The failure of an industry
Much of it is deeply technical, and it takes me at least a couple of readings to sort out my spacer fluids from my annular preventer. But the authors intentions could not be clearer.
The opening is worthy of any British tabloid. A picture of the inferno, a core as bright as the sun, surrounded by scarlet flames and billows of black smoke. In bold type a headline, a quote from an email by one of the engineers involved in putting the rig in place: "Who cares ... it's done ... end of story ... will probably be fine."
This is perhaps rather unfairly taken out of context. It suggests a cavalier approach to the whole job. In fact the man was talking about a specific and rather technical dispute about how many, and what type of centralisers should be used. Perhaps he's saying: "There's more than one way to skin a cat." Except of course the cat wasn't skinned.
The detail is devilish, but worth following.
These devices are apparently crucial to guide the concrete that should block any gaps and so stop oil and gas leaking. First they were going to use six. Then they decided they needed 15 more. Then when they arrived they weren't of the type ordered. So someone else decided to go with just six.
But it turns out they might have in fact been the right sort. The report argues this, and many other examples show a rather slapdash approach - BP wasn't sitting down and thinking this through in advance (remember we are not talking about crisis management here, but the installation of the Deepwater Horizon).
The report says the disaster happened not because of a series of aberrations by rogue operators but a systemic failure of management. And that means it could happen again.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~50~RS~)
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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BP screwed up, paid for much of the clean-up and other consequences and now is being sued for more money. The CEO was sent out to pasture to some Russian oil company and, I suspect, BP will conduct other "internal re-structuring" as a result of which other heads will roll.
Obama went for a short swim to show that the water is OK and then high tailed it to Hawaii, where the water is, no doubt, even more OK.
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And that means it could happen again...?
It WILL happen again if America relies on industry and management. Their world is driven by the shareholder's and the market's desire for short term profit. I am quite sure there is a "manager" as I write contemplating cutting a few corners with an eye to next quarters bottom line and thinking, "Hey man, (hawk...spit), it'll never happen to me".
It will be LESS likely to occur if American's regulators get a clear message from the countries elected representatives who, working independantly of special interest group pressure, have in turn received an even clearer message from an informed and participating American electorate that it is time to put an end to this kind of thing.
An informed, participating American electorate? Sadly, this statement is almost oxymoronic. Elected representatives working independantly of special interest groups. Hmmmm.
(Apologies to those American's who are informed and who do choose to participate.)
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Mark Mardell wrote:
"And that means it could happen again."
It is a tragedy that the Gulf oil spill happened at all, yet there is a commercial demand for oil, so there are developers around the world who could supply that demand, and unfortunately there now is a heightened awareness in the US of the hazards involved.
Moreover, if a big oil spill could happen once, yes, then it could happen again.
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Clarification (#3):
It is good that there is a heightened awareness in the US of the hazards involved, but by the immediate and the potential long term damage it is unfortunate that such an awareness could now exist.
I suspect that such an awareness will help to promote alternate energy sources.
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The common threads from all BP's recent problems, and those from many other similar failures, is an unwillingness to invest in proper maintenance, and to ensure that the staff carrying out work are properly trained in the first place, and then independently assessed as competent. Billions are wasted on stupid investments, but the few million required to manage maintenance properly, and the training and assessment of staff, are always the first budget cuts to be made, and the last to be reinstated (usually after a disaster). The only answer to this is to follow the example of the airline industry, where Government bodies license staff to work on safety critical equipment (which is why, despite low prices, Easyjet and Ryanair have spotless safety records).
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#5
It's a good thing this was not an oil rig, in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-557727/Terror-London-bound-easyJet-passengers-engine-catches-mid-flight.html
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Good old Britain.....always there to fight the wars until America decides to step in....and cream off the glory and the profits while Britain falls apart! We were the most powerful nation on earth and our armies spread global capitalism across the world.....and then the last century came along and as the USA rose we fell from power.
So....WHEN WILL THERE BE A FULL UNITED NATIONS INQUIRY INTO THE BEHAVIOUR OF WALL STREET AND THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND REGULATOR IN THE PERIOD SINCE CLINTON MYSTERIOUSLY SLACKENED REGULATION BACK TO PRE-1929 LEVELS....AND WHY?
This is international financial piracy against the British people...when BP is an INTERNATIONAL company with half of its shares owned by Americans.
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Sorry! I meant and "why did Clinton slacken regulation?"! (Another senior moment!)
Look chaps...I fear the USA is a systemically corrupt nation and it CAN`T change itself until we all start asking some much tougher questions about how the USA and now China are able to rule the world.
Where did the huge sums of money come from to finance Clinton and Obama`s presidential campaigns...and what power did that money give to whoever financed people who went on to become president?
If western civilisation is to survive we have to stop waddling about the world bombing and browbeating and torturing anyone who gets in the way of our Wall Street masters and start asking WHY our kids have poor health care and education and die in wars and WHY our pensioners lose their money in Wall Street scams etc etc...and that`s NOT socialist claptrap ....it`s good hard practical common sense!
WE ARE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE!
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And before anyone starts chirping about us being "more fortunate" than foreigners let`s just ponder the possibility that the people who financed American capitalism are moving swiftly over to Asia where their money buys them far more influence and without all the tribulations of rigging our semi-democratic political systems!
Putin is far more powerful in his own country than Obama is in the USA...because he has the Oligarchs under his thumb....whereas Oligarchs in London and the USA tell our politicians what to do through owning us lock stock and barrel....including our politicians and our media!
And it`s the same in China.
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I worked offshore in the 80's when Piper Alpha blew up. The UK government made Operators responsible for safety, via safety case legislation. It has worked, on the whole, very well.
Others have said this before and Mark is correct in observing this CAN happen again. Bullish engineers driven to cut cost by the Operators management, are met by similarly driven contractors. Where has the real Engineering gone? Where has the culture gone that existed when I started, that carreer engineers stated, 'No, Drilling Dept says we cannot do this cheaper, live with it' ?
That was when oil was $10 per barrel, not close to $100 per barrel we are all paying?
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Ref# 8 worcesterjim
"Where did the huge sums of money come from to finance Clinton and Obama`s presidential campaigns..."
_________________
Why just Clinton and Obama? Are you suggesting the Bushes had no ties to the oil industry, and were miraculously elected without prvate campaign contributions.
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Obama has been given a free ridge for his lack of action during the oil spill. He does the PC thing halting major drilling inatives which this country needs and wants.
As with the union Obama care more about the environmental lobby than the American people wants
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Ref# 6 RHammond
It's pretty clear that the safety equipment in your example worked well.
If that had been a rig in the middle of the gulf, the BOP would have worked.
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#8
"...start asking WHY our kids have poor health care and education and die in wars and WHY our pensioners lose their money in Wall Street scams etc etc...and that`s NOT socialist claptrap ....it`s good hard practical common sense!"
- kids in poor health - Capitalist fatty foods and video games
- kids with poor education - Socialist educational methods
- kids who die in wars - Potential fate of any soldier, call it an occupational hazard.
- pensioners loosing their money on Wall street scams - pensioners playing Wall Street games with their retirement funds. Some call it greed, others call it senility and others still, call it a middle finger to their children. Take your pick.
Solution: Avoid capitalist foods, socialist educational systems, military service and stock market investments.
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What is the same in China?
Simple.....the Chinese don`t allow the Wall Street owned "global media" or the Vatican or Osama Bin Laden or the Saudis or Israel or anyone else to sabotage their country`s rise to financial supremacy......and the moment they do allow all these influences in to China could be the begining of their downfall.
In China and Russia global capitalisms true colours are shown for all to see....they don`t care about freedom and democracy if loyalty to those concepts damages their bottom line!
And worse still,it exposes the truth behind our "democracies"...that they always were a fraudulent abuse of ordinary British and American people ...who believed that they were fighting and dying for their grandchildren`s prosperity and freedom.
Well were they ??? Or were they fighting and dying so that organised criminals could rebuild Russia and China and Europe and the America`s into a global financial feudal system that couldn`t give a damn about the common man?
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Yes Mr Hammond..(or is it Clarkson today?)...instead of sabotaging our future with your devious apparatchik script of tricky half-truths and biased propoganda (on behalf of the rich and powerful?)just reflect on where all this is taking your grandchildren!Be ashamed!
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Well with my comments getting "referred for further consideration" I suppose it`s really time to bid you BBC/CIA/Wall Street "operatives" a far from fond farewell.
It would be consoling to think that the world is a safer and better place for future generations to inherit.... but brainwashing by extremist global capitalism`s powerful media seems to have completely closed your minds and stifled our collective imagination.
God help us all...for mankind is far too stupid to do it unaided!
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Of course this accident could happen again. You are drilling into more hazardous environments all the time, and there are all manner of safety checks, but they are all vulnerable to human error.
The one thing that still baffles me is why they didn't stop everything when they observed inexplicable pressure behaviour in that negative test. It reminds me of my early days when I was rather cavalier over a pressure test, got a right b**cking and held up the rig for a day whilst they pumped a load of diesel over the side and redid the test. I remember being on the chopper, looking at the mini-oil slick, thinking "OK, so a pressure test either passes or fails, it doesn't sort-of pass, never try to cut a corner".
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After the world financial collapse we are entering an era of management by cost reduction. The driving force will be the capture of a commendable bottom line. The kind of people chosen to head up business in these conditions will be the ones who ignore regulation and safety and customer satisfaction in the assault on overheads. They will mouth all the right platitudes,be seen with the furrowed brows of concern, brush up on compassionate rhetoric, walk away with gigantic severence packages and enormous pensions, leaving their white-knight successors and their investors and stockholders to sift through the resultant garbage.
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#15
"Or were they fighting and dying so that organised criminals could rebuild Russia and China and Europe and the America`s into a global financial feudal system that couldn`t give a damn about the common man?"
Suppose that is true. Can you think of a better incentive to not be a "common man", any longer? Let someone else be a "common man", from now on, and aspire to something better for yourself.
Common = ordinary = uninspired = stagnant = stale = etc, etc, etc.
Reminds me of that story about the two frogs...
"The Two Frogs and the Bucket of Milk
Two young frogs fell into a bucket of milk. Both tried to jump to freedom, but the sides of the bucket were steep and no foundation was to be had on the surface of the liquid. Seeing little chance of escape, the first frog soon despaired and stopped jumping. After a short while he sunk to the bottom of the bucket and drowned.
The second frog also saw no likelihood of success, but he never stopped trying. Even though each jump seemed to reach the same inadequate height, he kept on struggling. Eventually, his persistent efforts churned some milk into butter. From the now hardened surface of the milk, he managed to leap out of the bucket."
One was a "common frog" :)
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It is a shame that politicians cannot learn from the world around them any more that businesses can.
Somehow the message that 'cost cutting' leads to these kinds of accidents will not get through. I don't want to find out what the current cost-cutting gotta save money at all costs approach is going to do to our nation.
It's an object lesson. Don't make false economies just to put money into anyone's pocket: use it wisely so that you do what you are being paid to do in a responsible and ethical manner.
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14. At 09:34am on 06 Jan 2011, JClarkson wrote:
Solution: Avoid capitalist foods, socialist educational systems, military service and stock market investments.
____________________________________________________
In other words, avoid all risk. That is part of our cultural problem, from congress to the average soccer mom; we have become a risk-averse nation. It's fortunate that 1% of the population is willing to take the risk to defend the county. It's fortunate that there are those willing to risk their wealth in business ventures so others have a chance at employment.
