BP CEO at yacht race today

[BigDallasDick8x6]

As I've said before, it would be a good idea to shift part of the tax burden from the income tax to a tax on fossil fuel. It could be done in stages to avoid undue disruptions. The average person would experience no overall change in taxes, but there would be a powerful incentive to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Simply increasing the tax on fossil fuels would probably be politically impossible, but it might be politically possible to shift the tax burden from the income tax to a tax on fossil fuels.

I totally agree. If you want people to use less of something, tax it.

 

[vince]

Yeah, well...thats capitalism. The whole point of making money is so you can do what you like and not care about anyone else.

I think there comes a point where you just want to tell the US where to get lost. If they dont want you trying to fix it as best you can, well let them get on with it by themselves. I would, but then I never wanted to be a company director either. Its one thing to be sorry and try to fix something that has gone horribly wrong, but quite another to try to do it if all they do is jeer at you.

That's not smart capitalism. It's quite stupid to operate or appear to operate with that attitude and the majority of successful companies don't. BP is obviously one of the ones who does and look at the pickle they are in.

As for telling the US to get lost. At what point is that suppose to happen? How many tons of crude oil do you have to spill before you throw up your hands and tell them to fix it themselves? How many weeks does the gusher have to go on for? Bp's best seems to be very incompetent. You can be bloody well sure that if if a foreign company did what Bp did in UK waters, you'd be singing a different tune. Or what if it was Royal Dutch Shell? Would our British members here be defending Shell with the same vigor?

I'm not an American, but on behalf of my many friends who are, your arrogant, petty, nationalistic musings are really unhelpful and are probably hurtful to anyone directly affected by the disaster Bp has brought down upon them.

 

[FRE]

That's not smart capitalism. It's quite stupid to operate or appear to operate with that attitude and the majority of successful companies don't. BP is obviously one of the ones who does and look at the pickle they are in.

As for telling the US to get lost. At what point is that suppose to happen? How many tons of crude oil do you have to spill before you throw up your hands and tell them to fix it themselves? How many weeks does the gusher have to go on for? Bp's best seems to be very incompetent. You can be bloody well sure that if if a foreign company did what Bp did in UK waters, you'd be singing a different tune. Or what if it was Royal Dutch Shell? Would our British members here be defending Shell with the same vigor?

I'm not an American, but on behalf of my many friends who are, your arrogant, petty, nationalistic musings are really unhelpful and are probably hurtful to anyone directly affected by the disaster Bp has brought down upon them.

When I was working my degree decades ago, we were taught in a management class something that should be obvious. When a business or industry persists in doing something that is not in the public interest, eventually the public responds by demanding laws to correct the situation. In fact, many laws considered onerous by businesses have been enacted because business have violated the public trust.

 

[dandelion]

That's not smart capitalism. It's quite stupid to operate or appear to operate with that attitude and the majority of successful companies don't. BP is obviously one of the ones who does and look at the pickle they are in.

I was thinking of hayward personally, rather than BP. All this criticism for doing what presumably had been until recently entirely acceptable performance at his job. Never mind calls to sack him, I imagine he would be very pleased to quit. Who would want to have the job?

As for telling the US to get lost. At what point is that suppose to happen? How many tons of crude oil do you have to spill before you throw up your hands and tell them to fix it themselves?

My point is that although BP cant walk away from this, Hayward probably can, and it might make a lot of sense to him to do so. It is in the US interest that BP management remains running the company.

How many weeks does the gusher have to go on for? Bp's best seems to be very incompetent. You can be bloody well sure that if if a foreign company did what Bp did in UK waters, you'd be singing a different tune.

But as I posted before, UK regulations seem to be much stricter, so this would not happen in UK waters. Neither the UK not BP drafted US permissive regulations, the US did.

I'm not an American, but on behalf of my many friends who are, your arrogant, petty, nationalistic musings are really unhelpful and are probably hurtful to anyone directly affected by the disaster Bp has brought down upon them.

I tend to think, 'there but for the grace of god go I', and claiming the UK does all this so much better is tempting fate, But I see no sign the US might be realising they brought this upon themselves.

