Whose responsibility was it to keep the hardware in a non-obsolescent state, and when it fails, who's got the better techies to blame the hardware or the IT service provided. In an ideal world, IMO, the person who provides the hardware is responsible if the hardware fails (or explodes and kills 11 people and dumps millions of barrels of oil into the sea, for example), and the person who operates it is only responsible if the failure is a result of sloppy operations/lack of maintenance, etc.
In this case, as it looks like "Transocean Ltd." didn't even have the legally mandated equipment on the rig to prevent this type of massive oil spill... my money's on the failure being a result of them cheaping out on hardware, and not on BP somehow "operating" the rig negligently. But who knows for sure? Well figure it out sometime after 2015, after millions of dollars have been wasted tying up the court system examining the finer minutia of contract law. <shudder>
Yippie, democracy, or something.
If Transocean was completely honest about the state of their equipment when they leased it to BP, BP has (at least some of) the blame. If you get crappy equipment, it's also your fault if it breaks. And it's not like BP has a very good track record for safety.. But that would indeed be a fun court battle in the future.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
My point is that even after stating that they will pay they probably won't. From now on we should force the owners of the rigs to carry enough insurance to cover a major screw-up like this. The existing $1.6 billion policy isn't going to come close to covering the costs and since the policy is carried by the US government, guess who is going to pay.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
No one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
Everyone knows that things paid for with public funds are "free." Like "free" health care, and "free" retirement funds, and "free" unemployment insurance.
Frankly, you should be excited that the US is getting billions of dollars in "free" services out of this disaster. :o
Giving not getting.Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
Being, what that means is that he doesn't have an answer for the massive bailout of BP that is coming, so it's better just to make fun of the government.
The problem is what choice do governments have? They get nailed for billions in an accident like this, but it's not as if they can just act. The livelihood of multiple states depends on it, so the feds and local states will spend Carl Sagan numbers. They may recuperate some through lawsuits, but probably not full costs. And that won't help the many citizens who lose their livelihoods.
But, you know, drill baby, drill!
What's ironic is that you whine as much about America's dependence on foreign oil. :rolleyes:
Obvious solution would be to depend less on oil, in general!Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Please. Like the government has ever given half a shit about that. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
I remember you bitching (at the other place) about how Americans driving SUVs indirectly fund terrorism.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
So, pick your poison. "Drill, baby drill," or fund terrorism. As much as you like to have it both ways, you can't.
So, you're willing to pay (at least) 5 times more for energy, and do away with plastics?Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Right, that's why not depending on oil isn't exactly a feasible solution. Energy rich, versatile substances don't just fall from the sky, you know (well, not since that whole cold fusion thing was discredited, anyway :().
Oh, the Irony.
Quote:
The Boca Raton meeting first bore fruit when Exxon needed to open a line of credit to cover potential damages of five billion dollars resulting from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. J. P. Morgan was reluctant to turn down Exxon, which was an old client, but the deal would tie up a lot of reserve cash to provide for the risk of the loans going bad. The so-called Basel rules, named for the town in Switzerland where they were formulated, required that the banks hold eight per cent of their capital in reserve against the risk of outstanding loans. That limited the amount of lending bankers could do, the amount of risk they could take on, and therefore the amount of profit they could make. But, if the risk of the loans could be sold, it logically followed that the loans were now risk-free; and, if that were the case, what would have been the reserve cash could now be freely loaned out. No need to suck up useful capital.
In late 1994, Blythe Masters, a member of the J. P. Morgan swaps team, pitched the idea of selling the credit risk to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. So, if Exxon defaulted, the E.B.R.D. would be on the hook for it—and, in return for taking on the risk, would receive a fee from J. P. Morgan. Exxon would get its credit line, and J. P. Morgan would get to honor its client relationship but also to keep its credit lines intact for sexier activities. The deal was so new that it didn’t even have a name: eventually, the one settled on was “credit-default swap.”