It's unfortunate that in recent times lot of folks have risked more than they could afford, but is that the gov't's fault. Is it our collective responsibility to bail out those less than prudent individuals?
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YVR Colin, (#2. At 05:38am on 06 Jan 2011)
”... An informed, participating American electorate? Sadly, this statement is almost oxymoronic. Elected representatives working independantly of special interest groups. Hmmmm. ...”
More truth there than should be.
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worcesterjim, (#7. At 08:20am on 06 Jan 2011)
”... So....WHEN WILL THERE BE A FULL UNITED NATIONS INQUIRY INTO THE BEHAVIOUR OF WALL STREET AND THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND REGULATOR IN THE PERIOD SINCE CLINTON MYSTERIOUSLY SLACKENED REGULATION BACK TO PRE-1929 LEVELS....AND WHY? ...”
When the United States of America is subordinated to the U.N.
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24. At 11:07am on 06 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
When the United States of America is subordinated to the U.N.
__________________________________________________________________
Then all those left on Earth will have 666 tattooed on their heads or hands and no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast...
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We really did cause havoc unleashing the "enlightenment" on the world and dear old Adam Smith`s invisible hands have gotten us into a fine old mess with all their meddling Mr Clarkson-Hammond.....but how many buckets have you escaped from....and are you a prince and not a frog because you followed the American Dream of rags to riches?
Wake up you self-important smug and arrogant people....Americans have LESS chance of fulfilling the dream than ever...and it`s the same in Britain..all your freedom and democracy and free market bull-droppings "delivers" INEQUALITY and the insidious rise of FEUDALISM and the ascendency of ORGANISED CRIME.
How do I know? Simple ....while you lived "the dream" Britain endured the next stage in the process...the nightmare of slow DECLINE and barmy attempts to "free market" and "socialise" us out of our engulfing mess...and all your cast-off crazy ideas....like mass immigration while exporting our industry at the same time ( pure genius!).
And instead of having real socialism to protect our people we had YOUR half-baked idea of socialism/liberalism ....where "Labour" were obsessed with ignoring the real British people and importing half the third world to share in our pitiful little welfare state ....and take what was left of our jobs and housing to turn into foreign-occupied hotbeds of crime and terrorism directed at us!
Get of your high horses and look at Britain....because we are the nightmare that will replace your American Dream!
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worcesterjim, (#15. At 09:46am on 06 Jan 2011)
”... And worse still,it exposes the truth behind our "democracies"...that they always were a fraudulent abuse of ordinary British and American people ...who believed that they were fighting and dying for their grandchildren`s prosperity and freedom.
Well were they ??? ...”
Ask them, and ask the people and the children of the people who were liberated from the Nazis, the Soviet Empire, and the Empire of Tojo’s Japan. I'm confident of the reply you will get.
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24..Chryses...I welcome your comment but could you be a little less cryptic and PLEASE just explain whether that means you feel that the USA should accept the leadership of the UN or vice versa?
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#26
"And instead of having real socialism to protect our people we had YOUR half-baked idea of socialism/liberalism..."
So the US invented Socialism and then exported it to Britain and Europe. RealSocialism (TM), meanwhile, has been...what? Not invented yet? Or is it still in some textbook, yet to be implemented? Or was it really a pipe dream, all along, a dream you still subscribe to, while the real world moved on?
Aren't you a bit too old to be this naive?
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So, who now remembers.....
1988, North Sea's Piper Alpha Disaster. ***167 people killed***; operators found guilty of exercising inadequate maintenance and safety procedures - no criminal charges laid.
1980, Stavanger, Norway: floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, ***123 oil workers killed.***
1967, Cornwall - Torrey Canyon - 38 million gallons of crude oil spilled. 1976, Buzzards Bay, Mass.: 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil spilled. 1977, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons. 1978, Brittany coast: Amoco Cadiz, 68 million gallons. 1979, Gulf of Mexico: Ixtoc 1 blew, estimated 140 mil gals of crude. 1979, Tobago: ship collision - 87 mil gals. 1983, Persian Gulf: Nowruz Field platform, 80 mil gals. Aug, Cape Town, Castillo de Bellver caught fire, 78 mil gals. 1988, Saint John's, Newfoundland: Odyssey, 43 mil gals. 1989, Prince William Sound: Exxon Valdez, 10 mil+ gals.
etc. - myriad others.
The litany goes on - and on - and on... nothing changes if nothing changes.
Pytheas
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27...Chryses...We ARE "them"....but if you ask Germans and Japanese people they may thank American capitalists for rebuilding their countries....but I doubt many thinking British people have much to thank the USA for!
Since the First World War the USA has used Wall Street financial jiggery-pokery to cause a 1929 Crash and Depression and World War and Holocaust and the rise and fall of a Soviet Empire etc etc etc....and before you blame any other nation let`s just remind ourselves which nation rose iexorably from relative obscurity to world leader throughout the twentieth century while the rest of the world and its empires collapsed.
I don`t think that was all achieved by coincidence Chryses!
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29...I am far too old and far too wise to get hooked into your Ebeneezer Soros sophistries Mr Clarkson-Hammond.
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30 Piper Alpha was the responsibility of Americans....so why do you imagine "criminal charges" would be laid?
The USA and it`s deputy dog ...the UN...are immune from (and deaf to) anything that might bring Americans to justice....and there`s a waterboard or a shallow grave waiting for anyone who argues..!
And if you doubt me.....check that out with Bradley Manning and the Brits who spent time at Cuba`s very own Guantanamo Bay health resort!
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Jimmy.
Rumors and evidence show both Bushes and Clinton had been CIA Operatives prior to their presidency's
http://www.amazon.com/Compromised-Clinton-Bush-Terry-Reed/dp/1883955025
Chorus:
O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I'll tak' the low road
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye
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@10 johninlondon
Good old engineering practice has been lost in so called expert systems. There is one big difference between 80's and today, and is called vast computerisation. No wonder that the operation, made 99% of push-buttons and remote controls, has been giving up the responsibility more and more to a central control. (How many of 100 million transistors of a microprocessor, controlling the details of a SMS&FGS system, are bugs?)
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I hate to state the obvious, but in order to prevent this recurring, someone needs to legislate.
Given the polluters have huge influence with the Democrats and basically own the Republicans (no Chryses, I'm can't provide evidence - its a figure of speech), while the Tea Party are ideologically opposed to government interference in such matters, who is going to fix this?
Answer: How about everyone argues about repealing healthcare while hoping that the electorate just forgets.
Just like the last three times, the GOP are elected by highlighting fiscally conservative issues and then make a socially conservative policy their first priority.
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ref #33
worcesterjim wrote:
30 Piper Alpha was the responsibility of Americans....so why do you imagine "criminal charges" would be laid?
The USA and it`s deputy dog ...the UN...are immune from (and deaf to) anything that might bring Americans to justice....and there`s a waterboard or a shallow grave waiting for anyone who argues..!
And if you doubt me.....check that out with Bradley Manning and the Brits who spent time at Cuba`s very own Guantanamo Bay health resort!
___________
and I hope Julian Assange will sone be joining them
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34 Well B...before we get too smug about the CIA`s patronage over American politics let`s just remember that our foreign and defence ministers allegedly got their jobs by applying for them at the US embassy....and where would any British politician be if he dared fall out with "our" BBC? Just ask people like Enoch Powell or Margaret Thatcher or Robert Kilroy-Silk et al.
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39 Whoops sorry here's some evidence floating around from activities in 80's and 90's and some such
http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com/msg121153.html
http://mydailynutrients.com/nutrients/michael-ruppert-confronts-cia-director-about-drug-laundering/
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36...Don...WHO will legislate? The whole world is now effectively run bu global capitalists who can use avoidance of various kinds to make a mockery of our nations and our UN ...and very shortly the USA that brought the power of global capitalism to its peak.
WE in Britain can see this because WE and other european nations were the pirates who were instrumental in spreading the capitalist idea across the world along with christianity and mass slavery and mass migration etc etc And more importantly WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!!!!
We know that when promiscuous Miss Money has used us to get her way she high-tails it off leaving us without a backward glance!But poor old self-important Uncle Sam is till utterly convinced that she will never leave him for that dashing young Mr China!
Well let`s see!And pray that someone has the sense to introduce a truly fair system of global governance that doesn`t hand all the aces in the pack to the richest nastiest kid on the global block... again!
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Why all this Obama bashing? Who are the ones that want deregulation? Republicans. Who are the ones that want to put foxes in charge of hen houses? Republicans. Do you think we would have gotten an honest report of the oil disaster under Republicans? If you vote Republican _you_ are to blame for the deficit (increased more under Reagan and Bush than any other admin.), for the bank collapse (under Republicans the SEC was supposed to "serve" the banks). Republicans pillory and tar and feather democrats and so they half-way promote their policies. Then when those Republican policies fail, you come back and blame them. Blame the Republican policies, not the people you have co-opted to implement them.
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While there clearly were multiple failures of action or judgement by several parties, including the US authorities, this does not mean the oil industry as a whole is cavalier and a failure, just remember that when this incident happened the rig crew were in fact celebrating a creditable safety record, having drilled a number of technically challenging wells with no incident. The world, both the complacent west and the developing nations have a real need for energy in the form of oil and the industry tries to meet that need. The ever increasing depletion of and increasing difficulty in replacing the reserves exploited means that exploration has to head for ever more challenging locations, deeper water being one, deeper stratal levels being another, all of which involves increased risk, in a number of forms. This was a mess and should not have happened but sadly human error and laziness will always be with us. If any good at all is to come out of this then hopefully the industry at large will have been shaken rigid at the consequences of such a failure in safety systems and will act to do all within their power to ensure no such disaster happens again, BUT that will cost big money which will be seen in price increases across the board.
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37 And I hope Julian Assange WON`T join them MK...and that`s because I really believe in freedom and democracy rather than your power to apply "freedom" selectively to your stooges and cronies while you bomb and bully and assassinate the people of Afghanistan and Iraq and Palestine and Serbia....and anywhere else where people have the courage to reject the tyrrany of your god of greed and usury!
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# 25. At 11:17am on 06 Jan 2011, Oldloadr wrote:
“24. At 11:07am on 06 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
When the United States of America is subordinated to the U.N.
__________________________________________________________________
Then all those left on Earth will have 666 tattooed on their heads or hands and no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast...”
Yeeeeesssss....
Thing is, from most people, I’d assume they were kidding.
With Oldloadr, I suspect he means it....
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The USA got what it paid for. When you invest so little money into your regulartory body, you are always in the hands of the operators. Operators will naturally take the cheapest route within certain limitations. It's the responsibility of the regulators to set the agenda for these operations. This costs investment, something the Americans have been very reluctant to do. You can point at BP which is fair enough, but don't imagine this problem goes away if any of the other operators were substituted. In my experience BP is one of the better operators in the gulf and would not even consider operating like this in Norwegian waters for example. In fact The USA is lucky this was not one of the smaller operators who would not have been able to satisfy the expense of the clean up and compensation.
This is a problem of US investment into it's oil industry and it's regulation, you get what you pay for!
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#’38. At 12:51pm on 06 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote:
“34 Well B...before we get too smug about the CIA`s patronage over American politics let`s just remember that our foreign and defence ministers allegedly got their jobs by applying for them at the US embassy....and where would any British politician be if he dared fall out with "our" BBC? Just ask people like Enoch Powell or Margaret Thatcher or Robert Kilroy-Silk et al.”
