Last night, OS was feeling downright grumpy, and he scribbled out words to this effect:
Maybe Obama actually likes this crisis, because it will give him the opportunity to stage some huge grab for power. The economy is not recovering significantly, and things are looking very grim in November. He's searching for some pretext to seize more power to himself, make Himself look like he saved the day, and BP may be providing his opportunity.
And, then OS thought: Nahh, that's just paranoid ranting. You're just feeling grumpy, don't embarrass yourself. A good night's sleep is in order.
Then, from the Wall Street Journal, this comes across the transom:
The Obama Administration ratcheted up its demands on Wednesday that BP PLC cover all costs stemming from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including millions of dollars in salaries of oil-industry workers laid off because of the federal moratorium on deepwater drilling.
The sudden increase in BP's potential liabilities—along with growing evidence that even more oil than expected is gushing from BP's crippled well—helped send BP's shares plummeting almost 16% in New York, to $29.20. The stock has lost close to half its value, more than $82 billion, in the seven weeks since the spill started.
"There is no objective justification for this share price movement. BP faces this situation as a strong company," said BP chief executive Tony Hayward in an interview at the company's Houston crisis center. "We have significant capacity and flexibility in dealing with the cost of responding to the incident, the environmental remediation and the payment of legitimate claims."
BP didn't comment directly on the latest demand from Washington. But it is expected to argue that under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP is liable only for the direct costs of the clean-up and couldn't be held responsible for the lost wages of oil workers. "Somewhere a line has to be drawn," a company official said.
Several legal experts said they couldn't think of any law or precedent that would allow the U.S. to try to recover damages from BP on behalf of rig workers thrown out of work by a government moratorium on deep offshore drilling.
"I'm not aware of anything out there that would allow (President Obama) to latch onto a legal remedy on behalf of the out-of-work workers," said Benjamin A. Escobar Jr., a Houston-based labor and employment attorney for Beirne Maynard & Parsons. "I think he's in for a real court fight on these issues."
The White House has a different view. "The moratorium is a result of the accident that BP caused. It is an economic loss for those workers," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "Those are claims that BP should pay."
Lessee--let's make a decision that throws thousands of people out of work, and then send the bill for all those lost earnings somewhere else. In the meantime, let's turn what should be the world's most productive cooperative effort into the Mother Of All Litigations.
As badly as BP has acted, the last thing the world needs is a BP in bankruptcy, unable to pay its bills or raise money because the US government has pushed it under the bus, just to prove it can. We all need BP to remain in sound fiscal condition to be able to operate and clean this thing up. Down the road, the company that emerges will probably be smaller, wiser, and poorer, but it will exist. The one entity with the greatest stake in doing the right thing, and with the most to lose by failing to do the right thing, is BP. They actually will have to perform, whereas a politician like Obama only needs to look good at the photo ops.
There are a lot of totally innocent people in this world, especially in the UK, whose pension portfolios include healthy chunks of BP stock, because it pays a good dividend, and has been a stable stock. Now, Mr. Obama, if you push BP over the cliff, who's gonna make the 82-year-old pensioner in Yorkshire whole from the meltdown of his pension fund? The US government? Her Majesty's government is out of money, if you haven't heard the news.
By the way, Obama and company want to go to a US Federal Court in New Orleans to compel BP (a UK company) to suspend its dividends until such time as the US government deems it has cleaned up all the damage caused. That could be the twelfth of never, as one environmental group after another shows up with one more obscure species of algae it can claim was damaged by the oil spill.
Can you say 'Back-door, ad hoc nationalization of BP by the Obama Administration? I knew you could!'
For readers outside the US, this is just one recent and egregious example of our quandry in this country. Obama and company are clueless at running anything, and obsessed with the acquisition of power. We're not the only ones who will end up being hurt by these people.
If OS were a British subject, he'd be raising Cain with his MP about this stuff. Last time anyone checked, no one had ever attempted to nationalize a corporation chartered in another sovereign nation.
This is not the time to attempt that legal feat of derring-do.
This is the time to clean up the mess, not make a worse one.
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