 

[Bbucko]

When I was working my degree decades ago, we were taught in a management class something that should be obvious. When a business or industry persists in doing something that is not in the public interest, eventually the public responds by demanding laws to correct the situation. In fact, many laws considered onerous by businesses have been enacted because business have violated the public trust.

Isn't all legislature a response to something that violated the public's trust?

 

[fernandoleal]

simple request: tony, dudley and the bp board of directors just drink one cup of that delicious mousse (according to teabagger haley barbour) for every thousand gallons of oil gushing from their gusher. that would help me get MY life back. maybe not so much for them. :usa2:

 

[FRE]

Isn't all legislature a response to something that violated the public's trust?

Not all of it, but surely a large part of it.

 

[maxcok]

Isn't all legislature a response to something that violated the public's trust?

Not all of it, but surely a large part of it.

hmmm . . . I would venture to say that a good portion of the legislation passed by Republicans in the past 30 years (stripping regulation of the financial, big energy and other industries, eliminating FCC restrictions on mega media interests, tax breaks for the wealthy, tax breaks to corporations, tax exemptions for offshore operations, etc.) have been a direct violation of the public trust.

I'm not an American, but on behalf of my many friends who are, your arrogant, petty, nationalistic musings are really unhelpful and are probably hurtful to anyone directly affected by the disaster Bp has brought down upon them.

After careful reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the poster is the English cousin of our own dear Trinity. They play the same broken records.

 

[flame boy]

Just as a reminder guys, discussions are absolutely fine but if you are going to disagree with a member please do it in a courteous and adult manner. Lowering the tone of the discussion to petty spats is boring for other members and adds nothing to the discussion.

 

[ColoradoGuy]

Isn't all legislature a response to something that violated the public's trust?

I think that's an ideal rationale for legislation... unfortunately, there is a lot of legislation passed that enables unfortunate breaches of the public's trust. Consider the Glass Act (also known as the Glass-Steagall Act). This is the 1933 law sponsored by Carter Glass (D-Va.) and Henry Steagall (D-Ala.) that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and introduced several major banking reforms that were largely focused on reducing the ability for banks to speculate. Of course, this was a response to the 1929 Crash and someone, somewhere looked at the aftermath of the Crash and vowed "never again".

In the 1980s, a lot of people were agitating for repeal of Glass-Steagall saying that it was dated, it impeded competition and that conflicts of interest existed despite the legislation. In the late 90s, Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and Jim Leach (R-Iowa) sponsored legislation that became the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act after Tom Bliley (R-Va.) threw his support behind the bill. With that legislation, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 came into being. The ensuing bump in the markets probably caused someone, somewhere to look at Glass-Steagall and vow "never again".

So, what started as legislation to address a breach of the public's trust was eventually thwarted by legislation that ultimately breached the public's trust. No doubt, in both cases, the players were attempting to protect what they thought were the best interests of the public at large and ensure the public's trust in our institutions. However, in retrospect, it's clear to see somebody got it wrong and decided the interests of the few outweighed the interests of the many. Funny old world.

 

[Jason]

If BP is told to get lost, that doesn't mean less oil will be extracted. Someone else will fill the void. The basic math is what is against us. The US has 3% of the world's oil reserves but uses 25% of the oil. (So I have heard more than once -- don't want to argue the exact percentages, the principle remains the same.)

The figures are in the right ball park at least. Also relevant is that the USA has around 5% of the world's population, which contrasts sharply with 25% oil usage. The oil dependency is such that the poltical pressure to extract the oil is enormous. Clearly the US government (and presumably a majority in the USA) want this oil in order to continue with the sort of lifestyle everyone in the USA is familiar with. And against this background problems are going to happen.