‘Allegedly’ – that covers a multitude of sins.
And it was the all-powerful Beeb that brought down those 3? Including Thatcher? After 15 years as party leader, 11 as PM and 3 landslide election victories?
Makes you wonder why, if they are that powerful, they didn’t do it sooner....
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*************************
* WOW Writing On the Wall *
*************************
Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html?_r=1
The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.
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It appears that all the Republican politics are Power moves not moves to act in the Peoples interest, but to control and maintain global and corporate supremacy. (Sometimes they also get caught with their hands in the cookie jars, robbing from the till, so to speak). Subscribing voters seem to adopt a DADT tell with their corrupted shenanigans, blindly believing their secret agencies will always act in their own interests and never put their own citizens lives or lifestyles at risk. So the question is are US citizens lives and homes dispensable, in the same way foreigners lives are.
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48...You have a point John if you imagine I was suggesting that the BBC brought Thatcher down alone.....the whole left-of-centre class was antagonistic towards her and her Milton Friedman policies...but they would not have been allowed to dislodge her if she had ever grasped that the Wall Street aristocracy wanted Britain firmly trapped in the EU while they used the EU as a means to asset strip the whole of Europe including the old Soviet Union....at the expense of taxpayers in Old Europe.
Similarly,with the Falklands,the USA would happily have tolerated a fascist regime in Argentina with its newly acquired Malvinas (Falklands)Islands if corporate America could access the natural resources around the Falklands.
Thatcher kept threatening to leave the EEC and went to war in the Falklands.......So RIP Margaret Thatcher`s premiership!
But Thatcher actually believed in the simple-minded capitalist doctrines that the USA pretends to live by..... so she failed to grasp what Blair knew from the outset...a British prime minister who isn`t licking Uncle Sam`s boots and selling the British people`s interests short is a goner from day one!And that the USA only plays by ITS rules ...e.g., Rover versus General Motors!
Thatcher might still be running the US-backed New Tory dictatorship of Britain today if she had realised what the USA wanted....and the BBC would possibly have been privatised into the New Voice of America under the ownerhip of the likes of honest stalwarts of capitalism like Lord Black or Sir Rupert Murdoch or that paragon of socialism Sir Robert Maxwell!
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It is a travesty that the person on board the rig and in charge of ALL operations, the Company Man, has refused to testify or be a part of the investigation process in any way.
We will never know what really happened when certain key decisions were made, as several key operations/contractors died in the accident. They are not here to tell us what they said or what they advised.
The BP Company Man on board would have been the highest authority regarding day to day operations. He would have been totally in charge. He would have been consulted by the rig crew and contractors on EVERY decision, at every procedural step, and would, at the end of the day, have called ALL the shots. If any test or operation was inconclusive then the BP Company Man would be the one to take the decision to repeat the test or to carry on. Every operational step would have been approved or ordered by the BP Company Man.
Like it or not. Some major operations still depend very largely upon the day to day operational decisions of the person in charge of operations. There is no way of getting round this. This happens every time you climb in an airplane.
It is a shame but we may never know what concerns were raised by the workers on board the rig prior to those key fateful operational decisions that led to this disaster.
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A simple article about how bad decisions were made on the rig turns into a conspiracy against the UK. Obama's corruptness and incompetence. Conspiracy by the rich and powerful to destroy the West.
I mean seriously Obama is criticized for doing too much and then criticized for not doing enough. This was the result of a accident caused by a Private Company. Legally the US government can't do much about that. They can't force BP to do anything that isn't allowable by law.
BP and Haliburton screwed up, they destroyed a lot of people's livelihoods. They should be made to adequately clean up and repay the people involved.
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MK wrote: and I hope Julian Assange will sone be joining them
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Aye, aye!
I second that notion!
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24. At 11:07am on 06 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
When the United States of America is subordinated to the U.N.
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Oldloadr wrote: Then all those left on Earth will have 666 tattooed on their heads or hands and no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast.
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Many feel that the mark of the beast in the future could also be a serial code tattoo or chip implanted in your body...
But of course the biggest indicator is Israel, as it is said in the Bible that all other nations will go against it to predict End Times. Right now, USA is almost the last country standing in defense of Israel.
When USA no longer supports Israel, Biblically speaking, that will be the day of reckononing...
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Jim wrote: Get of your high horses and look at Britain....because we are the nightmare that will replace your American Dream!
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Do you feel like its your country, Jim?
How far would you go to defend what you think is right?
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As for if it could happen again, wasn't the biggest reason why we couldn't stop the oil leak because the blowout preventer failed?
Couldn't we avoid future leaks by constantly checking the blowout preventor with two or three independent outside sources (not the corporation itself, not just the govt.) to make sure it works right?
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The failure is a greater failure on the part of all humanity to do the sensible thing and curtail its abuse of natural resources. This is what you get when you fail to take action to make your automobile transport petrol-sipping instead of petrol-wasting. And when you insist each 16 year old must have a personal vehicle to drive to school, to the drug dealers in the bad part of town, and to the mall. And so forth, and so on, ad nauseam.
Wild excess leads to failures in competency which lead to catastrophes.
Of course it could happen again, and could happen again in other industries: and, indeed, does. Everything from the Chernobyl accident to the food-supply-threatening bee crisis in the US (caused to a very significant degree, it is now revealed, by a pesticide -- Bayer's clothianidin -- which the EPA failed to proscribe) to the decline in mining safety to the decline in education can be traced back to the failure of persons in positions of considerable authority to take their jobs seriously, and to pay attention to b-o-r-i-n-g age-old wisdoms such as: read the fine print, follow the rules, watch who you hire, stay alert on the job, take your time...
Even such 'silly' old proverbs as "a stitch in time saves nine" have application here.
To this I can add, as the lessons undoubtedly need to be learned, that BP's hiring process leaves much to be desired. I tried for several years to navigate their system -- all online -- because of my language skills, thinking they might have been of use to BP in dealing with Russians. I gave up after three years. HR needs to be a face-to-face, hands-on process. Corporate behemoths in particular need to remember that simply zipping through applications with a cursory glance does cost you, in the end. You hire the wrong people.
As you delve into the reports and look at the damage done, remember to ask yourselves: these people got hired -- others, competing against them got turned down. Why is that? We have so many unemployed today, many of them, surely, highly skilled. Shouldn't some of the better people out there get the jobs of the ones who failed?
Finally, let me add this to the mix: it is disingenuous to shift the blame away from Halliburton and others in the fatal convergence -- including the US EPA. There is plenty of blame to go around here, seriously.
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55 Lucy...I think it`s time everyone got off their high horses and thought about the ordinary men women and children who left Europe and America few years ago to follow a dream of recreating something that ended a very long time ago ...a Jewish State of Israel.
I am a Celtic/Norse person whose ancestors may have been here for thousands of years,yet when the Romans arrived in the British Isles they had among them Jewish people and before them the Pheonicians arrived to buy tin and again there may have been children of Israel among them....that`s taking us back over TWO THOUSAND years.
The Jews are our natural family members here in Britain and they came in their hundreds of thousands to live here and contribute to our many centuries of prosperity as a tiny island that once ruled the world....and in no small part by using the mercantile and other skills they taught us.
And yet someone has to speak out and challenge this dangerous cult called Zionism ,because it could so easily get another six million Jews killed....however righteous and sincere its followers are.
If I as a person with a Welsh name decided to march back into Wales and throw people with English names out of their homes ....on the grounds that Wales was the land of my ancestors.. I would be thought of as a dangerous crank.And my ancestors only left Wales a few generations back!
The present occupants of Israel are westerners...no more at home there than I would be.And worse still they will forever be seen as western colonisers by their neighbours...who don`t just dislike them....they HATE them for reasons that no amount of bribing or coaxing or bullying is going to change.
If there was one thing I would die for (to answer your question)it`s that the Israelis were brought safely home to the western world which they helped create...before some lunatic gets lucky and finishes the job people like Hitler and Mussolini started.
I KNOW anti-semitism is not exclusively found near Israel but this is now the time to separate the average person who happens to be Jewish from the dreadful curse of extremist capitalism of the sort sadly still found alive and prospering in the City of London and on Wall Street and in Israel as well.
That tiny group of Jews and others responsible for the moneylending and currency speculation (that has got millions of innocent Jews persecuted and murdered) should be asked to help resettle their Israeli relatives back into the west....before it`s too late.
Many British people had to leave our colonies and it was a wrench for some of them....but they got out with their lives!Instead of importing culturally incompatible people into Britain and the USA we should be finding the prodigal Israelis a home back here where they belong and killing the fatted calf for them.
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54. At 3:56pm on 06 Jan 2011, Risforme wrote:
“A simple article about how bad decisions were made on the rig turns into a conspiracy against the UK. Obama's corruptness and incompetence. Conspiracy by the rich and powerful to destroy the West.”
“BP and Haliburton screwed up, they destroyed a lot of people's livelihoods. They should be made to adequately clean up and repay the people involved.”
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Agree. Unfortunately, you can’t repay or repair the mistrust and the rush of distorted thinking* generated by carelessness and/or imperfection.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion
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55. At 3:57pm on 06 Jan 2011, LucyJ wrote:
“Oldloadr wrote: Then all those left on Earth will have 666 tattooed on their heads or hands and no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast.
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Many feel that the mark of the beast in the future could also be a serial code tattoo or chip implanted in your body...”
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There’s a certain huge craft/hobby store (457 stores in 39 states) that is closed on Sundays (good for them) and doesn’t use barcodes (because barcodes = evil or something). Funny them, because possibly every tiny scrap of the millions of craft items they sell has “Made in China” on it. Much of it cheap and inexpensive. Their less-expensive art supplies are absolutely non-functional. I learned this after wasting money (though not much, of course). Evil (of them) or something? I'd say.
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Business have dumbed down, computers replaced experts, and the new generation learn how to press the buttons without understanding functionality or processing invoked by the computer programs. If there is a need to understand they ask IT to explain to them what they are doing. Everybody works in their specialized field of expertise without understanding all the different business areas and concepts across the whole subject field horizontally and how they all fit together. Systems have got so powerful that screw ups that happen have more impact. This happens in Banking, Oil Industries, Government, where one area does not know what the others are doing and there is no joined up thinking or rationalization of processes or adequate risk controls or management. There is just finger pointing and denying blame to protect your own little area and lessons are never really learned from past mistakes, just more cover your arse procedures are put in place as a face saving solution.
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Ref 12 MajicKirin-
"Obama has been given a free ridge for his lack of action during the oil spill. He does the PC thing halting major drilling inatives which this country needs and wants."
Oil drilling is not halted, as you erroneously claim. Fire up your SUV and come to Wyoming and see. Acres of drilling equipment have been staged from Waltman (just west of Casper) to Cheyenne. Hundreds of drilling operations are beginning all along that arcing line. Everyone in Casper is excited about the coming oil boom. It is claimed that this oil field is larger than the reserves in Saudi Arabia.
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Some quotes from the report:
"When the well started to blow there were decisions made by Transocean about how the material coming up the well was handled, and those were unfortunate, fateful, decisions which actually led to the explosion."
