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pro gress
Depends on how long it takes them to get this situation under control.
The longer this lasts, and the more bad press it generates for them, the more devastating it is for the company financially (obviously). Their stock is in near free-fall right now, and they're going to have to spend billions easily to even begin to get this situation under control.
pro gress
We might be due for another war to distract us from all the jackpots we already got into, including this one.
There are special proceedings under the bankruptcy code for individuals who suffer asbestosis an other related conditions to force a manufacturer into bankruptcy - and - to become a preferred creditor. It's like a hostile takeover of sorts, where the company becomes owned by the very people it harmed, and therefore pays out compensation to the victims via ownership.
The provisions are limited to asbestos companies, although a similar solution here would probably work out well.
La. official frets over BP bankruptcy
The state treasurer of Louisiana is going public with concerns over whether BP can actually afford to pay tens of billions in claims stemming from the Gulf oil spill – saying he believes the company only has $12 billion in readily accessible assets.
Treasurer John Kennedy, a Republican, thinks federal and state officials are too dependent on the oil giant to foot the bill for the clean-up and the growing economic devastation in the Gulf.
Theoretically, BP could dodge billions in payouts to Gulf area businesses, residents, along with state and federal agencies, if the company sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy – leaving the government holding the bag, Kennedy claims.
“I am concerned about the solvency of BP,” Kennedy wrote to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Thursday. “More specifically I am concerned about the possibility BP will seek the protection of United States Bankruptcy protection."
Kennedy added: “I believe it is imperative that the state of Louisiana begin to develop a plan to deal with the economic effect of this catastrophe in the event of a BP bankruptcy. We all hope that does not happen and such a plan is not needed, but we must be ready."
He says Texaco used a similar tactic in 1987, when it sought bankruptcy protection to shield itself from a $1 billion jury verdict.
BP currently has a net worth of about $81 billion but most of those assets are locked up in illiquid assets. Analysts at Credit Suisse have estimated the total clean-up cost at $23 million – but that doesn’t factor in billions in claims resulting from lost tourism in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform sunk on April 20 BP’s stock has plummeted – and the cost of insuring its debt against default has rocketed by about 50 percent.
BP officials say they will pay off any legitimate claim and have refused to entertain the possibility of bankruptcy, restructuring or spinning off their U.S. operations – despite widespread speculation about the company’s future in the financial press.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, but Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the notion that BP couldn’t fulfill its financial obligations.
Jindal’s office says the governor, who has criticized the response to the spill by BP and the Coast Guard, has directed Louisiana’s attorney general to study the matter. In the past, Jindal has said it’s unlikely BP could elude liability, no matter what it does.
A BP spokesman didn’t immediately return a call for comment.
I don't think so. It's simply to insanely big of a company, and the British government relies on it.
Obama would put the US at a huge strategic and political risk by pissing off the British if he unilaterally goes awol against BP.
Yeah, because he's been so accommodating to the British so far...
Elucidate
UK govt and UK pension funds are complaining the Magic Negro's trash talk about BP is "political".
BP going bankrupt would wipe $Bs in UK pension funds, which have already taken a hit from the huge drop in BP stock price.
Which kinda ties in to what I'm trying to get out of Yoni to explain.
Obama so far has done.......talking. I seriously doubt he follows through with any of the extreme measures he's TALKED about. US and UK are like vice grip, remember? But if Obama did do something that stupid, then it makes him the feeble total up president in terms of foreign policy (and this issue is a foreign policy issue as well) that his worst critics have been saying he is. It would be a total game changer.
I don't think he does it. But I suppose anything is possible.
Well, it all started with Obama giving back a Churchill bust, giving the Queen an iPod chocked full of Obama awesomeness, Mic e taking a spin through the White House gift shop to pick up a last minute, no thought, gift for the Prime Minister's children and Obama giving him a DVD set that he couldn't even use back home...and, then, it deteriorated from there:
Barack Obama 'too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown
That's smart diplomacy....The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.
The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment." The apparent lack of attention to detail by the Obama administration is indicative of what many believe to be Mr Obama's determination to do too much too quickly.
He's gone on to hug and bow to just about every tin-horn and not-so-tin-horn dictator in the world and, now, seems poised to sell-out the Israelis.
I'd hate to be a an American ally right now.
Guess what folks, there's a buttload of American "pensioners" invested in BP, as well.
As far as following through...BP has already announced one concession...
BP plans to defer dividend after pressure from Obama
And, as for that moratorium on drilling, it affects about 5% of Gulf wells and not even that many of the deep-water sites. But, it will put thousands of Americans out of work.
Oh, and Obama's Interior Secretary revealed, in testimony today, it wasn't the idea of the scientists they consulted to impose a moratorium, it was his and Barry's -- because, well, they're so much smarter than everyone else.
I blame that reactionary idiocy, I alluded to in another thread.
Yoni, underneath your pedictable bull spewing exterior, you do make some points every once in a while. I will ignore the feces contaminating your main point, and respond only to that.
Dude, you can't confuse propriety and dim-witted faux paus with what matters beyond all else: The money. Dolla, dollah bill, yo.
Obama taking BP by the horns (for domestic support at the polls) would be a total disaster, game changing, up of the century. Not about if he'd be right, or wrong, or if it would work, or not. It has the potential to over the UK government and upset a load of their citizens. You'd be ing with alot of UK money. It would alienate our ally more than anything we've ever done.
I don't even think officials within the US government itself would allow Obama to do something that ing stupid.
Obama taking down BP would be an entirely entirely different stratosphere, a different universe than all of the comparably ticky tack, snow-coning issues you just mentioned.
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