Plutocracy at Work in Deepwater Horizon Spill

© 2010 Peter Free

 

03 May 2010

 

When you buy government, you evade appropriate oil spill prevention regulation

 

The Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill illustrates the effects of plutocratic control of American and world governments.  It is another example of capitalistic recklessness run amuck in the absence of appropriate regulation.

 

Common sense caution should have required safety first

 

BP was allowed to drill in 5,000 feet of water without being required to first demonstrate that it could effectively prevent (or control) blow-outs at that depth.

 

BP minimized the risks of its effort.  When its blow-out preventer failed, the corporation was apparently surprised at the scope of the spill.

 

Poor preparation for a predictable disaster

 

Given that enormous amounts of crude oil spurting out of a hole 5,000 feet under water would obviously pose huge environmental problems, what was everyone thinking?

 

The fact sheets, attached to the combined agencies website regarding the spill, reveal how poorly prepared everyone one was for this easily predictable incident.  Wikipedia’s coverage agrees.

 

In this instance, poor preparation means (a) greed or (b) stupidity

 

Obviously, BP and United States government (a) were not thinking or (b) did not care.

 

Given your knowledge of human nature, which alternative would you pick?

 

Who is really going to pay?

 

President Obama said (on 30 April) that BP will have to pay for the cleanup.

 

That will go about as effectively (for ordinary people, animals, plants, and micro-fauna) as the cleanup after the Exxon Valdez spill did.

 

The President’s attribution of responsibility to BP ignores the fact that BP will certainly not have the physical resources to clean up a geographically wide-ranging spill.  Nor will it agreeably compensate all the people who have been harmed.

 

Furthermore, the corporation will eventually pass the cost of the cleanup to its customers.  Why?  According to law and corporate practice, it has to maximize profit for its shareholders.  Can’t do that if BP actually eats these cleanup costs.

 

Worse, to the degree that the United States oil supply is interrupted or lessened, other oil companies will be able to raise their prices at the gasoline pumps.

 

So who is really going to pay for this disaster?

 

We are.  Just as we did with the bank bailouts.

 

Last, purely monetary cleanup costs do not take into account the probably very long-term physical damage that will be done to the Gulf, its coasts, and people’s livelihoods.

 

Plutocrats love the courts

 

If you think courts of law are going to bring you justice, think again.  The courts are the slowest, most expensive, usually dead end to justice as even the richest plutocrat could wish.

 

We must force government to regulate the evils of corporate nature

 

The only way to do that is (a) to take corporate money out of politics or (b) to ensure that politicians have more to lose from the public’s wrath, than they do from disappointed corporate election financers and lobbyists.