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...#ixzz0mv01E3JD
Too bad that regardless of how much we funded alternate sources of energy, we'd be dependent on foreign oil in the short-to-medium term. Should we become even more dependent on it by cutting our own supplies?Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Haha, they call it town and not city. I have to show this to some guys from Basel :-)Quote:
The so-called Basel rules, named for the town in Switzerland where they were formulated...
Or, it doesn't happen and we just get more unemployed people and we pay more for energy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
Trimming a bird's wings (so it can't fly) won't make it evolve and develop a fusion jet pack.
Actually, I read an article that BP is on the hook for a majority of it, but the other partner doesn't seem like it will have the cash to pay for its obligation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
There is also the maker of the mechanism that automatically stops the oil if there's an accident (which didn't work).
There are also the insurance companies for all the above companies.
They are all on the line for this and all their stocks have plummeted.
I read that BP has lost 20 billion in stock valuation already, which is higher than even the most radical current estimates on the cost to the entire US economy (according to those estimates that I read...).
I said less, not independent! :p But yeah, it's problematic and definitely not short term. Paying more should be expected anyway though. Too bad about the cold fusion. I did some research in a type of actual, working fusion at (very) low temperatures.. The stuff works, but it is fundamentally limited to be about one order of a magnitude less efficient than needed for economic breakthrough. So close, but just out of reach... :(Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
True, and no you shouldn't. But you should regulate it well to prevent stuff like this, and make sure that they are enforced. And that's not happening right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
It's a story from the New Yawker, written like a novel to be readable. Saying "city in Switzerland" sounds sing-song, silly. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
Insurance: the great enabler for Risky behavior and monetizing loss as gain. :cheerleader:Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Latest plan to suck up the leaking oil and stop the spread ...
A 98 ton, 12 metre metal funnel. BP reckons it'll capture around 85% of the leaking oil, but has never deployed a funnel down to a depth of 5,000ft before.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image..._image_466.gif
BP aims to have it in place by the end of the week.
That's because you guys don't have cities. You all live in quaint little alpine villages, sipping hot cocoa.Quote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
edit: I just checked. Calling Basel a city and not just a large town is questionable. It doesn't even break 200k.
They've built a couple of these metal and concrete funnels. Gotta wonder how they'll guide it down so deep, and if the pressures of basically an oil volcano won't stymie the effort. Wouldn't the oil just collect faster at the bottom and push its way down or under? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
So, we can refer to any argument you formulate as "whining" as well? Yay!Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Don't troll, Loki.
So because of your enending cynicism about governments and their intents, the rest of us need to discuss world events by viewing the world through some sort of "Cain lens?"Quote:
Originally Posted by CitizenCain
Which is beside the point, since I was discussing the results of the accident, not some intent or action of the government. But good red herring! :up:
And I remember you, Loki and others saying that increasing offshore drilling would hardly alter the oil supply in the US. It's a pittance. So actually I CAN have it both ways. We've known that oil from certain countries was very bad for our foreign policy and economy since at least the late 70s, and politicians have avoided doing anything about it. In fact, we might as well have had the bumper stickers for the winning presidential ticket in 2000 and 2004 be "Exxon/Mobil 2000."Quote:
I remember you bitching (at the other place) about how Americans driving SUVs indirectly fund terrorism.
So, pick your poison. "Drill, baby drill," or fund terrorism. As much as you like to have it both ways, you can't.
Don't be hypocritical!
You pooped that out so fast it barely touched your colon! 5x? Really?Quote:
So, you're willing to pay (at least) 5 times more for energy, and do away with plastics?
And how do you justify the GOP blocking most funding of alternative energy sources for decades? I call it campaign financing. Our foreign policy was radically distorted due to political influence. :up:Quote:
Right, that's why not depending on oil isn't exactly a feasible solution. Energy rich, versatile substances don't just fall from the sky, you know (well, not since that whole cold fusion thing was discredited, anyway :().
Though, as usual, it must be said that the Dems have done some too. The Reps being "more of the same," really. But the GOP has been the major block to research positioning ourselves to be at the forefront of future energy technologies, as well as blocking any domestic efforts at fuel economy. We're talking more than 30 years. Clean energy could have been our next internet, had the GOP put some long-range vision ahead of campaign donations.