You are forgetting the grand plan. The Republicans were the carpet baggers who went down south after the Civil War and bought up the properties from the land owners devastated by the war. Now the GOP can do it again. They’ll buy up the shrimp boats, and seaside properties, and tourist facilities for a song. Then all the former owners can work for the new owners.
Are you comparing it to Exxon who made the people they ruined wait decades to get a small amount of relief? The option for playing hard ball existed. They could have said bull, we are going to court and fight every claim. They had that right but they would have been hated even more.
The people will get help and will know who paid for it. For BP that is helpful. You will see expensive TV ads from BP claiming they were doing it due to their good will and love of the gulf. It is like the energy companies running ads showing how much they respect nature and are so responsible. It is crap, but it works.
Are you reading my posts? I am suggesting, with absolutely no evidence, that the option to play hardball did not exist. If the president threatened BP with criminal action (which Holder suggested publicly) then BP probably had no choice. Alternatively, BP could have handed out the money without government involvement while, at the same time, making an administration that publicly railed against BP look impotent. This would not have been a viable option if the administration was holding criminal action over their heads.
First of all, BP was not going to voluntarily start compensating all the Gulf residents injured by this spill. In fact, their first thought was to discuss ways to segregate their American operations from the rest of the company to limit the liability (which is apparently impractical in their case), and they were planning on going ahead with their normal dividend payout. That’s not the behavior of a company prepared to hold itself accountable.
Second, while I can accept the notion that the Obama administration would benefit from scoring a political victory at BP’s expense, I don’t think anyone can safely conclude that helping the residents and businesses of the Gulf coast is not the primary motivator.
Finally, if BP felt the threat of criminal liability was strong, then surely the threat of civil liability is even greater (criminal liability being tougher to establish). So why not establish a fund? It’s not only good corporate citizenship, it may help them limit their ultimate liability by mitigating some of the damages now.
Has the possibility even occurred to you that this action, and BP’s being induced to take it, are simply the right thing to do? Can you conceive of any motivation other than partisan maneuvering?
This is just sad.
No. Corporations do not work that way. They have no ethics and morality. They exist to make money. And oddly, we seem to like it that way.
I was referring to his imputation of Obama’s motives, not BP’s, which are clearly and proudly on display every time their CEO opens his damn yap. Do please note that the board of directors has kept him on.
BP was already making payouts before the formation of this fund. I’m sure the process was much more onerous than it will be under the government plan but to suggest that BP was not voluntarily compensating some percentage of those affected is disingenuous.
Then you can also safely conclude that helping the residents of the Gulf coast was also the primary motivator for BP to distribute money to the affected.
I don’t see how this works. The fund does not limit any liability for BP. The dollar amount paid out will be the same regardless of the existence of a fund. How does the fund benefit BP? As I said earlier the only benefit to BP would be that, if the distribution of funds goes badly, the government will be to blame. Now, of course, if criminal liability is off the table…
You’re confusing payouts with payoffs.
Band Name for you: Exxon Valdez and Prince William Sound.
Actually, I’ve read conflicting accounts of how onerous it’s been. It seems payment has been relatively rapid, though there are understandably disputes over amounts paid.
But that’s not the point. The point is that without an agreement, there was no guarantee that BP was going to continue to compensate these people outside of litigation. It’s not like BP is in the business of processing compensation claims. A couple weeks of being inundated by claims (legit or not), and BP could have very reasonably decided to stop processing them in favor of letting the courts figure it out. Litigation is going to be the means by which this is ultimately settled, but at least now money is committed, a trusted administrator is in place, and the affected people aren’t left to whither.
I didn’t say it would limit liability, I said it could mitigate damages.
I object because it bypasses most of the standards and conventions that we’ve created as a society to arbitrate disputes in incidents such as this. By doing so, it leaves itself open for corruption and abuse, and at the very least has the appearance of impropriety.
I don’t think the scale of the incident makes it appropriate to throw out the old rules.
I don’t blame BP for the spill. We are all culpable as we all use petroleum products and we’ve incented companies to drill by limiting their liability to 75 million. Now apparently, those rules, those agreements, don’t mean anything.
I don’t think much of our righteous indignation, oblivious in its hypocrisy… I don’t think much of a group of any politicians abilities to distribute the proceeds better than a court’s. Especially, when it won’t be paid into the fund for many many years.
Why do we need this extralegal entity?
Why doesn’t BP get any credit? It seems to me they’ve shown good faith in trying to set this right.
Okay, so explain to us what the agreed upon standards are for dealing with an immense environmental disaster causing ongoing economic harm to numerous citizens and small businesses during a recession.
