06/11/10 Baltimore, Maryland – Everyone is looking for someone else to blame…and someone to follow.
America’s chief executive is acting tough. He’s talking about kicking someone’s derriere. He says BP chairman Tony Hayward “wouldn’t work for me,” as if he knew what he was talking about. Obama is a former community activist and law professor. What does he know about running a multinational oil company? Or about employing someone?
The Obama team has taken to calling the company “British Petroleum.” That hasn’t been the company’s name for 12 years…but it puts the blame on the other side of the Atlantic, where they want it.
The news out yesterday was that the leak was allowing 1 million gallons of oil to escape into the Gulf every day. Some commentators say Hayward will lose his job. Others say BP will declare bankruptcy when the full costs of the damage become known. Analyst Matt Simmons says “there’s not enough money in the world,” to pay the clean up costs.
Several commentators, including Simmons, suggest that the Gulf disaster be put entirely in the hands of the US military. We laughed when we first heard that suggestion. After all, the pentagon knows no more about deep water drilling than Obama.
But they’ve already put a military man in charge – tough-talking Adm. Thad Allen. He probably has no idea what he’s doing either, but people take him seriously.
People want leadership – especially in a crisis. “The man on the white horse” always seems to come along, just when people need him. He sticks out his jaw. He takes charge. He leads. Only later do people realize that he was a jackass.
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning
Bill Bonner
Since founding Agora Inc. in 1979, Bill Bonner has found success and garnered camaraderie in numerous communities and industries. A man of many talents, his entrepreneurial savvy, unique writings, philanthropic undertakings, and preservationist activities have all been recognized and awarded by some of America's most respected authorities. Along with Addison Wiggin, his friend and colleague, Bill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. Both works have been critically acclaimed internationally. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning. Dice Have No Memory: Big Bets & Bad Economics from Paris to the Pampas, the newest book from Bill Bonner, is the definitive compendium of Bill’s daily reckonings from more than a decade: 1999-2010.
The Daily Reckoning is your premier source for making sense of the news Washington and Wall Street generate. Each business day, The Daily Reckoning calls on its stable of world-class writers and thinkers to show you how to get ahead.
Start your 100% FREE subscription to The Daily Reckoning today and you’ll get a free research report, “How to Survive the Fall of Social Security.” Simply enter your email address below to get your free report and join over 495,000 worldwide Daily Reckoning subscribers!
We Respect Your Privacy and We will
Never Share or Sell Your Email Address
I can’t argue with this–the best and the brightest are usually neither.
Well why did we turn down the Norwegians and all those other countries that wanted to help?
Q: What makes the oil flow?
A: High gas pressure.
Q: How do you reduce high gas pressure?
A: Deplete the formation.
Q: How do you do that?
A: Drill more wells.
With property value losses in the billions, and lost business and joblessness costing billions, moving deepwater rigs into place would be comparatively cheap. Florida realty losses alone are estimated at $4.3 billion.
Maybe praying to the Muslim God works. Scary
Tell it like it is BB
Day 55 and the cretins at BP still haven’t managed to stop the spill. Sounds to me as if they have never ever had any plan whatsoever to deal with a blowout, i.e. a worst case scenario. It is obvious that most or all of their research and development, however tiny that portion may have been, went into maximizing profits. Now they will learn the hard way that that wasn’t a good thing to do.
BB, it is quite funny that you love to heavily criticize when people stay in their jobs which have proved to be irresponsible or simply wrong (Bernanke, Obama, etc.) but you do that only when the fault lies within government or central bank people.
When it comes to business people which have proved to be wrong you not only do not critize them but instead you are defending them. I guess you are just talking your own book here. Talk about credibility here.
hire german engineers…or are you driving a british car?????Brits are good as mercenaries their mechanical skills are silch. Their cars have german engines…