I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the BP oil spill in the Gulf. It’s truly a sad and unfortunate chain of events, where many trails of responsibility ultimately broke down. BP, TransOcean, various government agencies and ultimately to the very top of our government itself.
This is not meant to take away from the responsibility that BP holds in this disaster, but as a nation of laws (until recently) there are (or were) mechanisms to address their (BP and others) responsibility.
With the recent agreement of BP to withhold dividend payments to its stock holders, under pressure from our government, and instead place in some sort of escrow fund (under whose control?) for those impacted by the oil spill, I’m left confused. While it sounds completely reasonable, I really wonder about the message this sends. For those of you who have a 401k, own stock, or invest in business privately… under what authority, what law, without some sort of due process, does our government have to demand this sort of payday from a business… coercion anyone? I don’t see how anyone can sleep at night… fundamental aspects of law that built this country seem to be tossed away at any given whim. What person or country would continue to invest in the US if their investment is open to seizure at the whim of our executive branch. The parallels of Chavez and Obama are striking to me: Chávez Seizes Assets of Oil Contractors is this to be our future too? It seems a new banana republic has been born and this time it’s us.
