Slashdot Mirror
BP Ignored Safety Modeling Software To Save Time
DMandPenfold writes "BP ignored the advice of safety modeling software in an attempt to save time before the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to a presentation slide (PDF) prepared by US investigators. The slide in question briefly appeared on the Oil Spill Commission's website in error, but was quickly retracted. Advanced cement modeling software, provided by BP's cement contractor Halliburton, had highlighted serious stability concerns with the well."
I think some people need to spend time in jail if this is proven. A lot of time.
Because boycotting BP hurts people that weren't involved in any decision making and doesn't really hurt the ones responsible.
I guess BP are just too slick to handle, and they do have a pretty well oiled Lobby and PR machine.
But personally, I would not mind seeing BP taking a severe beating in the marketplace, as fines apparently have a hard time making the point.
What? Are you implying that politicians let campaign donations color their decision making? Why I would never have dreamed of that happening!
Quality concerns should never be ignored with projects of this scale. Information like this should result in a shutdown of the project until the issue is addressed.
If you are developing a web site, you can get away with defects in quality because of the nature of the web and precompiled code. To correct an issue, all you have to do is deploy code that corrects the problem. There is no impact outside the site itself. If you want to reduce the possibility of things like this happening, you introduce more advanced testing procedures, beta tests with limited numbers of users, and other methods to reduce the potential for a disruption in services.
If you are building an oil rig, the potential risk of disaster has an impact that goes far beyond the capital involved in building the rig itself, and being faithful to the results of quality assessments is essential to avoiding catastrophes like the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Any action failing to meet high quality standards should be considered criminal, as the outcome will have a harm on people / environment / wildlife around the rig.
Reading this powerpoint just makes me angry. BP has been lobbying Congress for a while now to reduce potential penalties they may have to pay, and their marketing arm has been doing a lot of damage control in the public arena. It is very important to hold these people accountable for their actions, since this is the way these people do business.
This seriousely does not suprise me at all. In a recent issue of Popular Mechanics magazine (October 2010 issue) they had an excellent article on just how bad BP blew it in the gulf of mexico. Everything from turning off and disabling safety systems and alarms, to rushing the drilling process, using wrong materials, ignoring advice and warnings from others that they were going to fast and ignoring safety, and more.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Probably you just haven't looked. There has been a massive boycott here in Florida: one, two, three. BTW -- If you're going to boycott BP, you need to boycott all of BP's brands, too.
My blog
There's nothing in TFS (except the existance of that slide) that we didn't already know from the earlier /. story. As I understand it, earlier this month, the commission seemed not believe that BP et al. necessarily cut corners to save money. Now they seem to be more sure that risky decisions were made (mostly on shore) to save money. The slide was allegedly retracted for technical reasons, but should be part of the commission's final report.
and ignored any kind of safety precautions, even at the cost of an entire ecosystem .....
....
impossible. that cannot have happened.... because, uncle greenspan said that, corporations could regulate themselves. im agape with surprise.... surely, this must be a one-time incident
Read radical news here
they do have a pretty well oiled Lobby and PR machine.
Almost as well oiled as the Mexican Gulf!
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Won't happen. People are so addicted to their cars that BP will suffer no problems at all from this.
BP gas stations are independently owned and operated... and they don't necessarily sell BP gas. Furthermore, even if every BP station were to shut down tomorrow, BP would still be able to sell their gas to every other gas station, none of which are locked into buying their gas from a single provider.
In short, boycotting BP won't do anything but hurt locally owned gas stations that had nothing to do with the spill.
We're sorry.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
Uh...typical ignorant response. You do know that BP doesn't actually make anything that you can buy? Unless you're in the business of buying supertanker loads, of course.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Some at BP needs to do Pound-me-in-the-ass prison time.
Actually its more like saying that Ford should be responsible for the faulty oil filters when the oil filter pours oil out the seals. Just like saying BP should be held responsible when they install a blow out valve and it.. umm pours oil out its seals.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
The first part of that statement is true, but the second part is not. Of course it will hurt the ones involved in the decision making who were responsible. The execs at the top will start by losing revenue-based bonuses. I imagine many will be fired and replaced if profits turn into losses. They'll also have a hard time getting such a high-level job elsewhere if they were tied to this disaster. In addition, most of them are vested heavily in BP stocks and stock options, which will drop significantly in value. Many will be stuck in mansions that they can no longer afford and can't sell because they're underwater. The downside is that it will hurt a lot of lower-level employees a lot more because BP will be forced to lay off workers, but you can't say it wouldn't hurt the ones responsible.
