Various Articles about BP Oil Spill

This is a collection of links to articles I've read recently on BP's Oil Spill. Most are opinion pieces about the Federal Government's reaction to the crisis and the appropriate role of government in situations like this. The biggest thing that stands out to me is how many people side with Big Business over their own interests and how weak the regulation is in this department, mostly due to Big Oil dominating the interests of U.S. citizens for their own benefit. Instead we are left with a hamstrung government trying to make up solutions as they go along and mostly forced to ride backseat to a corporation more concerned about its own profits than about anthing else.

We need much better regulation in this area going forward. This should be crystal clear by now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/opinion/30rich.html?hp

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/30/brazile.big.government/index.html?hpt=C2

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0530/BP-oil-spill-top-kill-failure-means-well-may-gush-until-August

This one discusses the impact of the oil spill and BP's use of dispersants on marine life. Essentially, the use of dispersants destroys the red blood cells of any animals that come in contact with it, so yeah, that's probably a bad thing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/oil-spill-creates-huge-undersea-dead-zones-1987039.html

I am shocked! Shocked! to learn that Halliburton was involved in taking billions of dollars to be incompetent and cause harm to life on this planet! Thanks a lot, Dick (Cheney)! Your legacy lives on!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/what-was-halliburtons-role-in-us-oil-spill-1987038.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html?hp

Big Surprise! Mitch McConnell wants the American taxpayer to bear the brunt of cleanup costs rather than stick to the Polluter Pays principle. A bailout of big business with no chance for the American taxpayer to get any return on their money? Awesome!
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/05/28/oil_industry_bailout/index.html

"In the long run, we can and must have some good debate about the way the anti-regulation politics of the last 10-20 years led us here. Actually, there's nothing to debate. It's fact."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/05/29/top_kill_fails/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/30/ed-markey-bp-lying-or-inc_n_594800.html

This one's a bit Conspiracy happy, but it makes a lot of interesting points that I am interested to research further. Oh, and you have to love the logo from the end, actual BP ad from 1999.
http://blog.buzzflash.com/editorblog/312

"BP, and the oil industry in general, has managed to get away with a lot," she said. "But the reason I go back to the government is oil companies' jobs — their focus is to make money. If they're allowed to take shortcuts, of course they will. And it's the government's job to make sure that they're not allowed to do that. Bottom line, our government shouldn't let the oil companies do what they're doing."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/29/95064/oil-spill-is-taking-a-toll-on.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news

Please read, think, and discuss amongst yourselves or here on this blog.

American Citizens are expendable little piggies - clearly

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-25/shocking-bp-memo-and-the-oil-spill-in-the-gulf/full/

I don't even know what to say about this, other than to say that I feel like I should be stunned but I'm not.

When you don't have a system of checks and balances and instead rely purely on the profit motive, you get this type of thinking. Time and time again, short term thinking about purely monetary concerns trumps any long term economic thinking and certainly any concern for any non-economic results. Lives? Hmm, translate that into a dollar amount based on the potential for negative publicity. The environment? Hmm, translate that into another dollar amount based on publicity hit. Change our logo to look environmentally friendly without making any real changes. Brilliant! If it costs too much to clean it up, then don't do it. Hmm, the fines are lower than the cost of cleaning it up? Take the fine. Hmm, the cost of putting in safety features is higher than the expected losses from forecasting the odds of ever needing the safety features? Safety, shmafety!

The brazenness of this case should be shocking, and it might be to many Americans. To me, it's just Big Business as usual.

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Oil Well Before Blast - CNBC

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Oil Well Before Blast - CNBC

Big surprise! There were warning signs before the accident. BP made decisions based not on safety or even long term economic outlook but instead cut corners for short term gains. So, to save money short term but cost themselves money long term, 11 people are dead and millions will impacted by the largest oil spill in U.S. History.

I think this is a clear sign that we need real regulation on how these rigs are operated, with a focus on safety for both those working on the rig and for those potentially impacted by accidents or even just normal use. The Department of the Interior has promised a full review of how this stuff is handled. I look forward to seeing what changes are made.

Great American Safety Net

I am a firm believer in programs that I think are very much misunderstood and demonized. I'm talking about the programs that make up the great American safety net, programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance, etc.

When they get labeled as "Entitlements", it really drives me crazy. That term always seems to be said with a sneer aimed at those who dare to accept assistance in their time of need and who are supposedly demanding to be given handouts so they can maintain their status as leeches on that portion of society that has the moral high ground by virtue of experiencing economic success. That somehow the great American dream is to live off of the dole funded by others just makes me so angry. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I know this firsthand. My mother and I lived in poverty, living in free housing (not the highest quality, not the best behaved neighbors, etc.), living from Welfare check to Student Loan check, eating the best meal of my day on the Free Lunch program, and yes in fact, eating government cheese (think Velveeta with more salt and less quality). Was it hard? Um, yeah. It never occurred to us to think to ourselves, "Boy, this is the life! Let's just do this forever and ever. Those fools with jobs who pay income tax are really wasting their time!"