Also explain how leaving the decision of how to compensate the victims of this disaster outside of litigation solely in the hands of BP would not put the victims at danger of abuse of the legal process, given that the playbook for such abuse was already written by Exxon in response to the Valdez spill.
:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p
The Company works with local and federal authorities to clean up the mess and compensate those damaged. It pays the money out of its coffers.
In this particular case its liability is limited to 75 million dollars. That’s our rule, not BPs. We made that law. It’s a stupid rule and we never should have made it, but we did. Thankfully, BP isn’t holding us to that, and says they want to set it right. So far, they’ve spent 2 billion dollars doing so.
Absent that rule, I don’t see how giving money to the government to distribute over the course of about a decade does anything to help with the current crisis. Why can’t BP pay the money directly. If it’s 16 billion, they pay 16. If it’s 24 they pay 24. If the money is distributed poorly or used for political gain what recourse will we have? It seems to me that we’d have more recourse against the company than the government.
We have a legal system for paying out claims, why are we abandoning that and making up something new with less accountability? Why are we allowing BP to insulate themselves in this fashion?
What happens, what can we do if the money is not being used properly?
I apologize but I can’t parse your question. Why would we only be able to compensate people “outside” of the legal process, and if we did how then would they be in danger of an abuse of the legal process if they weren’t compensated within it? Your question makes no sense.
As for the Valdez, well, Alaskans receive money from the state from oil revenues. They are a part of it, just as we are a part of this. Drilling and transporting oil entails using tremendous forces and complexity, and hence hazard. THat hazard makes disasters inevitable by the laws of anti-chance.
We fly in airplanes. We take thin skins of aluminum and we fill them with explosives and we put people in them in hurtle them across the sky. Accidents are inevitable and the cost of the convenience of such endeavors.
Same goes for drilling. As a society we recognize this. We’ve even gone so far as to accept this and limit liability to 75 million because we so value the product. I think we are a bunch of guilty hypocrites. I in no way absolve BP from any of the negligence they may have engaged in that created this particular incident, but I kind of think we’re a bunch of spoiled bitches looking to blame somebody else for the reality that we’ve created.
I don’t understand. Let’s say you hire me to do a job for your, say fix your refrigerator. Before we start we both agree that your refrigerator and contents are only worth 75 dollars should I break it even further. We create a written agreement to that effect. I then break your refrigerator and pay $3,000 trying to fix it and clean up and replace the spoiled food. It’s going to cost a lot more and I agree to pay whatever it takes. You suggest I give $20,000 to you to make sure that I don’t try to cut an run. I agree. You decide to have a party where you invite your family to sit up on a bunch of high chairs, look down on me and tell me what an idiot I am for fucking up the refrigerator. I come to that party and take it.
Somebody then suggests that I’m showing good faith and making an effort to set things right, and you laugh in their face.
Seems a little odd to me.
:dubious: From day one BP’s first concern has been to downplay the magnitude of the spill. That is not “good faith.”
Well, there is that, I was going to say that IMHO many **are **giving credit to BP for the fund, it is a good chunk of Republicans and right wing gasbags that are livid and not giving credit to BP.
The points here from conservatives sounds like the point Rush Limbaugh made that the normal state of affairs was to expect that all the political contributions by BP were supposed to give “credit” to BP already. When that “normal” or “old rules” expectation did not happen, they are confused and angry, and not only at Obama, but at BP.
Your link doesn’t demonstrate what you say it does. While BP certainly downplayed the spill, nothing in that link suggests that was their “first concern,” so you appear to be overstating your case.
Good faith doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. BP has certainly adjusted their stance as the reality of the extent of the spill becomes apparent.
I don’t want to be an apologist for BP, but I think we’re acting like assholes.
I haven’t argued that the fund is bad but, rather, whether it was voluntary or coerced. As I’ve stated I see no benefit for BP
What is the difference? The only way to mitigate damages is to limit liability.
First off, the fund doesn’t exist outside of the legal system. It’s not a slush fund for Obama to re-fund ACORN. The fund gives us a process for paying claims, TODAY, when the money is needed. Do you think the fund’s administrators owe no fiduciary duties of any kind to BP? Do you think every dollar spent won’t be accounted for? Do you think BP will have no recourse in litigation if bogus claims are paid out of the fund?
In any case, BP isn’t being forced to do this, threats of criminal prosecution or not.
BP hasn’t gone to court yet, have they? Yet they’re paying money to injured parties now, and they’ve committed themselves to putting $20 billion into a fund to pay for future claims. We want them paying now because the damage they’ve caused is active and ongoing. This is a fair compromise.
The rest of your argument is honestly ridiculous. We don’t exist in a system where businesses are excused from the consequences of their negligence or malfeasance just because society benefits generally.