I might not be int he market for buying anything directly from BP, but asking my local gas station where their gas came from and then boycotting the BP gas is a viable way to avoid BP gas. If the current gas in the tank is from BP, avoid that station. If it's not BP gas, "fill'er up".
It's not as if gas stations buying BP gas somehow takes away my ability to find out the source of the gas I'm trying to buy. And I've heard that margins for local gas stations are paper thin. I'm sure more than a few customers asking "is this BP gas? yes? ok, thanks. I'll be back when you have some non-BP gas" could result in the local gas stations not buying gas from BP anymore.
Because boycotting BP hurts people that weren't involved in any decision making
And it helps others. Unless you're driving out of town to buy gas, your money will still go to local businesses.
So, when are you fucks going to realize that there are too many convenient "accidents" and instances of "negligence" and "carelessness"? The American People are so damned stupid because when they get played like a fiddle they deny that there is a fiddler. They will call you crazy and paranoid when you add 2 and 2 and come up with 4 even though they know something somewhere is not as it seems. Having no grasp of the subtle and no knowledge of what statecraft is and has always been, ever since the Romans discovered "bread and circus" or Hegel discovered "problem reaction solution" ... they won't believe the evident until it's absolutely undeniably proven and even then I wonder... Remember, your own President's staff said it best - you never let a crisis go to waste. If you can "overlook" a few things and have a crisis whenever you need one, well that's even "better".
... control of your mind. Here, shut up and look at this, see isn't that shiny, isn't that controversial, argue about that for a while while we do whatever we want.
This oil spill, gays in the military, flag burning, some girl getting kidnapped who is somehow more newsworthy than the thousands of people who get kidnapped every year, embryonic stem cells, and other non-issues all have one thing in common: they're complete non-issues that always come up whenever the American people are getting tired of the latest pointless war. It's all about control, folks
They choose to work for bastards, they get what they deserve.
Seriously, do we overlook what Nazis did in WWII just because they werent the ones doing the gassing?
I'd say BP hurt it's employees. But the real reason there are no boycott campaigns is that people don't make big moral decisions when the SUV is nearing E. Some dont care, others probably think all oil companies are likely as bad, but I'd guess the majority just want a tank of gas.
meep
Some at BP needs to do Pound-me-in-the-ass prison time.
The fact that you and many others condone prison justice in the form of the very acts that cause people to go to prison is a brilliant example of how sad our society has become.
How does one boycott BP? Some markets have no alternatives. Me, I've never seen a BP-branded fueling station in my life, but I've probably burned lots of fuel that went through BP's hands. The oil marketplace has a gordian interchange of resources that defy any attempt of unravelling what came from where. If you really want to boycott BP oil,,you have to swear off oil entirely.
I'm sure that BP did cut a lot of corners that they really should not have, and that this lead to the Deepwater Horizon accident.
On the other hand however there will always be 'more that could have been done' in absolutely every situation, by anybody. There's a fine line between taking into account genuine concerns, and listening to every crank or someone with something to sell peddling expensive solutions to minor risks. Nothing is ever entirely risk-free, and there will ALWAYS be more tests, more safely equipment, more drills etc etc that could have been implemented.
In summary, there's a difference between saying, for example in the event of a car wreck "the driver shouldn't have been drinking" (a genuine concern) and "the driver should have taken weekly driving exams, fitted 2ft of foam rubber to the front of his car, and drove everywhere at 10mph max" (the 'more' that could doubtless have been done). I'm not saying that's the case here, but it's worth bearing in mind.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
A "responsible company"? In the oil business?
I find it fascinating that people were willing to blame Halliburton (and Dick Cheney who hasn't been its CEO for 10 years) when they had computer modeling software for the cement that pointed out problems. I wonder if these same people are going to dismiss this fact as junk science while blindly accepting computer models of weather forecasts for the next 100 years all because they prefer one flavor of politics over another.
