BP America is a subsidiary of BP, the UK company. The parent company bears some responsibility for it’s subsidiaries.
Do I think Tony Hayward is personally responsible for the disaster, as in, his direct actions caused the problem? No, of course not. But he is CEO, his is the parent company, and yes, he and that company do bear some of the responsibility for mismanagement, mishandling, and mishaps in the subsidiaries.
And the fact is that after Amoco was acquired by BP violations went up. 700+ “egregious and willful” violations just over the past few years. WTF? Wasn’t the London based parent the least bit concerned about what the American subsidiary was doing, and possible consequences to the whole family of BP companies?
Let’s get real - the day-to-day operations of an oil refinery in Indiana isn’t being handled by someone in Texas, either - but corporate culture trickles down from the top, including, in this case, a willful disregard for regulations and safety. This is not the first BP accident resulting in loss of life and significant damage, just the largest. Maybe if someone up the corporate ladder had actually acted responsible this chain of accidents could have been stopped after the first one, and the current Gulf mess would have never have happened.
Get a fucking grip, you’re doing exactly what the politicians want you to do, run around blaming one abstract concept of ownership or leadership after another.
The truth is - as with the banks - the industry in question bought the level of regulation it could live with. And once that was bought, it bought criminal liability and, if it can, it will buy the level of civil liability as well.
That’s it. That’s how the entire game works in the USA. You buy politicians to cover your ass.
Obama hates UK? Who knew? I never get these memos…
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He referred to Brits torturing his grandfather. Well, they just might have! (I have no idea if they did or not, but such treatment was not unheard of or uncommon. In the USA, you need to prove your chops as a representative of your race or heritage. Obama, you may have noticed, is black).
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He snubbed Gordon Brown? When? (and the irony of this being used as fodder when all of Britain couldn’t stand Mr Brown and watched as his family left #10 Downing in what can only be called The Walk of Shame–how humiliating for the Browns).
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The Winston Churchill thing. I confess, I agree with you completely on this one. I don’t get why he sent it back. It made no sense to me at the time, still doesn’t. IMO, this act carries more symbolic meaning than any of the other drivel in this thread. At the most superficial it was bad manners. I am left with WTF? because Obama does not have bad manners (unlike Mr Happy Hands GW Bush).
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Obama calls it Brit Petro because that’s pretty much what it’s called over here. In no way is it an indictment of the British people or their country. I just heard someone British (didn’t catch the name, sorry, but someone political) say (on NPR) that if the roles were reversed and an American company had something like (on this scale and magnitude) happen in the North Sea or the Channel, “we’d be a bit cross with America, no?” Yes, I think you would be and rightly so.
I also do NOT see Obama using this as some kind of election ploy. That man had enough on his plate already-this is not something that anyone would ask for. The only political hay that can be made is against the GOP and conservatives HERE who fought for deregulation and repeal of environmental acts (Reagan famously claimed that trees CAUSE pollution, IMS).
In short, WE made this mess, all of us, together. We with our incessant demand for more oil, governments and businesses for colluding to make a profit the quickest ways it could with little to no oversight. It’s a tragedy of global proportions.
I say global purposefully because once that oil hits the Gulf Stream, it will show up on UK’s shores sooner or later…
I haven’t read Obama’s autobiography recently, but here’s the Wikipedia summary. Note that Obama addresses this specific issues!
By not giving him a nice enough present. He gave Brown 25 DVDs, and Brown got Obama “an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet […] a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.” and some gifts for Sasha and Malia. Brown’s gifts are a lot better, but the article notes that Bush got a gift for Brown that was not exactly a home run either - and it’s not like these guys really pick the gifts themselves. They have staffs and coordinators for stuff like this. It doesn’t reflect any personal views.
Just for the sake of argument, the British government lent it to Bush after September 11th, so it’s not a piece of ancient history. Is Britain getting snubbed unless every president keeps it there forever?
One possible theory is that, regardless of the admiration for Churchill’s eloquence and determination, at the end of the day he was a member and leader of the Conservative party. In an entrance way to the House of Commons, there is a statute of Churchill on one side and a statute of Lloyd George (British PM during the latter half of WWI and leader of the British Liberal Party, antecedents of the LDP). Those MPs that are ideological allies of Churchill occasionally rub the brass shoe of Churchill’s statute whereas those who are ideological allies of Lloyd George occasionally rub his brass shoe.