So what did we do? We dug deep and focused on what it would take to make our lives better. My mother worked two part-time student work jobs to pay her way through the local college, and she busted her butt to get good grades. I saw her focus and her sacrifices, and I resolved to never let her down. So, I did what I had to do to maintain the highest grades and to stay out of trouble. I was bullied, but I never told anyone because I was afraid to rock the boat. I figured my best escape was to stay safely at home and lose myself in books and tv and a world of my imagination. It helped me get through a life with no luxuries, with barely more than the bare necessities of survival. Eventually, life got better as my mother's hard work slowly paid off (grad school, reasonable jobs, marriage to my step-father, and now a long career with the Federal government). I never forgot where we were, what it took to survive, and what it took to make it out of there.

Many of you will say that my family are the exceptions and not the rule for trying to rise above where we were. I disagree. I think we are the exceptions because we succeeded. We were blessed with talent to go along with our persistence and focus. Even we would have had far less of a chance to survive and eventually succeed if not for the governmental assistance we received.

If not for free healthcare, one of the many times I had strep throat might have done us in. If not for free housing, we might have tried to live in a friend's living room, I guess. If not for Welfare checks, student loans and student-work programs, my mother would never have gone to college and certainly not to grad school. Her odds of making it would have been a lot harder with her GED and a resume populated only with a 1-day stint at Burger King. If not for the Free Lunch program, we would've had less money for anything else. In those days, school lunches were fairly healthy, so that was nice.

The reality is that these programs combine to make a reasonable baseline for our citizens. It's not a great life, but it's a place where you can mount a comeback or make a fresh start. Our nation has enough money to ensure that our citizens can at least expect to have a chance to survive and to have a reasonable platform to create their own success. It not only improves the quality of life for the least successful of our citizens, but it also leads to more overall success for us as a nation.

Imagine that life is like a high wire act. The higher you climb up the pole, the higher the wire you can walk, and the more success you attain. Some people are better at climbing poles than others. Some were born higher up to start with. Some are better than others at walking on the wire. [In America, we are all led to believe that we have equal access to the poles and the wires and the success. In an ideal world, this would be true, but that's a matter for another time.] What happens when someone falls off of the poles or the wires? They fall to the ground and they die. Game over, man!

I propose that this web of governmental programs is a safety net. When you fall, you still fall, but you don't die. You end up at the bottom, but you have a chance to start over and work your way back up the pole to the wire and to the success. This safety net is high enough from the ground to prevent death, but not high enough to be deemed a success. In fact, nobody wants to stay there, they want to get back to climbing and succeeding.

This to me is Freedom within Boundaries. Without the net, the downside of exercising your Freedom by daring to dream, to try, to strive, to pursue success is too high. Fewer people will make use of their Freedom to walk the wire when death is a possibility. When you remove death from the equation, suddenly more people make use of their Freedom to try and be great. Greatness is not guaranteed to any man, but it becomes more of an option when the price for failure is lowered, if only by a small amount. This will cause a net (no pun intended) increase in overall greatness achieved by the overall society. This means that the price of the safety net is more than made up for by the overall increase in prosperity. It encourages achievement in place of complacency and fear.

The devil is in the details of execution, but the general concept of the great American Safety Net works for me. I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Freedom Within Boundaries

What does Freedom within Boundaries mean?

Many people argue that Boundaries stand in the way of Freedom and that unlimited Freedom is the best thing. So they see Freedom and Boundaries as diametrically opposed foes, with each increase in one resulting in an equal decrease in the other. The reality is that too much Freedom is actually dangerous for the person who is free and for everyone else, too. The argument that too many boundaries can be bad is a fairly obvious one, but not everyone sees that too much Freedom can be a valid concept. Usually it takes my favorite tool, an analogy, to make it clear.

Imagine your children are playing in your front lawn. Your children are between 6 and 10 years of age. The lawn has no fences. The street in front of the house is very busy at all hours, both with cars and with foot traffic. The neighbors on both sides raise large, aggressive dogs (Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, Dobermans, Rabid Poodles, whatever) and let them roam free.

You give your children complete freedom to play in the yard. How good do you feel about this situation? How far will the kids venture from the front door before running back? How much freedom do they get to enjoy?

Now imagine you build a fence around the lawn. This fence is high enough to keep the dogs out and to keep your kids from running into the street. How good do you feel about this situation? How far will the kids venture from the front door before running back? How much freedom to they get to enjoy?

By virtue of having this boundary, you have created a safer environment for the children to express their freedom. Instead of using something like 5% of their unlimited Freedom, they now use almost 100% of their slightly reduced Freedom, so the actual amount of Freedom that is enjoyed or expressed or consumed or whatever is much, much higher.

This is how I feel about laws, governmental regulations, rules at the pool (no horseplay!), stock market rules, board game rules, rules of driving, etc. Good rules provide a safer environment where more freedom is actually experienced. Not all rules are good rules, of course, and it is certainly possible to have the boundaries drawn so tightly that there is little room left for freedom. The key is having the right rules and the right balance between safety and being overly constrained.

My intention is to maintain this blog as a political and philosophical space. I encourage debate, but I discourage personal attacks. Essentially, I stand behind Voltaire's quote: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!"