Outside of the $20 billion dollar escrow account that BP established after meeting with Obama, and the over $500 million that BP has so far paid for cleanup costs, what other aspects of financial responsibility in this incident did you have in mind? The federal government is in court trying to lift the normal $75 million statutory limit on fines for oil spills. The Obama administration is contending that the cap cap is inapplicable in this case. Obama's 2010 campaign received $71, 000 dollars from BP employees, 0.01% of the total contributions that the campaign received, I don't think his presidential campaign received any corporate PAC money from BP. Despite your sarcasm about hope and change, I'm not convinced that $71,000 in individual campaign contributions to a $710 million dollar campaign buys much influence post election.
All of your local gas stations get their gas from the same place. It doesn't matter what brand the label on the pump says.
Yes, the Nazis who didn't commit war crimes are generally not prosecuted.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
"Simply boycott BP. If enough people do it, they will be bought by a responsible company."
In what fucking alternate universe does a company being sold mean that the buyer will be "responsible"???
Put down the glass pipe.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Unfortunately, BP gas stations are mostly franchises. I believe that they pay an annual fee to use the brand name. BP still gets their money unless the gas station goes bankrupt. Because there isn't much excess refining capacity in the US, BP could still sell their gas to the other stations. A boycott would hurt BP's public image, but wouldn't cost them much money.
Actually, FWIW, here in Alabama, a lot of people *have* been boycotting BP. A number of gas stations here in Birmingham have changed from BP to some other brand because their business dropped off precipitously after the spill. (Anecdotal evidence alert, no hard evidence, just what I've noticed while driving around.)
As for boycotting BP ... well, a lot of people figure the buck had to stop somewhere. To me, it's indisputable that BP made some terrible decisions. The fact that (sadly) they had already determined that the well wasn't economically viable, and BP was planning just to cap it and leave it for the time being, is irrelevant.
I'm a good free market conservative, but I do believe in responsible behavior on the part of those companies that enjoy the benefits of it. If someone were to open a large manufacturing plant in Central Alabama, we'd welcome the jobs . .. .. but we would NOT welcome them cutting corners and poisoning the streams, for example. Stereotypes aside, we ain't ENTIRELY stupid here. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
By fired you mean given millions of dollars and asked not to come back to work. That sounds like a real hardship.
If BP's public image becomes lower, if it makes clients flee instead of bringing them there, the franchise won't sell well, the price will have to go down and so will the revenues. How can a boycott not cause damages to BP ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Halliburton is everyone's favorite whipping boy and the media has tried to place some blame on them, but they're really coming off looking like some of the good guys in this story. From all the coverage, it sounds like the entire thing was the result of several very poor decisions made by the BP manager of the platform. The scary thing is, it really didn't sound like they were doing all that much differently than how all the other oil rigs are run. It kind of sounds to me like this hasn't happened before now (at least not at this scale) out of pure luck.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So those local gas stations with a BP logo don't pay any fees to the head company to use the name/brand?
Your answer is overly simplistic and ignores history. If East Germany hadn't been set up as a Soviet puppet state, the allies might well have gone further, but there was a Cold War, and an rei-ndustrialized, reinvigorated West Germany was prioritized over imprisoning 90,000 Nazis and restricting the work of 1.7 million others. wikipedia's entry on Denazification
Of course, the Nazi party was disbanded, and what assets it had were used for other purposes. Perhaps BP should suffer the same fate. Stockholders would lose money, of course, but their losses would be limited to what they put in. Officers could be prosecuted and fined, as they bear personal responsibility.
BP gas stations are independently owned and operated... and they don't necessarily sell BP gas.
Then it should be relatively cheap for them to re-brand. Not free, but they made a mistake when choosing a brand to operate under, and a mistake costing just some money is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Or if BP can tell them not to change brand, then they're not really independent, are they?
That's not entirely true. You could avoid Castrol products, as they're owned by BP. Unfortunately I don't think their commercial sales are nearly as important as their industrial ones. Ah well.
It's better than giving them millions of dollars in salary and annual bonuses and keeping them on.
And yet, the Nuremberg Trials considered four different kinds of crimes.
1. Participation in a common plan of conspiracy for the accomplishment of crimes agains peace.
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against Humanity.
Similarly, the Tokyo Trials grouped the charges into three classes
A Crimes against Peace.
