Well, that just makes me feel terrible for the poor little helpless dears.
Hey, I’m not shedding any tears for them either, but what is it you want? I tell my clients, “I can’t undo the damage that was done to you. All I can do is (hopefully) get you some money. We’ll never get enough money to make up for the harms you suffered. But we can get you some money.”
As oppose to…?
Being forced to pay for every cent of damage they caused, regardless of the effect it would have on the future of the company or how long it took them to repay it (Say, it’s 2050 and it was just discovered that Northern Gulf batfish populations were heavily impacted by the spill, because its prey fish was poisoned by eating Corexit-damaged zooplankton? Please pay however many billions it will take for habitat renewal, cleanup, trophic remediation, breeding, restocking, and a dedicated research fund for the next 20 years, payable now. We don’t take IOU’s.), and the responsible parties, including subcontractors, who cut the corners that got the platform workers killed, going to jail.
I am fucking sick of the Tragedy of the Commons. We need to put an economically real price tag on it.
In other words, buying their way out of a catastrophic ecological and economic failure.
There are laws against criminal negligence, aren’t there?
No, there’s a marked difference between “buying” and “paying for” in this case, and don’t even think about being a pedant about it. You know exactly what I mean. There’s no way BP will be paying for even a tiny fraction of the actual damage they caused.
That happens every day. Some guy with $50,000 in insurance runs over a kid (or a parent for that matter). They don’t pay even a tiny fraction of the actual damaged caused.
It would be nice, I suppose, to live in a world where wrongdoers payed for all the harm they caused. (I know I would profit from living in such a world). It just doesn’t happen. In the case of BP and the Gulf mess, they’re probably closer to accomplishing this than most entities.
Ok… BP’s estimated $40 Billion of liability, the company in total was worth around $200B before the accident. How much more do you want? You can’t get blood from a stone, you’re never ever getting more than 5x what BP has estimated, because that money doesn’t exist.
You want to punish them in perpetuity. This raises two questions. One, why would they agree to pay anything if payments never make the problem go away? Two, what company would want to do business with us ever again?
And three, how would you continue to collect once you’ve driven the company into bankruptcy?
And there might be a few innocent folks who rely upon BP for a living. Maybe one or two.
I want my father back, you son of a bitch!
Where the hell is Inigo when you need him?
I wonder what the ocean would get in a settlement!
Tsunamis?
I don’t get this pitting at all. As others said, this is a civil law suit and it generally makes the most sense to settle out of court. First, you get a guarenteed amount now, or at least payments starting now, in court you have to wait for a trial, which could take months or years, with unpredictable results and massively higher costs. So, even if you do end up getting more money from the trial, because of the delay and costs, you may still end up behind. Second, it seems like there’s a “Screw BP!” sentiment here, and often settling out of court will help minimize that, but I think BP’s public image is already sufficiently screwed that it wouldn’t really make a difference. Third, they still have the actual criminal charges, so it’s not like they’re getting out of anything.
The pitting is because the OP is ignorant of how civil law tends to work. There shouldn’t be any outrage, because a settlement out of court means that the people who brought the suit in the first place have agreed not to go to court in favor of whatever the defendants are ordering. This could be because they’re fatigued in terms of time, court costs, or because the settlement is judged to be a better deal than what they might get if the the suit was dragged out to its full conclusion.
And since it’s a settlement OUT OF COURT, it means that the government can’t step in and demand that BP pay more. It’s between them and the plaintiffs at this point.
Saw thread title in Tapatalk. Knew immediately who the thread starter was. Couldn’t resist clicking through to confirm!
Still hate BP, huh?
I hereby award you seven (7) gonzomax-Shodan points for unironic use of “the system” to refer to mutually agreed settlement between a wrongdoer and its victims.
Oh, I think 100% would be plenty.
Hey Ogre, I can get you a deal on a few crates of torches and pitchforks with only a modest markup (a guy’s got to make a living, don’t you know). PM me if you’re interested.
Are you sure you’re not a sock of the OP’s? You seem just as dumb.