"Based on evidence currently available, there is nothing to suggest that BP's engineering team conducted a formal, disciplined analysis of the combined impact of these risk factors on the prospects for a successful cement job,"
Why were things like that? Where risks and decisions are made, it’s human nature (and people in Haliburton, Transocean, BP and even the past and present US government are all human) to think, it worked last time, it’ll be OK. Moreover, in the US environment, there are a lot of reasons NOT to go into risk assessment. Because, if you do and things go wrong, you will have accepted some risk and an associated value on the damage. You will be sued and made to pay! Yes, if this had happened after a formal risk study, the financial cost would most likely have been even worse for BP.
If the probability of a similar disaster is to be reduced, the US government, safety regulators and legal system must promote quantitative approaches to risk assessment and ensure that they are applied. The only way to make humans conscious of the risks they take is continuous and repeated assessment of those risks.
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# 60. Simple lesson learned: My fault. Never waste money on cheap cr*p. No, I still don’t want the US government to regulate my choices or decisions.
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#59 without link.
54. At 3:56pm on 06 Jan 2011, Risforme wrote:
“A simple article about how bad decisions were made on the rig turns into a conspiracy against the UK. Obama's corruptness and incompetence. Conspiracy by the rich and powerful to destroy the West.”
“BP and Haliburton screwed up, they destroyed a lot of people's livelihoods. They should be made to adequately clean up and repay the people involved.”
____________________________________________
Unfortunately, you can’t repay or repair the mistrust and the rush of distorted thinking generated by carelessness and/or imperfection.
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Marie,
I'm talking about barcodes tattooed on one's body, which in a way, reminds me of the fact that Germans tattooed many Jewish people with numbers, I refuse to let the govt. barcode me with numbers/symbols or implant chips in me...
Jim,
I believe in the Bible, which is why I believe in Israel as the homeland of all Jewish people...
Us, the UN, Palestine, pacts made long ago, none of that matters with property rights, that land was given to them by God, which means it belongs to him and them...
But the Palestinians had their chance to make a deal with Israel and share hte land during the 90's with Bill Clinton mediating, and it is said that was the best deal they could have possibly got, as it involved compromise on both sides and that it could have solved peace in the area, as it was the best possible compromise. Palestine had their chance. That was it. They turned it down. It says a lot about what kind of country it is. They have no one to blame but themselves for where they are today.
Now, neither side will compromise, but as I said, ironically, Palestine had their chance, but they were too greedy and would not take the deal...the Jewish offered a deal to share the land as long as they were both kept safe, but it was not accepted by Palestine, so they did everything they could...
You think Palestine...what about Tibet? What about Taiwan? What about Georgia? What about the Causcus region of Russia? Ect...its not like this is the only place in the world where there is conflict over land- its all over...
But what happens everything reaches the breaking point over land ownership?
They fight for it, which is likely what will happen at some point...
I know what side I will be rooting for...
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Is this global warming's effort on nature? Or is it something else Biblical? Or could global warming be Biblical?
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0106/Why-are-thousands-of-dead-crabs-washing-up-on-English-beaches
An excerpt:
The crab deaths come on the heels of other bizarre animal deaths, including thousands of blackbirds that reportedly fell out of the skies in Arkansas on New Year's Eve, leading to speculation that booming fireworks disoriented them and caused them to collide with buildings.
Then on Tuesday, about 500 birds were found dead in Louisiana. Then more dead birds were reported in Sweden, and masses of dead fish have washed ashore in several countries.
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This article does not mention the dead fish in Arkansas, nor the dead birds in Kentucky, either...
Something's going on...
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22. At 10:59am on 06 Jan 2011, Oldloadr wrote:
It's unfortunate that in recent times lot of folks have risked more than they could afford, but is that the gov't's fault. Is it our collective responsibility to bail out those less than prudent individuals?
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When a company charged with rating stocks rates a stock "buy", although it is total garbage and they know it, that is not the fault of the investor. When toxic assets like bad mortgages are bundled and hidden and it causes a total meltdown, that is not the fault of the investor either.
Investors have been defrauded. That's what really happened to our grandparents who invested in the stock market and lost their savings.
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#55 LucyJ
--- are you speaking from the BACK of an Israeli bus ???
---or as one who is advised to keep their distance from Arab males ???
---or as one who is advised not to rent rooms to Arab students ???
I somehow suspect your knowledge of Israel is lacking ?
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@68+
Plus all those toxic instruments were sold on to pension and investment funds in the global markets contaminating all other sound investments. Everyone wanted a piece of the initial gains made by Market Issuers as a means of income generation across all client portfolios, (bit like junk bonds in the past).
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whole banks were brought down and went out of business or needed bailing out (eg lehmans, merril lynch, aig,rbs)
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Lucy...you are the first person who as ever left me lost for words!Faced with your last post I just feel speechless with anxiety that educated westerners can still be so utterly irrational. But that`s "faith" for you....a deliberate denial of reason...so why should I be surprised?
Does it mean nothing to you that people have been drawn into the most dangerous place on earth for a group of westernised jews to gather...and provided with an ideology that would be deemed fascist and racist if you or I expressed it in our own countries?
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Israel is a long way from the Gulf of Mexico. It has nothing to do with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Why is this thread heading down the Levantine abyss?
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@ 72
worcesterjim - you are not the first, and I doubt, sadly, you will be the last, that has been left speechless when faced with lucyj's posts. I sometimes believe she/he/it is a plant put in by some alien being to give us all cause to gasp and clutch our brows in horror and disbelief. This 'fear' seems perfectly logical when faced with the verbal mountain of utter rubbish posted day by day by day.........
The only thing I admire is her/his/its total commitment in continuing to post in the face of rebuttal, common sense and facts. No! It's got to be an alien!
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73..I can understand your anxiety that we are getting into deep and distant waters Publius but this world of ours gets smaller and more homogeneous all the time and it gets more difficult to simply say that something is "not in my back yard" or "none of your business"....and in particular because a tiny proportion of uberpowerful Jews (who seem very loyal to the concept of Israel as a Zionist state) are also deeply involved in the global financial system that we are all beholden to and governed by.
Do you have any idea...for example...what it costs Americans to keep Israel afloat in a hostile Middle East...not to mention the wider consequences for America of her unstinting loyalty to Zionism while your elite lecture the rest of the world on the benefits of multiculturalism and multiracialism?
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Mark Mardell writes, "The report says the disaster happened not because of a series of aberrations by rogue operators but a systemic failure of management. And that means it could happen again."
The message here is to anyone in the position of hiring, or promoting people into a management position. They should look beyond the college diploma and look into the candidates decision making process, personal integrity, and leadership skills.
The operations manager making the calls was clearly missing some of the aforementioned skill sets. The manager above them was, if nothing more, lax in their leadership skills. By extension, there were likely a few more levels of management up the ladder not being observant.
BP is not the only corporation that has people sitting in chairs where they are not qualified to be occupying. I have worked for, or with, other major corporations where I wondered how high up the ladder one must seek to find someone steering the corporate ship. Two, three, even four levels of management more interested in keeping their position by not rocking the boat, then exhibiting any kind of leadership and good decision making skills.
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Ref 75 worcesterjim-
"Do you have any idea...for example...what it costs Americans to keep Israel afloat in a hostile Middle East...not to mention the wider consequences for America of her unstinting loyalty to Zionism while your elite lecture the rest of the world on the benefits of multiculturalism and multiracialism?"
I am very aware of the costs to which you refer. We have been down the Levantine abyss countless times on this blog. One has to reach real far into the darkness to come up with a Zionist connection to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
There are other blogs addressing the issues of the Levantine. This particular blog is currently addressing the management failings of Deepwater Horizon. Please follow the house rules by commenting, in a more specific manner, on the subject of this thread. Save us all from rehashing the rehash of another rehash which was rehashed...
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Global warming is a misnomer for changes in atmospheric conditions which cause extreme weather to be more turbulent and travel quicker and further around the world, such as Arctic winds from Russia. Maybe the dead animals are due to pollution and damage caused to animals and their food sources. End-of-worlders probably love all the global madness and disharmony and rationalise it all as signs for the big rapture.
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76.. Yes Publius I wholeheartedly agree...but as someone who has worked in both public service and for private enterprise I think you face an uphill struggle getting the evangelists for capitalism to ever notice the potential faults of all human organisations...private or public.To them no public servant or skilled professional is superior to the legions of cost-cutting number-crunching money men.
The whole privatisation industry that has wrecked our societies is predicated on the absurd fantasy that a person who can run a whelk stall at a profit can simply gear up to running a public service with a little retraining is now so deep seated in any part of the world influenced by the USA that it amazes me we don`t suffer more calamities in both sectors.
Stripping out assets and socialising responsibility and financial losses seems to be the order of the day....it`s almost as though the whole of the western world is run by an elite of insolvency practicioners with no other skills at all.
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77...Yes Publius...I was off topic but my defence is that certain of our number regularly seem free to express their affection for all things "levantine" without regard for the subject matter in hand and I don`t notice you or anyone else objecting in the way you are now.
Also British people are forced to finance the BBC`s americophiliac grovellings to the tune of three hundred million pounds every year plus the millions it gets from our government and the EU.
In those circumstances I would regard it an act of politeness on your part to mind your own business and cease ordering me about on MY broadcaster`s website!
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@79 Jim. The Elite Insolvency Practitioners and Auditors are the biggest crooks calling themselves Officers of The Court, bankruptcies cases are dragged out to rack up costs, Assets and Houses are undervalued and sold off to buddies. Credit Firms target families in difficulties exchanging personal data and information and collectively enforce legal charges / property orders for petty amounts, racking up Court fees and interest forcing people into bankruptcy. Bank Managers tip off House Buyers about foreclosures for back handers cash payments etc. Creditors hold more data on you than Governmenat Agencies. The same powerful money lenders who gain extortionate interest, buy properties on the cheap, on the sly, from customers they force out their homes.
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81...Yo Bob! And don`t I know all about it.If you don`t read it now get yourself Private Eye every fortnight for about the only worthwhile lowdown we get in Britain on the dealings of the cronies of the megacrooks who run our world!
Glad you can spell practitioner....my little grey cells are getting few and far between!
Quick..smear yourself with some crude oil before the thread police getya for being off shore!
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Ref 79 worcesterjim-
"To them no public servant or skilled professional is superior to the legions of cost-cutting number-crunching money men."
Cost-cutting is not entirely an evil exercise when a company has managers who stand back and look at the big picture, and determine whether the cost-cuts will actually be a savings.
Companies making arbitrary cuts without studying a model of what impact the cuts will have on their overall operations will not stay in business very long. Even old, established companies with plenty of assets will fail from poor management decisions. We just witnessed that on a very large scale.
One can infuse more money into the company as a stopgap. But if the company doesn't investigate itself to find out which managers are making bad decisions which led to the collapse and getting rid of them, then they are doomed to repeat the failure.
Companies that have been ferreting out poor management, replacing them with qualified, able managers are already rebuilding. Those that have maintained the status quo are struggling to survive.
One will notice that there has been management changes at BP. Perhaps they learned something?
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Jim wrote: Lucy...you are the first person who as ever left me lost for words!Faced with your last post I just feel speechless with anxiety that educated westerners can still be so utterly irrational.
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Well, if it makes you feel better, Jim, I've got some English in my blood and am supposedly related to someone famous with English descent from American history, whom I shall not name...no, I shall not go on, since everyone's going wild about aliens and whatnot. Lol. One of hte best movies I have ever seen about aliens is Altered...way creepy for sure! Anyhew, I am not the first nor last to be off topic, but because people are so politically correct, they try to mute people's freedom of speech they don't like sometimes...and that's just ultraliberals for ya...I, in fact, try to avoid such topics sometimes but then sometimes also you just have to say what you feel...