If the US now enforces proper safety regulations in the Gulf of Mexico, and additionally makes it clear that any company that has a spill will pay at the level we now know BP will pay, I assume extraction from the Gulf of Mexico becomes economically unviable (I know there are differing views, but I don't think there is really too much doubt about this). The blunt reality is that if the USA wants oil from the Gulf of Mexico it has to subsidise it. It can do this by a direct subsidy (eg the USA government will pay market price + x for every barrel produced in the Gulf of Mexico), or by setting up a nationalised industry to extract the oil (and it is senseless for a state to fine a state owned industry for accidents, so suddenly the economics look better). Or the USA can turn a blind eye to the enforcement of regulations (which is seemingly what it has done for years). Or it could have been more moderate in its treatment of BP, reducing the sum that BP itself pays in order to keep the industry profitable. Curiously the USA now has a range of bad options. Regulations+enforcement+fines = non-commercial oil. The same arguments go for oil from Alaska.

I'm seeing BP and its CEO as increasingly irrelevant to the economic issues (and I really can't be bothered if the CEO goes out for a day on a Saturday). BP is we all hope going to be able to provide the technical solution (assuming of course it can be solved - we might still have to face this one). But the economic solution around the oil industry in the USA is a matter essentially out of the hands of BP.

 

[FRE]

hmmm . . . I would venture to say that a good portion of the legislation passed by Republicans in the past 30 years (stripping regulation of the financial, big energy and other industries, eliminating FCC restrictions on mega media interests, tax breaks for the wealthy, tax breaks to corporations, tax exemptions for offshore operations, etc.) have been a direct violation of the public trust.

Quite so, but at the time the public didn't think so.

Reagan famously stated that government isn't the solution; government is the problem. He set out to reduce regulation and, because he stated that aim while projecting a warm grandfatherly image on TV, aided by his acting experience, he convinced the public that that was the right thing to do. That set a trend that has caused a number of problems, perhaps beginning with the S & L failures. All the while, the public generally supported the deregulation.

 

[Jason]

On BBC news this eve (11pm):

"It suits the White House to have a villain to villify" (BBC commentary)

The idea is that the whole "incident" is a White House PR stunt.

Absolutely no-one can work every hour of every day and still deliver good work. Hayward does need to take a day off work once in a while. That the White House is finding fault with this demonstrates only that the White House is trying to find something to find fault with.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Absolutely no-one can work every hour of every day and still deliver good work. Hayward does need to take a day off work once in a while. That the White House is finding fault with this demonstrates only that the White House is trying to find something to find fault with.

There is absolutely nothing in the article that suggests that the White House is finding fault with the BP CEO for taking a day off to go to a yacht race. In fact, it even mentions that Obama & Biden have actually gone golfing on some weekends since the oil spill happened, which is essentially a day off. Many Americans on this board think that the article is much ado about nothing as well. So why are you associating the obvious anger being voiced from a number of Gulf Residents (as clearly stated in the article) with the White House? Because some political pundits on BBC said so?

 

[Jason]

So why are you associating the obvious anger being voiced from a number of Gulf Residents (as clearly stated in the article) with the White House? Because some political pundits on BBC said so?

Easy. The condemnation of Hayward for taking a day off comes from White House Chief of Staff Rahn Emanuel.

Additionally it was the White House that broke the story that he had been sighted aboard a yacht. The UK media did not pick up on it. Presumably someone who reports to the White House is following Hayward.

By the way he was yachting for a few hours about 90 miles from his London office, hardly out of circulation.

 

[Hot stuff]

Hey anyone can take time off work, probably a good idea with the pressure he is under, no need to defend the mentally exhausted lol

 

[Jason]

Hey anyone can take time off work, probably a good idea with the pressure he is under, no need to defend the mentally exhausted lol

Agreed. The guy looked exhausted at his Congress hearing, perhaps on the brink of a breakdown. Best thing he could do is get away from it all for a few hours.

 

[Mr. Snakey]

I have to say, i find it more disturbing how Obama spent the weekend. He went golfing and then to a baseball game. Bad p.r.move by the BP CEO. Perhaps he should have stayed on home to relax. However the worst environmental disaster in our nations history and he and Biden hit the golf course.

Obama hits golf course with Biden on another hot, humid weekend - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

 

[Big Del]

Hayward is ill advised and appears as a bit of a cock sucker over the last few weeks

 

[dandelion]

It all begins to feel like a case of 'if you don't like the message, kill the messenger'.