B Crimes against the laws of war
C Crimes against Humanity.
Thus, if you are so disposed as to regard the waging of aggressive wars as an honorable pursuit, the phrase "Class A War Criminal" generally implies more than was meant by the original charges. However, such notorious inhumanities as the "Rape of Nanking", the "Comfort Women", the "Bataan Death March" and the actions of "Unit 731" (to name a few, at random), were made possible by the conspiracy to wage aggressive war.
That's the sort of attitude the people running companies want you to buy into. Let's look at the facts:
1) No one forces anyone to work for BP
2) BP has already hurt a large number of people who had no part in the decision process
3) If BP had committed these acts, a boycott of BP would not be needed. It is BPs actions that is creating the situation. We are just taking a sane and sensible course of action.
4) Doing nothing just perpetuates a criminal enterprise
Doing nothing is sort of like not turning in a mobster because you are afraid of repercussions. As long as you are afraid the mobster wins and more innocent people are hurt. Standing by and letting the innocent suffer due to inaction is immoral.
As soon as you find a little courage the mobster loses. If you continue to buy into their propaganda nothing will change.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The conversation will soon turn to alternative energy. I just say this documentary which I think will be interesting to others:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/158468/fuel?c=News-and-Information/Documentary-and-Biography
Some tidbits:
1) Model Ts ran on ethanol well into prohibition. Ford had designed it so farmers could grow their own fuel. A major backer of prohibition was J. P. Morgan head of Standard Oil. Prohibition killed the alchohol powered model Ts.
2) The Deisel engine was designed to run on vegetable oil. Rudolf Deisel died under mysterious circumstances
3) The Carter Administration began an ambitious energy research program and reduced the US's dependecy on foreign oil by 25%
In addition I will say the hydrogen economy is a scam. Most hydrogen is produced using hydrocarbon fractionation.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Because the franchises are selling everybody's gas, not just BP's. The price of wholesale will be unaffected, and that's what BP gets for its gas, no matter who buys it. If the price goes down it means the gas stations had to sell at a loss - they paid one price to BP and now have to sell for a lower price. BP has already received its money and is completely unaffected. If BP stations never bought a drop of BP gas again, BP still wouldn't lose a dime, because all the other non-BP stations would be buying it instead.
It basically all goes into the same pool*, and additives are only added just before local distribution. If BP stations go bust, Shell, Exxon, or any of the other stations will simply be selling slightly more BP gas. BP gets wholesale prices for every drop of their gas. The people left out in the cold are the station owners who paid for the gas but can't sell it.
The franchise revenues themselves are a very minor, added bonus for BP and losing them does not impact their budget all that much.
It's just like what happened with Exxon in Alaska after the their spill. Exxon basically just pulled the name off their office buildings and continued business as usual. They are not allowed to drill for a single drop of their own oil, yet they still own and sell more than 1/3 of Alaska's oil. The only difference is now nobody knows it's Exxon's oil in those tankers because now their name isn't on the buildings and ships any more (the buildings and ships haven't gone anywhere). Other companies drill and distribute their oil for them, and Exxon simply takes its (significant) cut.
I'll finish with this. It pretty well sums up the problems with attempting to boycott BP gas.
*That's not really accurate, but it's a good enough way to look at it. The point is that if BP gas stations don't buy it at wholesale because they can't sell what they have, other stations will simply buy all the BP gas at wholesale and add their own additives. Demand for gas is huge, it costs more than milk per gallon for crying out loud. There is no difference between the raw products, and the distributors don't really give a rats ass where the gas came from (they prefer their own, because they pay less for it, but they can't supply demand on their own). BP's bottom line is practically unaffected by a BP boycott.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
They don't make any products you can purchase? Really?
http://www.castrol.com/castrol/genericsection.do?categoryId=82915811&contentId=6006712
In order for any boycott to be effective you would have to boycott them for a full quarter - not do what some people did when they "bocotted" Mobil back in the day by delaying filling up by a few days.