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Why is no one talking about the blow-out preventer?
If we cannot be sure it won't happen again, I think we should stop drilling for oil, especially if its near shores...unless the companies agree to multiple inspections by independent companies outside of theirs that they cannot buy off...
Whatever regulations we have in place now are not working...
I fail to understand why no one checked the blow-out preventor...
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83...well maybe you will be proved correct if cause and effect can be re-connected Publius...but you will perhaps understand my reservations when we reflect on the fact that fraud and money lending and speculation have made America rich at a time when any fair minded person would expect the USA to be suffering some negative consequences of her behaviour.
As I see it China and the USA seem remarkably financially fit compared with the Europe I have to live in.....and you will excuse me for reminding you that the 1929 and recent global financial crises began with "poor management" on Wall Street!
And we still haven`t fully realised the impact of those toxic assets your "well-established companies" have dumped upon us taxpaying mugs in Britain and Ireland yet!
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Ref 80 worcesterjim-
"In those circumstances I would regard it an act of politeness on your part to mind your own business and cease ordering me about on MY broadcaster`s website!"
I am well aware the the BBC is supported by UK taxpayers. I did not "order" you, nor anyone else, about following the house rules regarding posting to the subject matter of the thread. I only asked that you, and everyone else, adhere to the BBC house rules by not dragging this thread down the Levantine abyss that leads to nowhere. There are certainly more interesting topics to discuss; like, the management failures at Deepwater Horizon.
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Here`s a guess about the blowout preventor...you had far too many subcontractors...no doubt because they all take a cut and slip a few dollars to your politicians.
The first rule of any activity is that organise it properly under skilled people with a proper chain of command with some policing oversight to check it`s all being done.
What Americans are about is maximising as many bottom lines as possible and dumping the cost of your failures on the rest of the world.
sorry...but that`s what is wrong and only YOU can fix it.....and you are too cheapskate and greedy to organise and regulate your nation properly.
Heaven knows what your military and CIA costs you and you can`t even give your poor people free medicine! But you can sure dish out aid to every other nation! Maybe you are mad?
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Ref# 55 Lucy J
MK wrote: and I hope Julian Assange will sone be joining them
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Aye, aye!
I second that notion!
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Lucy, you are quick to declare how proud you are of America and its ideals, but the moment someone does something inconvenient you call for a suspension of his civil rights. Note: Inconvenient. Possibly not even illegal and definitely not an act of terrorism.
You only deserve the rights you are willing to allow others to have. Be mindful of the rights you enjoy yourself before you suggest taking them away.
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Ref 85 worcesterjim-
"As I see it China and the USA seem remarkably financially fit compared with the Europe I have to live in.....and you will excuse me for reminding you that the 1929 and recent global financial crises began with "poor management" on Wall Street!"
Smoke and mirrors, worcesterjim. There are still a lot of fiscal pitfalls the world economy is dancing through as they are putting on the glad face.
"And we still haven`t fully realised the impact of those toxic assets your "well-established companies" have dumped upon us taxpaying mugs in Britain and Ireland yet!"
I spoke with a mortgage company executive who was a guest at a friend's Christmas dinner where I was also a guest. I brought up the topic of obtaining clear title on repossessed lands taken back after mortgages, that had been divided to the four winds as derivatives, were foreclosed. She did a lively, but nervous dance; never giving me a clear, concise answer. Because we were guests I thought it best not to pursue my line of questions any further. Much to her obvious relief when I changed the subject.
I can see legal problems in acquiring clear title to property extending into the coming decades.
As for the "toxic assets" bought up by European banks and investors; all I can say is that people with poor decision making skills are not isolated to the USA. Nobody put a gun to European heads and forced them to snatch up highly risky investment instruments. I have to admire Canada. They did not get sucked into these investments to the extent of other countries. The US/Canadian economies are tied closely together. They are carrying a admirable share of the weight that is helping the US economy at this time.
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Publius,
The American Banks bought out or had large interests in UK (and European) banks, often keeping the UK brand names, US Global Investments banks therefore operated in Europe buying these instruments and were the source of lending for billions daily until the rug got pulled from underneath the industry's feet and the cash flow stopped.
Companies relish the excuse of financial crisis, depressions, recessions etc to lay off permanent staff.
Contractors are no long term liability for healthcare, pension funds, sick pay, redundancy packages, and the work force can be shrunk or increased according to short term needs and specific projects.
But the new lick is to outsource work to India and the far east, costs are mega-cheap 1 months pay of a foreign worker is 1 or 2 days pay of a local worker. Nobody cares about quality when cost savings are so massive, they'll train them up if they have to.
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What Globalization of Banking (and other industries) meant was that the massive American banks (and supermarkets and credit firms etc), could practically buy all the competitors in each respective UK industry and get footholds in the European Markets. In the Banking industry that meant softer regulation and a means to set up offshore dealing accounts for clients.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#91
"In the Banking industry that meant softer regulation and a means to set up offshore dealing accounts for clients."
Where most of the world's money is..yada, yada, yada...and they lived happily ever after. The end.
Just saved you 10,000 keystrokes of nonsense. You are welcome.
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JClarkson, aka RHammond
You must be jealous because others are cleverer than you without your sarcasm
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JClarkson / RHammond
I guess you got to read about things in the papers to believe it
(when you can't learn to think for yourself)
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I have just strangely come across an article in the City & Business section of an old Daily Express newspaper, dated Tuesday December 19 2006. The headline reads, ‘BP boss attacks cost-cut culture’. The article reports that, ‘one of the favourites to replace Lord Browne as chief executive has launched a savage attack on the oil giant’s culture and cost cutting’. That favourite was Tony Haywood.
Even then, there had been a string of disasters in the previous two years ranging from fatal explosions to pipeline leaks. Doesn’t seem that he managed to change anything in the time he was in charge?
The whole article is quite interesting.
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31. At 11:45am on 06 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote: “Since the First World War the USA has used Wall Street financial jiggery-pokery to cause a 1929 Crash and Depression and World War and Holocaust and the rise and fall of a Soviet Empire etc etc etc....and before you blame any other nation let`s just remind ourselves which nation rose iexorably from relative obscurity to world leader throughout the twentieth century while the rest of the world and its empires collapsed.
I don`t think that was all achieved by coincidence Chryses!”
You sir, are confusing cause and effect, and stirring a most implausible conspiracy theory into the mix. The wonderful empires of Europe and UK committed suicide and the US was in a position to pick up the pieces. You see this as a US plot, but it happened because the empires kept squandering their blood and treasure on unnecessary and vainglorious colonial wars, arms races, expending borrowed money [sometimes from the US] unwisely and mine is bigger than yours imperial rivalries.
If it makes your anti-American little heart any happier, the US is now falling into the same traps that the scuppered the UK and European empires, to wit: wasting blood and treasure on unnecessary and vainglorious foreign wars, an ours is bigger than yours military, and absolutely unnecessary and ruinous expenditure on borrowed money [from our big rival, China].
China and, possibly, India and Brazil are placed to benefit from all of this, just as the US benefitted from the self-destructive behavior of the European empires. So what goes around comes around and the feckless American public and government are about to experience what Santayana warned, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Are you happy now?
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47. At 1:43pm on 06 Jan 2011, TheRBman wrote:
“In my experience BP is one of the better operators in the gulf and would not even consider operating like this in Norwegian waters for example.”
What a glowing encomium! BP is so much better than all the others because, whilst they would never do such a thing in Norwegian waters, the US back yard is fair game as a place to cause economic and ecological disaster. Bravo BP!
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77. At 7:58pm on 06 Jan 2011, publiusdetroit wrote:
Ref 75 worcesterjim-
Bravo, I concur.
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Complete Bob Marley and the Wailers, (#34. At 12:39pm on 06 Jan 2011)
”... Rumors and evidence show both Bushes and Clinton had been CIA Operatives prior to their presidency's
http://www.amazon.com/Compromised-Clinton-Bush-Terry-Reed/dp/1883955025
...”
Do you know what you’re talking about here? I’m pretty sure you haven’t read the book.
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PartTimeDon, (#36. At 12:46pm on 06 Jan 2011)
”... Given the polluters have huge influence with the Democrats and basically own the Republicans (no Chryses, I'm can't provide evidence - its a figure of speech) ...”
Then why make your silly claims – particularly as making accusations is not a “figure of speech?”
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Complete Bob Marley and the Wailers, (#78. At 8:02pm on 06 Jan 2011)
”Global warming is a misnomer for changes in atmospheric conditions which cause extreme weather to be more turbulent and travel quicker and further around the world, such as Arctic winds from Russia ...”
I am unaware of that term being used to describe those conditions.
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79. At 8:07pm on 06 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote:
“Stripping out assets and socialising responsibility and financial losses seems to be the order of the day....it`s almost as though the whole of the western world is run by an elite of insolvency practicioners with no other skills at all.”
Now this, WJ, is where our social notions and our conspiracy theories appear to be congruent.
85. At 9:05pm on 06 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote: “...we reflect on the fact that fraud and money lending and speculation have made America rich at a time when any fair minded person would expect the USA to be suffering some negative consequences of her behaviour.”
And here we go off on another unhinged, anti-American rant. You are the UK/EU version of MAII and MagicKirin rolled up in one paranoid hater. America is the Devil, all bad things result from American plots, etc., etc.
As an Irish-American should I regale you with the plots by the British ruling class to exterminate or dispossess the Irish, or Scots for that matter?
Are there no fraudsters in the UK and Europe? If not, why do you have problems there? Oh, I forgot it’s all the Evil Americans. Riiiight.
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JMM, (#97. At 01:48am on 07 Jan 2011)
”... worcesterjim wrote: “Since the First World War the USA has used Wall Street financial jiggery-pokery to cause a 1929 Crash and Depression and World War and Holocaust and the rise and fall of a Soviet Empire etc etc etc ... I don`t think that was all achieved by coincidence Chryses!”
You sir, are confusing cause and effect, and stirring a most implausible conspiracy theory into the mix ...”
I’m glad I read though the thread before posting what would have been a repeat of your post.
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Instead of more finger pointing at BP, Halliburton, et al. I want to hear what is being done to correct the obvious failure of the Federal government to provide effective regulatory oversight of the offshore oil industry. BP may be getting all the publicity now but there is no reason to complacently assume that American companies haven't made some of the same decsions and have just been lucky that none of their wells blew up in their faces.
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72. At 6:19pm on 06 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote:
Lucy...you are the first person who as ever left me lost for words!Faced with your last post I just feel speechless with anxiety that educated westerners can still be so utterly irrational. But that`s "faith" for you....a deliberate denial of reason...so why should I be surprised?
and
74. At 6:53pm on 06 Jan 2011, amaryr wrote:
@ 72
worcesterjim - you are not the first, and I doubt, sadly, you will be the last, that has been left speechless when faced with lucyj's posts. I sometimes believe she/he/it is a plant put in by some alien being to give us all cause to gasp and clutch our brows in horror and disbelief. This 'fear' seems perfectly logical when faced with the verbal mountain of utter rubbish posted day by day by day.........
The only thing I admire is her/his/its total commitment in continuing to post in the face of rebuttal, common sense and facts. No! It's got to be an alien!