Oh shit. Now they know. It was supposed to be a secret. 
I think I can solve this: we’ll let the World Cup decide it. The loser of the match gets the blame for BP and ownership of David Beckham, winner gets ownership of Victoria Beckham and the right to decide the name of the sport once and for all. Deal?
A substantial amount of British retirees pension funds are tied up in BP.
If Exxon blew a wellhead on the North Bank it’d be a change of tune.
Talk about a tempest in a teapot. Sounds to me like gramps had good reason for his bitterness.
If UK LENT it, then it was only right for Obama to send it back. I think that both sides could communicate more clearly and perhaps the Brits could dial back the defensiveness. Our anger is NOT directed at the British people or the nation as a whole. But there will always be folks who like to stir up shit.
40% owned by UK based shareholders, 39% US.
It couldn’t have been something to do with this quote attributed to the cantankerous Churchill, could it?
It’s more likely quite simple: Every President and first family are free to redecorate their offices and the White House residence as fits their personal tastes and needs.
Obama’s historical role model of choice is Abraham Lincoln, and it is Lincoln’s image that he wishes to have in the Oval Office, as is his right as the current occupant of said office. So, when the Churchill bust was removed to make way for Lincoln, it needed to go back to where it belonged, and it turned out that it belonged in the UK. So it was sent back.
If it had been sent to the White House from the US national galleries or archives, it would’ve gone across town back to the galleries. If it’d been a loan from the Swedes, it would’ve gone back to Stockholm.
Even if John McCain were the one working in the Oval right now, there’s no reason to believe that the Churchill bust would not have been returned. It’s just what happens when the office changes hands.
I don’t think that’s really relevant though. It’s my understanding that what the Brits are upset about is how their particular portion of BP stock ownership is going to affect their retirement pensions.
Y’know what, before shooting off your mouths, motivated by your dropping retirement funds, just play a little ‘what if’, okay?
What if it had been an Amaco rig, in the north sea. A record of dodgy safety practices, some embarrassing internal memos, and a huge oil leak, that was still pouring oil into your waters 6 wks later. Executives who lie and mislead about quantity, etc. Your beaches ruined, tourism, fishing, livelihoods gone, wildlife devastated, all on a massive scale. It will take 2 decades to clean it up. Now, would it really make a difference that 39% of the company was held by British citizens? Would you care if American’s whined, “Stop picking on us, our pension funds are dropping you know!” I don’t think so.
I think 6 wks later, the oil still flowing, lie upon lie from executives, your populace would be understandably just as angry and resentful.
What would be nice would be if people were mature enough to understand that wars of words and hard feelings between British citizens, (who did not spill the oil and are also outraged about this horrible disaster), and American citizens, (who are suffering terribly, not over losing just money but over losing livelihoods, and a precious ecosystem), only benefit the people who are really to blame, on both sides of the pond.
Resist the urge to slam someone over calling a company ‘British’ Petroleum, or the returning of a bust, or dropping pension funds when an ecological disaster of heretofore unheard of proportions lies before us, or other shit that really isn’t the issue, let’s be serious.
No, this is a minor issue. No plausible situation is going to hit anyone sensible’s pensions hard. Sure people will take a slight hit in the long run but the imapact is going to be minor.
The issue remains the way that Obama has turned a local issue into an international one.
That would occur no matter what nationality the company’s shareholders consisted of. That’s why they invest so much in good lawyers.
I agree.
As an aside, who are BP’s major shareholders? Which one person gets the biggest lump of their profits?
So it’s like your 2 inch snowfall in London that has you people hysterical due to the “blizzard”? If it’s all so very minor, y’all just look that much pettier…
Cluephone: the oceans are all connected. This tragedy will wash up on Britain’s (and Europe’s and Africa’s etc) shores via the Gulf Stream. It IS an international issue because it will effect us all-financially, environmentally, politically for a long time to come.
Please supply the specific statement by Obama in which he turned this “local” issue into an international one. With a link–we need to read it in context.
(Try to do this while you’re still sober.)
No, the British papers and politicians have tried to turn a major regional real issue into a minor international issue no one gives a shit about.