Hell, I haven't knowingly purchased any BP products ever since the lawsuits redefined what was allowed to be called "synthetic motor oil" - their business practices have always been unethical. (I have filled up at Arco but I didn't know they were BP)
http://dodgedakotas.com/boards/gen/26587.html
http://www.twoguysgarage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7284
http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=77015
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=193189
There was one benefit to Castrol's winning that suit - it did force the price of true synthetics down quite a bit.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The gasoline may come from the same small group of refineries (because environazi regulations has blocked new refineries for decades) but you don't think it matters if BP isn't the middle man jn the deal? Somebody earns profits from the distribution process. I'd just as soon it not be BP, not just because of the spill, but BP has a very long history of unethical business practices (google "castrol syntec" for good info on BP's legalizing fraud).
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I have a nit to pick about that.
Ford recommended severely under-inflating the tires for ride comfort. Unless the Firestone tires prove defective when properly inflated, how can you blame Firestone for Ford's willful negligence?
Saying Firestone was at fault because the courts said so is like saying Castrol Syntec is actually synthetic oil not based on dino oil because the courts say Castrol/BP can call it synthetic. Hint: the courts can and often do fuck up and make the completely wrong decision. See also: OJ Simpson.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
BP has a long record of avarice compounding arrogance compounding ignorance, and setting up pawns like (sub)contractors for the fall.
5% royalty fees on their profits. The stations typically only make about 5c per gallon (after credit card costs) on the gas, so say wholesale is $2.15 (the price last week), taxes are about 40c per gallon, which gives a final retail of about $2.60. Final price varies by location but this is average. So if a BP station is selling 100,000 gallons of gas a month (a little low, but nice and round), BP is pulling in $215,000 per month while the station owner is getting $5,000.
Best case scenario (assuming all gas stations are making $500k per year profit, which is not at all the case) if you shut down all BP franchise stores you've hurt BP's gasoline profits by about 1%.
They'd certainly notice, but the franchise money was gravy anyway. It was pure profit to begin with. They still get $2.15 for every gallon of gas they produce, and that is where the vast majority of their income comes from.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
It's worse than that - there is a very high likelihood that any non-branded gas station is selling BP gas at any given time, and you have no way of knowing which are or aren't. Furthermore, less than half of BP's crude is sold as gasoline or diesel. The rest goes into other petroleum products, like plastic. Your water bottle or grocery bag may not say "BP" on the side, but chances are BP crude was used to make it.
It is virtually impossible to boycott BP. All you can do is put local small business owners out of business.
What a nice thing to do to your neighbor, eh?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
True that. The branded stations have to buy their brand's gas, but the big oil companies buy, sell, and trade oil between each other all the time. In fact, most oil ventures are partnerships among the big names, and a given gallon of gasoline is almost always owned by more than one company.
I.E. that refinery down the road may be BP owned, but the oil it is refining is probably 40% Exxon, 30% Shell, and 30% BP, or some variation in the percentages and ownership of the gas.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Franchises play an incredibly minor part in BP's revenue. It is nearly impossible for consumers to damage a company whose product is a commodity, short of organizing a boycott of that commodity in its entirety (and hence, every other company who produces/markets that commodity).
While I'm not saying a gasoline boycott is out of the question, a consumer-lead campaign to financially punish BP would have to be far larger in scope than BP itself. There are, of course, other BP subsidiaries that produce non-commodity products. I doubt they'd notice much of a boycott there though...
I subscribe to the trickle up theory of boycotting.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
And? This is true with all boycotts... and part of the goal of the boycott. You don't want to just reduce BP's profits, you also want to make people employed there leave and go elsewhere. Not only do they lose money, they lose talent to. I personally don't give a shit about how well my local gas station owner is doing.
So what's the point of the boycott? The station (not owned by BP) has to spend money to change their advertising, then they continue to buy just as much petrol from BP and BP gets just as much money as before.
I don't think BP supports or just allows a chain of BP brand stations just for fun, or as some kind of charity...
Hurting the brand hurts the owner of the brand, especially so if the brand name is the company name.
BP has a consumer solar division, sells LPG directly to individuals, has a consumer lubricants division, and produces a vast array of petrochemical products for business use (and in quantities far smaller than "supertanker").