------------------------
Lucy represents tens of millions of Americans whom you will likely never meet face to face. Much of the time, she also represents me. We certainly are both here on the same mission - to illustrate for you on the far left and the far right that there are true Americans who think rather differently from you, and that we will not go into the oblivion to which you have consigned us, quietly. (Believe me, Lucy does not represent the far right - from here we can see it plainly).
Just as Lucy is, they are fundamentally decent people who have the generosity to live quietly, and let you live as you like. We may not understand you and your world much, but we still are willing to like you
and give you the benefit of any misperceptions we may have. I at least suspect that there are many millions in the world like us, who do not write to this blog, and whom you do not or will not see.
So you are not alone - the world is not yours, yet, as you may imagine it to be. In America, a strange thing happened while you were becoming what you are today. Your off-casts escaped, and in just a few generations became free men and women. Free legally, physically, free even in their thoughts. We are still here, and you have not done with us yet.
Lucy, Bravo, sister! For all your peculiar thoughts you are your own girl, and I am proud of you. Keep it up, and someday you will have something to write about to your grandchildren - as I do to mine today.
KScurmudgeon
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We know what went wrong, and we know how to prevent it. Deep wells will be drilled - we must not only to keep the flow of oil going, but to lessen the leverage of the speculators who would take any excuse to drive up prices. Will the price BP pays be high enough to ensure no one will take the risk of doing it badly?
What worries me, however, is the near hysteria of negativism I see on this blog. Too many here condemn our very civilization as too corrupt, too greedy, too stupid to get it right. Despair is in the air here - which is the one thing that could indeed prevent us from pulling it off.
All problems are solvable, we are the human race. But not in this atmosphere.
KScurmudgeon
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105. At 03:47am on 07 Jan 2011, Scott0962 wrote:
Instead of more finger pointing at BP, Halliburton, et al. I want to hear what is being done to correct the obvious failure of the Federal government to provide effective regulatory oversight of the offshore oil industry.
This idea of the Federal gov't failing to provide effective (or even adequate) oversight seems to me to have been a recurring theme in quite a few scandals/disasters.
If memory serves, shortly after the recent Toyota acceleration issues, it was determined that the NHTSA had an overly "cozy" relationship with the auto companies.
The misconduct at the MMS (I believe someone posted a link to a relevant article earlier) came out right around the time of the West Virginia mine disaster.
And let's not forget Bernard Madoff. If it hadn't been for the SEC ignoring multiple warnings, his Ponzi scheme would have ended long before he actually got busted.
I also seem to recall more than one candidate in the 2008 campaign claiming that the "economy is fundamentally sound", while at the same time foreclosures were skyrocketing.
While I agree with many here that there are some aspects that government should not interfere with, it seems to me that it is up to the government to provide the oversight which it is already mandated to provide. Perhaps if appropriate oversight had been done, some controversial "emergency" measures such as drilling moratorium, stimulus, corporate bailouts would not have been necessary.
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"Who cares...it's done...end of story...will probably be fine."
In the city that care forgot and the marble halls of Huey's tomb,
the politicians, and the tycoons sing,
who cares...it's done...end of story...will probably be fine,
trees were felled and marsh torn up,
offshore wells pierced the mud and sand,
the black gold of the Gulf Coast flows,
who cares...it's done...end of story...will probably be fine,
the shifting lands become open water,
offshore wells multiply like mosquitoes in a bucket of water,
the black gold of the Gulf Coast flows,
who cares...it's done...end of story...will probably be fine,
the levees break,
the floods inundate,
the black gold of the Gulf Coast flows,
who cares...it's done...end of story...will probably be fine,
the centralizers break,
the Horizon ignites,
the black gold of the Gulf Coast flows,
who cares...it's done...end of story...we'll probably be fine,
for the black gold of the Gulf Coast still flows.
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46. At 1:41pm on 06 Jan 2011, John_From_Dublin wrote:
# 25. At 11:17am on 06 Jan 2011, Oldloadr wrote:
“24. At 11:07am on 06 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
When the United States of America is subordinated to the U.N.
__________________________________________________________________
Then all those left on Earth will have 666 tattooed on their heads or hands and no one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast...”
Yeeeeesssss....
Thing is, from most people, I’d assume they were kidding.
With Oldloadr, I suspect he means it....
______________________________________________________
Of course I do, and I'm not alone. There is a common belief among the Evangelical community that the UN will be the vehicle the Anti-Christ will use for world domination. This is not dogma, just a suspicion.
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Publius...thanks for a rational debate...I hope you are right in your general optimism that the general situation is fixable ...and forgive my limited understanding of the USA. My sister has lived in Chicago and then Long Beach for nearly forty years all told and I do understand that outward appearances can be deceptive.The practical truth is that Britain was ruined by the Second World War and we have been effectively a satellite of the USA ever since then.
Which brings me on to the anti-worcesterjim ranting of MK!
The truth is that the England I grew up in MK was very similar in its natural values and instincts and beliefs to those expressed by you and Lucy.
At infant school I sat next to a mixed race boy whose father had been a black American GI and around us in that class were gipsy and German and Polish and Jewish and Chinese and Italian and Canadian children whose parents had been washed up on the shores of Britain by WW2....notice anything familiar?
I sang and shivvered in Worcester Cathedral on long cold winter evenings and gradually developed the view that religion was not convincing and that if there was just god he was remarkably casual in his attitude to the injustices of our world and remarkably tolerant of the moneylenders in our temple!Nor was I prepared to wait for death to bring justice to the world...that seemed highly suspicious to me !!
But I grew up in a society where I was allowed to think out of the box whereas I sense your religion was force-fed you and has been ever since.And I imagine you believe that the obscenity of Haiti and the St Louis floods is part of god`s design and not ...as I do..that you should be utterly ashamed of yourselves for responding as you have..
And I imagine that my introduction to socialist ideas would have been impossible in the USA..but those ideas sustain me to this day....particularly the lectures of Professor Max Gluckman and the fellowship of idealist socialists ....several of which were Jewish people who went on to become part of the kibbutz movement in Israel.
No ...MK..you can`t justly pigeon-hole me as "anti-American" or "anti-semitic" or even anti-religious because I acknowledge that my beliefs have at their roots the Judao-christian beliefs that underpin your life too.
But you CAN accuse me of being deeply antagonistic towards the cynical and greedy and exploitive moneylenders whose activities have directly and indirectly brought about the misery and deaths of many millions of people across the world.Be in no doubt MK Madoff was just the tip of the iceberg and all this nonsense about criticising American capitalism and Israel being antisemitism and anti-american has got to stop before it provokes another world war.
Reflect now on why Bin Laden hit the so called World Trade Centre ...and have the humility to remember Revelations:
The King`s of the Earth and the great men,and the rich men,and the chief captains,and the mighty men,and every bondsman,and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains.
And said unto the mountains and rocks.
Fall on us,and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne,and from the wrath of the Lamb...For the great day of wrath is come..AND WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
# 106. At 04:37am on 07 Jan 2011, KScurmudgeon wrote:
“Lucy represents tens of millions of Americans whom you will likely never meet face to face. Much of the time, she also represents me. We certainly are both here on the same mission - to illustrate for you on the far left and the far right that there are true Americans who think rather differently from you, and that we will not go into the oblivion to which you have consigned us, quietly. (Believe me, Lucy does not represent the far right - from here we can see it plainly).”
A summary of some of the opinions expressed here by Lucy. (I have queried her on these before and don’t recall her ever denying them.)
1. Some African-Americans hate white Americans like Lucy and want revenge for slavery. One such is Obama. (Or at least some of the time.) That is why they – and he - are trying to destroy America.
2. One example of this is that Obama could easily solve the problem of illegal immigration at a stroke, but refuses to do so. Because he is for illegal immigrants and against ordinary (white) Americans.
3. Lucy’s views on race are much less extreme than those of many of her friends
4. The repeal of DADT was a plot by ‘ultraliberals’. (Despite the fact that most legislators voted for it.) If repeated polls showed most people supported repealing DADT, this must be because they were biased and ‘ultraliberal’
5. ‘Ultraliberals’ are a strange and mysterious group that Lucy sees everywhere – rather akin to ‘Reds Under The Beds’. In her mind they are not ‘people with political views that are extremely liberal’, but rather ‘anyone she disagrees with politically’. She sees no need to demonstrate that anyone she smears as ‘ultraliberal’ is actually ultraliberal – words mean what she wants them to mean.
6. The aforesaid plot is intended to destroy the US military, to enable foreign invasion of the USA
7. ‘USA’ is cool, as are sunsets, puppy dogs and rainbows!!!
If you are telling us that many people in the USA believe the same things – you may well be right. But I don’t think it's anything to boast about.
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John and Bob...it`s relatively easy to mock sincere people who oppose our views but mockery can cut both ways and the truth is that the British media have been just as blind to the faults in their ultraliberal views as any other group who have the vanity to set themselves as guardians of the "right" way to look at the world.
I am sorry to tell you that Britain`s policies towards immigration and her abuse of anyone like Enoch Powell or Robert Kilroy-Silk who pluck up the courage to point out the injustice and social recklesness of bullying a nation into accepting far more people than it can hope to comfortably provide for..is DEEPLY STUPID!
What the western world badly needs is a full-scale truth and reconciliation process with the rest of humanity...in which we ALL get REAL and form a practical and just set of groundrules for our grandchildren to inherit....before a self-inflicted Armaggedon sweeps us all away!
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Hello,
I am, what might be termed an "oil industry technical expert". I have more than 30 years experience in the technical side of this industry and am specialised in the area which caused the blow-out on the Macondo well. I'm not too sure that all the postings have strict relevance to the actual blog, but do respect MM in reading them all, and hope this small contribution will help people understand one issue regarding the tragic Macondo accident.
Anyway, I've read chapter 4 of the report and the one glaring omission, which overwhelms all associated issues leading to the blow-out, is the lack of a second barrier to the production of formation fluids into the wellbore - in this case hydrocarbons. To make it more understandable for the majority of people, some comparisons of this practice would be: tight-rope walking without a safety net; working under a heavy suspended load; and looking down the barrel of a loaded gun to see if it is clean. In fact any situation which can be summarised as "asking for an accident".
And why do such working practices take place? To save money, simple as that.
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KScurmudgeon, (#107. At 04:49am on 07 Jan 2011)
”... the near hysteria of negativism I see on this blog. Too many here condemn our very civilization as too corrupt, too greedy, too stupid to get it right. Despair is in the air here - which is the one thing that could indeed prevent us from pulling it off.
All problems are solvable, we are the human race. But not in this atmosphere.”
Too true!
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"Moreover, if a big oil spill could happen once, yes, then it could happen again."
Similary if Ice Age and (much more recent) Mini Ice Age happened once they may happen again.
[No matter how much 'global warming' believers wish they hadn't.]
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118 Chryses and sundry Curmudgeons should stop trying to cover their enormous overinflated egoes and rear-ends and be ashamed of their self-centred attempts to stifle the truth....the folk who hide their greedy dishonest corrupt materialistic misdeeds behind a smokescreen of santimonious political and religious twaddle will not last the course.
You are humbuggery personified!
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"The present occupants of Israel are westerners...no more at home there than I would be"
If you consider immigrants from Russia, let alone African Jews and refugees from Syria, Iraq, Ethiopia etc. - Westerners, then you indeed have a point. :-)
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JfD wrote: "If you are telling us that many people in the USA believe the same things – you may well be right. But I don’t think it's anything to boast about."
