In case you missed the last blog entry on this site, I am in favor of BP paying for the cleanup of the property that is owned by all and therefore owned by no one. This is the nature of common property - if one of the part owners/nonowners does something to ruin what the rest of us partly own/do not own then that party must bear the responsibility for the damage done to the rest of us. BP - as my brother pointed out via email - made a lot of bad decisions stemming in large part from poor management on the oil rig. BP, according to The Wall Street Journal relied on less expensive, and riskier technology to drill for oil in deeper waters. Whatever millions BP saved by going cheap and having bad management/crisis planning, it is now paying for - and then some. I am fine with that. If $20 billion is not enough, let it be $23 billion or $36 billion. Whatever. I, like you, want BP to fix the mess it helped create.
Now lets turn to another huge spill that threatens far more people than BP will ever hurt. This spill has caused trillions, yes, trillions of dollars in damages and will have a catastrophic impact on our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren.
This spill is the huge gusher of money that our federal government has blown through since...well, since FDR with an acceleration in the name of Bush Compassion/International Pre-emptive Conflict and Obama Socialism/Keynesian Fallacy Worshipping.
Tell me please - how do we sit here and cry for dead pelicans and turtles who are covered in BP oil, when our future human citizens are covered in debt? Why should I rejoice when BP's CEO is dragged before Congress for his tar and feathering when no one from Congress is dragged before us to explain the trillions wasted in concept wars, health care for all, endless welfare benefits, bailouts for Harvard MBAs who were too stupid to recall the phrase "boom and......bust" and on and on and on?
It is a pathetic joke that BP is held to scrutiny of one standard for ruining the Gulf of Mexico while our own government gets to ruin every state in the nation with no accountability whatsoever.
Someone please explain this paradox to me.
That's easy: Even ignorant people can see the physical damage BP's negligence has played on our environment. It takes an educated individual to see the economic damage Congress has instilled into our country. And we all know which type of person dominates our population...
ReplyDeleteWell said..
ReplyDeleteProf. Chambless,
ReplyDeleteI'm forced to take a science class and signed up for environmental science for summer B. So far, in day 1, our professor shared his view on the the oil spill and his disgust for the Pres. of BP racing his yahct in this time of "crisis", blah blah blah. It baffles me how this country functions on the influences of ignorance and stupidity! Fortunately I have some support from people that have taken your class before. When will America see the light before its too late...
The problems this country faces are much more difficult to fix than people realize. The reason people are screaming for the heads of BP is beacause you have a defined problem and culprit. How do you fix the problems in governement when you dont know how deep the corruption and stupidity have dug in? The people of this country can continue to vote and put new people in office, but the new people are just as brainwashed and corrupt as the ones before. Look at the education many of these politicians have. Lawyers, political science majors, and I'm still trying to grasp how political science is a viable degree. In the case of this oil crisis, drastic measures should be taken to ensure the way of life for the gulf coast states. The government is at fault for not being on top of this right away and accepting help from other countries. BP, or any oil company, is at fault for performing deep water drilling without having a proven way to stop a leak in an event like this, and if our governement wasnt in bed with the oil companies they should have required relief wells drilled for every one of these deep water rigs prior to operation. If corporations understood the value of ecological services they would be factored into the cost/benefit analysis, but unfortunately they dont. Professor Chambless, you dont know who I am by the way..let me just say, Boomer Sooner.
ReplyDeleteBP should be held accountable for this spill just like our government should be held accountable for the damage they have done. This administration has done its best to destroy wealth in America. Unless the spending stops, we will soon be at a point where our GDP only covers interest payments on the money we continue to print. Once we reach that point, wealth can no longer be created. I would argue BP is a great distraction to the country and our current government is using it to their advantage while they fall short of doing anything positive for our country.
ReplyDeleteBurton-Minnesota
Explanation - Whoever controls the media PR wins.
ReplyDeleteThis crisis was artfully manipulated. Like you implied in this post and the last, while it is certainly a huge cost, it is the cost of doing business for BP, plain and simple. I don't like to see birds covered in oil, or fishermen's cash flow interrupted, but those of us who believe in a young earth also belive that the ecosystem is extremely resilient (not fragile), and we are already hearing reports out of the gulf that support this view.
Rush Limbaugh gave a stat last week saying that if the Gulf was the Superdome, the oil spill is equivelent to a 240z soda spilled - or something like that. I'm not sure about his accuracy, but the concept illustrates the real size of this disaster in the grand scheme - not big at all. The much more ominous one is the money gusher you mention. The scale is actually very difficult to comprehend for most - myself included. But the government sympathetic media tells everyone the gusher is for our good, so we rush to save the birds...slr