Not that I believe a boycott will do much to a company that derives their income primarily from producing a product that is traded as a commodity, but the above comment was too asinine to pass up.
http://www.bp.com/productsservices.do?categoryId=37&contentId=2007985
Surely, the collapse of Castrol sales will send BP's stock into the toilet, and their executives will be forced out of office and tarred and feathered in the streets. Let's do it!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Gasoline transported by pipeline carries a mixed-producer product. All stations that buy from the same bulk terminal are buying the same gasoline, and that gasoline is a mixture of product from every refinery that transports using that particular pipeline (which, for the larger pipelines, is almost all of the major names). The only thing the filling station can tell you is which bulk terminal they purchase from, not which producer their gasoline was actually refined at.
Asking where the gas came from is more than likely going to get you an answer of "I haven't the slightest clue." And they'll be telling you the truth, too.
I'm a good free market conservative, but I do believe in responsible behavior on the part of those companies that enjoy the benefits of it. If someone were to open a large manufacturing plant in Central Alabama, we'd welcome the jobs . .. .. but we would NOT welcome them cutting corners and poisoning the streams, for example.
And there's the nut of the issue when it comes to the market and regulation. You don't need regulation where you can count on people's self-interest to do the right thing. You do need it where you can count on their short-sightedness and greed to overwhelm even their self-interest.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
How would you know?
The truck says Bob's Petroleum Products on the side. Bob drives over to the Badger Pipeline terminal to fill up. Where in this process it is known that the crude oil came from a BP-owned well?
Sorry, the information just isn't available.
Today the other problem is that the pipeline terminal may be connected directly to a refinery that is owned and operated by BP. Therefore in that region there isn't anything but gasoline from BP, period.
Unless you want to start pedaling to the grocery store you are going to be supporting BP, one way or another. You just may not know it and if that makes you feel better, then great.
Don't kid yourself. IF (and it's a big if) any BP execs go to prison, it won't be the supermax, it'll be the one that's more like a suburban elementary school with uniforms. Decent but not great food, a strict rule not to wander past that hedge, clean environment, free health care, gym membership and a nice TV, etc.
They don't send poor people who rob the liquor store there because they don't want to encourage robbing the liquor store.
If you really want to punish the execs, make them live like the people they harmed (and live with the harm they caused). They'll find that far worse than the minimum security prison.
It's been a while since executive "performance bonuses" were actually connected to performance. If fired, they will receive more money than most people make in a lifetime and one of their cronies will make sure to have a seat pulled out and dusted off for them elsewhere.
And frankly people shop at Walmart when they're looking for something cheap to fulfil a purpose.
and that cheapness, comes from the act of walmart killing local businesses first by selling with zero profit margins, and then exploiting you in an environment where there is no competition.
a cheapness which is dearly bought.
Read radical news here
Well, let's see, replace the income of the fishermen, the lost income of Gulf coast resorts, subsidize the cost of seafood for all since it got more expensive due to reduced fishing, etc.
Then, of course there's completing the cleanup of what can be cleaned up. We don't have the technology to extract all that oil from the water (yes, oil naturally seeps into the water, but the oil from the blowout is a significant increase in that amount). That will just about cover the actual damages.
Of course, the standard for willful or negligent acts is treble damages, so we should all expect a nice check for that (no, I'm not holding my breath).
On to the criminal aspects. BP execs owe us a perp walk, embarrassing trial, followed by a lifetime of menial jobs and living next to a crack house since ex-cons are not terribly employable.
Too big to fail... I think that's a load of BS. Businesses come and go. We're supposed to be a mobile workforce. It's not the end of the world to have to find a new job (unless unemployment keeps getting stomped on). If BP has been meeting some level of demand and then suddenly went away, wouldn't that would create new jobs elsewhere as new and existing entities try to fill the demand gap?
The boycott of BP station will only affect the revenue of BP on franchises fees, that's right. Isn't that something to start with ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Mod this up. He said it better than I would have.
The idea that the gas stations are innocent victims is only true to a certain extent. These gas stations were certainly willing to be associated with the "BP" name, and were happy to enjoy BP's advertising. BP certainly DOES make money off of these stations, as Bigjeff5 points out. A lot of money.
Besides, suppose it's discovered that Toshiba, or Honda, or any other large company is guilty of something that angers a lot of their customers. In that case, the local retailers and dealers will certainly be harmed by a boycott, but that is just part of the cost of doing business. The local guy will change brands, and yes, BP *DOES* lose from that in the long run. It has a DIRECT impact on their bottom line.