Indeed. At least from America-haters point of view.
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Bye-bye folks ...the CIA-Mosad run BBC isn`t quite ready for free speech and truth telling yet....seeya on Al Jazeera sometime!
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42. At 1:14pm on 06 Jan 2011, Hakuna_Matata1 wrote:
Why all this Obama bashing? Who are the ones that want deregulation? Republicans. Who are the ones that want to put foxes in charge of hen houses? Republicans. Do you think we would have gotten an honest report of the oil disaster under Republicans? If you vote Republican _you_ are to blame for the deficit (increased more under Reagan and Bush than any other admin.), for the bank collapse (under Republicans the SEC was supposed to "serve" the banks). Republicans pillory and tar and feather democrats and so they half-way promote their policies. Then when those Republican policies fail, you come back and blame them. Blame the Republican policies, not the people you have co-opted to implement them.
-----------------
Yes, the republicans will never accept that in public. People mainly join or support that party for personal business purpose or by brainwashing (for the blue colored workers working with/under such Republicans). They have practically socialized the loss (for taxpayers' to bear) and privatized the profit.
See all the new 'rules" Republicans introduced in congress. They prefer to take decision unilaterally and then talk about coopertion (just like typical Bush style), they blame someone else if their decision goes wrong (obviously after losing election and someone else takes charge). They deregulated industries and force us to believe that such industries will regulate themselves (how naive!).
Check the activities of the recent Republican Governor elect John Kesich in Ohio. That guy is just horrible. He will ruin the state with his corporate colleagues and culture of secrecy starting from his swearing-in ceremonies to appointments of sectaries (for obvious reasons).
In short Republican party work more for the big corporate houses and wall street than anything else. talk of "common people", "Joe the plumber", "general Americans" are only for public consumption for idiots. They make thing worse and then lose the election, hand over the power to someone else. Then talk lies and nonsense (through their big corporate controlled media friends) and undertake sustained propaganda to coerce people to believe what they themselves never did when in power (e.g talk of fiscal deficit, balanced budget, policies for people etc).
They tend to give credit to (R) John Kesich (chairman of house Budget committee) for over $120 billion budget surplus during Bill Clinton's era, forgetting that it was under Clinton's supervision/era. They also forget that within first year of taking office GW Bush made the good surplus to about $ 140 billion deficit.
I am sure now the Republicans will make huge hue and cry for US defense budget cut to satisfy its friends from defense industry. I am sure no Republican admin will ever dare to undertake such cut in our huge defense spending. Probably they will find enough "reasons" to oppose the cut in pretext of "eroding our defense preparedness", "national security" (favourite issue for Republicans since Bush era) and so on. Later (in future, in forums like this) they will give the credit to the republican Robert Gates, not Obama Admin (and few people of this forum will still believe that).
That's the way it works for them.
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119. At 12:27pm on 07 Jan 2011, powermeerkat wrote:
Similary if Ice Age and (much more recent) Mini Ice Age happened once they may happen again.
[No matter how much 'global warming' believers wish they hadn't.]
------------------
Probably he is right! Our great Republican, Sarah Palin questioned global warming few days ago, citing the recent huge snow storm in US!
If monkeys became human, human can go back and start becoming a monkey. We have seen that at least with many Republicans like Palin.
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124. At 1:57pm on 07 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote:
Bye-bye folks ...the CIA-Mosad run BBC isn`t quite ready for free speech and truth telling yet....seeya on Al Jazeera sometime!
---------------
Now worcesterjim probably will go to Rupert Murdoch controlled, Republican media like Fox or Wall Street journal or may be Al Jazeera (they all love America)!
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127. At 2:17pm on 07 Jan 2011, Jay wrote:
124. At 1:57pm on 07 Jan 2011, worcesterjim wrote:
Bye-bye folks ...the CIA-Mosad run BBC isn`t quite ready for free speech and truth telling yet....seeya on Al Jazeera sometime!
---------------
Now worcesterjim probably will go to Rupert Murdoch controlled, Republican media like Fox or Wall Street journal or may be Al Jazeera (they all love America)!
______________________________________________________________
Sounds like ol' Jim takes himself way too seriously, but he did say he was a Socialist; seems to be a common thread with those who strive for Utopia.
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On the other hand, Lucy is the epitome of self-efacing wide-eyed patriotic virtue. She takes her country seriously. She takes her fellow humans seriously. She does not think she is "all that and a bag of chips" a my teenage daughter would say.
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116. At 11:50am on 07 Jan 2011, Doernie wrote:
Hello,
I am, what might be termed an "oil industry technical expert". I have more than 30 years experience in the technical side of this industry and am specialised in the area which caused the blow-out on the Macondo well. I'm not too sure that all the postings have strict relevance to the actual blog, but do respect MM in reading them all, and hope this small contribution will help people understand one issue regarding the tragic Macondo accident.
_________________________________________________
That getting off-topic thing and turning every subject into political conspiracy theories is pretty much what goes on here. Just so you know: I have a MS from Embry-Riddle with a concentration in Aviation Safety and 30 plus years in aircraft maintenance, including accident investigation. When I tried to point out in a previous thread that jet fuel can do things with metal that gasoline (petrol) cannot, the tin-hat tribe hear could not let those thoughts into their paradigm of a star chamber run world in which explosive experts pulled off the whole 9/11 scenario.
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These comments reminded me of the subtly told wise words from the health-foods-store owner Dad in the movie Valley Girl: “Take it back and get a more expensive one. The expensive ones always fit better.” Be it 'problems' (ref to the movie), labor, supplies, machinery, time,…
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@ #128, 129, 130. Oldloadr (an "30 year expert" in blogging, sorry, "oil industry technical expert").
He is here to decide how "socialistic" some of us are and how "un-expert" we are to comment and some prefer to live in their Utopian world.
Dear "oil industry technical expert". probably you will agree that you are not the only expert in oil industry that we listen.
Today almost everything is becoming political, whether it is education, research, national economics, security, technical matter in almost any issue (including oil).
Have you reports on how doctors ("technical expert on medicine") in US are bribed and coerced to follow dictates from drug and medical instrument manufacturing companies more than welfare of patients?
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132. At 4:52pm on 07 Jan 2011, Jay wrote:
@ #128, 129, 130. Oldloadr (an "30 year expert" in blogging, sorry, "oil industry technical expert").
_________________________________________________________
I didn't know that people could blog 30 years ago. Besides that, I can't see where you made a point other than a cynical attempt to... insult, discount, degrade (I'm not even sure which) me. But that's OK: I know I'm not important... do you?
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133. At 5:40pm on 07 Jan 2011, Oldloadr wrote:
_________________________________________________________
I didn't know that people could blog 30 years ago. Besides that, I can't see where you made a point other than a cynical attempt to... insult, discount, degrade (I'm not even sure which) me. But that's OK: I know I'm not important... do you?
------------------------------------
Oh, you did not know that you could have blogged 30 yrs back? It was called "expert columns" in news papers that time.
No, I am not at all important.
Anyway, I just got this joke. You may like it. I am not talking about republicans here, just story of two boys. Do not try to find any hidden meaning here. Just enjoy.
Two little boys, ages 8 and 10, are extremely mischievous. They are always getting into trouble and their parents know all about it. If any mischief occurs in their town, the two boys are probably involved. The boys' mother heard that a preacher in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The preacher agreed, but he asked to see them individually.
So the mother sent the 8 year old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the preacher in the afternoon.
The preacher, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly,
"Do you know where God is, son?"
The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.
So the preacher repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God?!"
Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. The preacher
raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed,
"Where is God?!"
The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "what happened?"
The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time......
GOD is missing it seems, and they think we did it!!!!!!!!!! !!!!
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Just compare two biggest oil spills in US history: Exxon in Alaska and BP in Gulf of mexico.
During Exxon, Republican senior George H. W. Bush was US president (senior Bush) while Democrat Obama during BP.
Two Oil Spills, Two Government Responses: Lessons From the BP and Exxon Valdez Disasters: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/12/two-oil-spills-two-government-responses-lessons-from-the-bp-an/
Both events brought about government action in their wake, largely because of public outcry. In the former (Exxon) instance, critics complained that the government did too little; this time, some critics complain that it did too much, resulting in a lack of consistency, particularly with regard to moratoriums instituted on offshore drilling .
The $1 billion government settlement of 1991 (in case of Exxon spill) was criticized because it was primarily used to restore damaged ecosystems, without provisions to restore damaged communities or the lives of the people who lived and worked in Alaska. After nearly 20 years of back-and-forth, 33,000 plaintiffs were awarded, in June 2008, an estimated $500 million dollars in punitive damages. That works out to approximately $15,000 per person.
Immediately after the BP spill, the government held the company responsible for all financial obligations and BP created a $20 billion emergency assistance fund. The administration brought in Kenneth Feinberg, who also headed the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, to handle this one. Approximately 450,000 people have applied, and in late November final settlements began to be disbursed. According to the BP Gulf Response website, approximately $2.2 billion has already been paid to date to more than 150,000 individuals and businesses.
BP also invested $500 million in the Gulf Research Institute, which will assess the impact of the disaster on the environment and public health in the Gulf.
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An open question:
If you were in a position to hire a drilling platform operating manager, would you consider hiring the operating manager of Deepwater Horizon? Could one anticipate that he learned not to take short-cuts and would make better decisions now that he has witnessed the impact of poor decision making?
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104. At 02:35am on 07 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
JMM, (#97. At 01:48am on 07 Jan 2011)
"I’m glad I read though the thread before posting what would have been a repeat of your post."
Too bad he absconded, I was really hoping he would try to argue away the comparisons I drew between the suicidal behavior of the past empires and what the US administrations in recent years have been doing.
You wouldn't care to play the devil's advocate and apply your usual logic to that suggestion, would you?
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KS wrote: Lucy represents tens of millions of Americans whom you will likely never meet face to face.
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I know if you dish it, sometimes you hafta take it, too...
I see myself as a unique individual (I don't know if you'll find many like me, actually, cause' they don't make them like they used to and I am a tried and true American Midwesterner) just like all the people I meet are also unique individuals just like how snowflakes each have their own beautiful design...
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KS wrote: (Believe me, Lucy does not represent the far right - from here we can see it plainly).
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This is true. Far right, I am not...
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KS wrote: Lucy, Bravo, sister! For all your peculiar thoughts you are your own girl, and I am proud of you. Keep it up, and someday you will have something to write about to your grandchildren - as I do to mine today.
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Thanx, KS, for the words of encouragement...I have written a fiction children's book, which I hope my grandchildren will read someday...but I hope they don't change my words/censor my book like they did Mark Twains!
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John wrote:
1. Some African-Americans hate white Americans like Lucy and want revenge for slavery. One such is Obama. (Or at least some of the time.) That is why they – and he - are trying to destroy America.
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Yes, there are some on all sides with ill feelings...but just look at Holder's comment after Obama was elected or how they treated Black Panther case or how Obama treated the professor cop case, ectera, ectera...
I don't think they're trying to destroy, but rather take over/control/reverse roles...
But this is not everybody. I had one black friend growing up named Najma and we were friends...I know not all are like this...
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John: 2. One example of this is that Obama could easily solve the problem of illegal immigration at a stroke, but refuses to do so. Because he is for illegal immigrants and against ordinary (white) Americans.
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Yes, this is my belief...that some want to phase us out...