Ergo, I have a perfect right to refuse to buy BP gasoline. If it hurts the local guy, oh well, I feel for him/her -- but he/she can simply align the business with some other oil company. That's how it works.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Thats a cop out.
No one is 'only capable of working at BP'. I don't care if they 'dont make that decision', the 'I just work here' excuse is just that, an excuse for someone not willing to put the effort into making a change. Its a choice the employee makes, but they most certainly can have an effect.
If their entire staff leaves, it will most certainly hurt their profits.
Its just a question of if they care enough to do something about it. For reference: getting a job elsewhere is doing something about it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Oh, so we should do nothing and keep paying them!
Yep, some people are going to get hurt, maybe they should jump ship before they get hurt?
With very little effort, thanks to the Internet, we can simply see who's trucks are filling up the tanks at gas stations and then avoid anyone that buys gas that gets supplied by BP or any of its subsidiaries along the way.
Not doing anything at all because their will be some collateral damage is just retarded, you must be French, easier to take it up the ass than to fight back.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
They ignored the de-dupe simulation Halliburton created.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I'm aware of that. BP isn't making the full $2.15 per gallon, but they ARE making money off of each individual gas station. That's what the poster was trying to point out, and I agreed with him/her.
He (and I) was responding to the assertion here that BP wouldn't be affected by a boycott of local gas stations. They most assuredly will be.
Yes, sadly, it will hurt the local station owner as well, but it WILL get BP's attention, too. That, combined with the bad publicity in general, might mean that they'll be a little less inclined to cut corners and rush things on the next oil well.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
With enough dedication and transparency (or insiders), and informed society, it would be possible - trace BP shipments and sales, and boycott BP fuel wherever it is sold, no matter what the brand name sticker on it - say, a site that publishes which outlets sell products manufactured by BP and boycott them. Pretty soon resellers would begin avoiding BP products like a plague.
Of course it's not possible on this earth.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Yep, that's something to start with. And after we have all the franchise owners who played absolutely no role in the oil spill outside of association, bankrupt, out of business, and all their employees looking for new jobs, we can pay extra for the even more limited selections of fueling stations around (even if it's just a BP station with another name on it).
Have you ever been to a town in which there is only one or two station brands? You can literally drive 20 minutes or so to a bigger town and get gas anywhere from 10-30 cents cheaper. Why it this possible you might ask? Well, it's because when the choice is limited, they can charge what they want for what you need and not too many people would be willing to drive 40 minutes round trip just to save 3 bucks on a fill up. But hey, if we take BP out of this mix, perhaps we will have that in more places.
I'm not saying something shouldn't be done, but seriously think about what you are wanting to do. Hurting people that weren't involved in the incident probably isn't going to be the most effective way to get back at BP. Especially if they simply sell their gas under a different name (like Duke Oil or one of the hundreds of other subsidiaries they have swallowed over the years).
>but was quickly retracted
If there is proof that there was a message about the security of the well's platform, and that it was removed, and the government can pin it on them, i believe it might be the end for them, that is totally disregarding the lives of all the marine animals, and all the local residents along the shoreline that they just stomped on, to make a few more bucks, they should be closed down if the proof sticks.
In a society where you are convinced that boycott can't work, how can one argue that free market works ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
First of all, there really isn't a free market when it comes to oil. It's really that simple. There are about 5 major oil players in the US, of all, only 4 operate in any one state at a time, in which the smaller oil companies are tied to all of these in one way shape or another either by the pipelines to deliver and process the fuels, the refining of the fuels, the distribution, or even the envelopment authority to drill and collect oil leases as it's regulated to the point that only major players can get into it, and so on.
So knowing that there isn't a actual free market when it comes to oil- just a market that attempts to use free market principles, how can one justify harming others who are dependent on the structure of the existing market in order to strike at the source of control in the market?
In war, that's like bombing the entire city in order to take out a munitions dump ten miles outside it. It's like using a nuclear weapon for a hand to hand personal defense instrument. It's like buying a navy ship to go fishing in your local park's pond. It's like killing off all the low income people because gangs end up populating the areas or because some of them take advantage of the system of help and aid. It's like making all kinds of wild comparisons to illustrate a point that should already be obvious.