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John: 3. Lucy’s views on race are much less extreme than those of many of her friends
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This is also true...
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John: 4. The repeal of DADT was a plot by ‘ultraliberals’. (Despite the fact that most legislators voted for it.) If repeated polls showed most people supported repealing DADT, this must be because they were biased and ‘ultraliberal’
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As we have discussed, you know I don't believe in polls by selected portions of populations, which can be mutated by the biased media...
But I will say some of hte Reps did not vote the way we wanted...I voted for Mark Kirk, so he would vote no, but he sadly voted yes...at least he voted no on Dream act, which was better than the Dem candidate...
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John: 5. ‘Ultraliberals’ are a strange and mysterious group that Lucy sees everywhere – rather akin to ‘Reds Under The Beds’. In her mind they are not ‘people with political views that are extremely liberal’, but rather ‘anyone she disagrees with politically’. She sees no need to demonstrate that anyone she smears as ‘ultraliberal’ is actually ultraliberal – words mean what she wants them to mean.
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Just because I disagree with someone politically does not mean they are an ultraliberal...
To me, ultraliberals are people who are politically correct at all costs, regardless of what they are doing is right or wrong...
For example, pro amnesty, reverse racism, ect.
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John: 6. The aforesaid plot is intended to destroy the US military, to enable foreign invasion of the USA
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Yes, I believe some of Obama's policies will weaken our military if fully enforced, but I hope and pray they will be changed before too much harm is done...
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John: 7. ‘USA’ is cool, as are sunsets, puppy dogs and rainbows!!!
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This is true...
but I would say...
USA is awesome!!! ;)
And sunsets, puppy dogs, kitties, and rainbows are a bonus!
Especially the double ones!
Have a good day, John!!! :)
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oldloadr wrote: On the other hand, Lucy is the epitome of self-efacing wide-eyed patriotic virtue. She takes her country seriously. She takes her fellow humans seriously. She does not think she is "all that and a bag of chips" a my teenage daughter would say.
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That is a funny expression...lol...
I act silly sometimes like a "Girl that just wants to have fun", but ultimately...
I absolutely love my country, the beautiful USA, and to me it is worth more than all the riches in the world!!!
Because it just is...
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publius wrote: Could one anticipate that he learned not to take short-cuts and would make better decisions now that he has witnessed the impact of poor decision making?
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Is it that the regulations were simply not in place or that the regulators were not doing their job?
Do regulators need regulators?
And shouldn't every oil rig have a blow-out preventor and maybe a back up blow-out preventor, too?
(that is checked by regulators who regulate the regulators?)
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JMM, (137. At 10:46pm on 07 Jan 2011)
"... Too bad he absconded, I was really hoping he would try to argue away the comparisons I drew between the suicidal behavior of the past empires and what the US administrations in recent years have been doing.
You wouldn't care to play the devil's advocate and apply your usual logic to that suggestion, would you?"
Oooooooo! The temptation! The temptation!
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Jay, (#125. At 2:03pm on 07 Jan 2011)
”... They prefer to take decision unilaterally and then talk about coopertion (just like typical Bush style), they blame someone else if their decision goes wrong (obviously after losing election and someone else takes charge). They deregulated industries and force us to believe that such industries will regulate themselves (how naive!).
Check the activities of the recent Republican Governor ...”
For the historically challenged, and the generally ignorant: many of the significant changes in economic regulation occurred during the Ford, Carter and Clinton administrations, not usually known for extreme right-wing policies. Note please the deregulation of airlines and trucking under Carter, and the beginning of deregulatory reform in railroads, telephones, natural gas, and banking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Carrier_Act_of_1980
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Revitalization_and_Regulatory_Reform_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
worcesterjim, (#120. At 12:45pm on 07 Jan 2011)
”118 Chryses and sundry Curmudgeons should stop trying to cover their enormous overinflated egoes and rear-ends and be ashamed of their self-centred attempts to stifle the truth ...”
Care to point to one of what you consider my “self-centred attempts to stifle the truth” and explain why you think so?
“...the folk who hide their greedy dishonest corrupt materialistic misdeeds behind a smokescreen of santimonious political and religious twaddle will not last the course ...
That’s wonderful prose!
“... You are humbuggery personified!”
I just loooove the possible allusions!
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144. At 00:49am on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote: For the historically challenged, and the generally ignorant: many of the significant changes in economic regulation occurred during the Ford, Carter and Clinton administrations, not usually known for extreme right-wing policies. Note please the deregulation of airlines and trucking under Carter, and the beginning of deregulatory reform in railroads, telephones, natural gas, and banking.
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One upon a time there were dinosaurs roaming in the world. They helped mammals to evolved once they disappeared from the earth.
Once upon a time, the white European came to a part of the world (wrongly thinking that as India) and established a colony first and then a country, named America.
Now any talk of reforming railway (to make it world class; people and environment friendly), banking/finance sector (more customer friendly) is resisted by present generation of Republicans. Probably older generations of Republicans (e.g Ford) will think twice to call themselves republican if they see what is going on in the party.
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I am not sure why these three Republican governor elects (from Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin) are so against developing high-speed railway system in their states! I watched them on TV debating about it, but still could not understand why they oppose, particularly when federal government is giving the money. They want the money but not the project for which it had been allotted.
"Tensions with states grow over high speed rail":http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A94T120101110
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139. At 11:51pm on 07 Jan 2011, LucyJ wrote:
I don't think they're trying to destroy, but rather take over/control/reverse roles...
But this is not everybody. I had one black friend growing up named Najma and we were friends...I know not all are like this..
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I was watching "the daily Show with John Stewert" (on comedy Central). There the "senior black correspondent", Larry Wilmore said, "nobody gives America to anyone. You have to snatch it from someone and keep it to yourself till someone else snatches it from you. That's how this country has evolved".
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JMM and Lucy and Chris and Oldtimer and anyone else who loves truth...just a line to explain that I went to considerable trouble to write a full reply to JMM`s point 103 but the BBC are afraid even of the shadow they cast over our sad little attempts to communicate with one another ....and the moderator in London or CIA HQ or Tel Aviv or GCHQ thinks honest expressions of opinion are dangerous....while we beleagured indigenous Brits think it`s time the US cavalry swept their little politically correct police state away and freed the AngloSaxon world from the tyrrany of their cultural cleansing and mass immigration.
God bless America...and death to our BBC oppressors!!!
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#148
"God bless America...and death to our BBC oppressors!!!"
Classic :)
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Thanks JC...Sodom and Gomorrah...that`s the British and American media`s ideal outcome for our countries.The tide of "celebrity" sadism and filth that pours out of our media is destroying our young and will bring about our downfall as a civilisation.
If a Martian came to the world for the first time and watched The Godfather and Straw Dogs and the Graham Norton Show and Eastenders they would have a pretty accurate picture of why our civilisation is about to collapse.
But hey!Don`t we all make a show of going to church and being holier than thou about how superior we all are.....HUMBUGGERY !!!
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Yes...Off Topic.... Anyone noticed how the BBC "cover" subjects that are nice and safe and don`t portray your American elite in a bad light?
Has it ever crossed your mind that the BBC are always happy to "investigate" the seamier side of those little third world countries where the CIA and Soros are busy installing "business friendly" pro-US-elite puppet regimes so you can asset-strip them and corrupt them?
But...not so keen to take a drive just a few blocks away from the Whitehouse... or a few yards away from Hollywood...to where third world America can be found in all it`s repulsive "glory"?
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Folks...why not ask the Beeb why they won`t put up my post 143?
They certainly won`t do it in England because they are still trying to avoid responsibility for the moral and social disasters they have imposed upon us over there....but why so coy over in the USA?
Perhaps they are still trying to seduce you into imagining that they are a shining example of forthright transparency and free speech...unlike your pitiful media...but don`t be fooled!
They are as quiet about wikileaks as your "free press"!
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Jay, (#145. At 02:36am on 08 Jan 2011)
”... Probably older generations of Republicans (e.g Ford) will think twice to call themselves republican if they see what is going on in the party.”
I do not have enough information yet to decide if the problem is being historically challenged, or generally ignorant, but President Ford died four years ago.
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153...So what Chryses? Are you all so terrified of confronting real issues ....or is it just too early in the morning over there?
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worcesterjim,
Have you been able to locate yone of what you consider my “self-centred attempts to stifle the truth” and explain why you think so?
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Jay, (#146. At 02:45am on 08 Jan 2011)
”I am not sure why these three Republican governor elects (from Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin) are so against developing high-speed railway system in their states! ...”
One reason is that these examples of a “high-speed railway system” have an average speed of 39 – 50 mph, depending on the study used. That’s slower that traveling by car.
”... I watched them on TV debating about it, but still could not understand why they oppose, particularly when federal government is giving the money ...”
You seem to have missed the part when the fact that the Federal monies were insufficient to provide the service (the balance being covered by the sates), or that the cost of subsidizing the operating costs (carried by the states) were reviewed.
Fortunately, I can assist you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/us/05rail.html
http://www.notrain.com/
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155 ..Chryses the entire blog is drowning in your inconsequential blatherings...what bigger incentive to intelligent denbate could there be?
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worcesterjim,
LOL! I'll take it that you been UNABLE to locate one of what you consider my “self-centred attempts to stifle the truth” and explain why you think so. Let me know when you are prepared to substantiate and defend your (empty) claims.
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I will ...when you stop trolling Chrysie! Now find someone else to bore!
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worcesterjim, (#159. At 2:11pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"I will ..."
I doubt it.
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156. At 12:11pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
One reason is that these examples of a “high-speed railway system” have an average speed of 39 – 50 mph, depending on the study used. That’s slower that traveling by car.
then the Republicans should demand to increase the speed of the proposed rail system, NOT scrapping altogether.
You seem to have missed the part when the fact that the Federal monies were insufficient to provide the service (the balance being covered by the sates), or that the cost of subsidizing the operating costs (carried by the states) were reviewed
In that case, they should oppose the indipendent study that shows rail system not only generates jobs (which is so crucial at this point) in the near term future but also help developing greener, public friendly transport system (as determined by neutral syudy).
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Jay, (#161. At 4:16pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"... these examples of a "high-speed railway system" have an average speed of 39 - 50 mph, depending on the study used. That's slower that traveling by car.
then the Republicans should demand to increase the speed of the proposed rail system, NOT scrapping altogether ..."
You forget that the system the Federal government is (largely) underwriting is the 39/50 mph one. The Federal government has not offered one that travels as fast as, much less faster than an automobile. When they do, then perhaps the response from the states will be different.
"... You seem to have missed the part when the fact that the Federal monies were insufficient to provide the service (the balance being covered by the sates), or that the cost of subsidizing the operating costs (carried by the states) were reviewed
In that case, they should oppose the indipendent study that shows rail system not only generates jobs (which is so crucial at this point) in the near term future ..."
You seem to have overlooked the number of jobs the Federal monies expect to provide, "... according to the federal government's own estimate, the total number of permanent jobs created will be 55. That's $14.5 million per job, not including any hidden costs!" (http://www.notrain.com/ ) Do you follow the references others provide?
"... but also help developing greener, public friendly transport system (as determined by neutral syudy)."
So it doesn't make any difference to you if the state will have to subsidize the program with (presumably) tax dollars for more than 75% of the operating costs, and that it will run slower than currently available transportation. It certainly seems that you have already judged, and that mere facts will not change your opinion. OK.
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High-speed rail in the United States is extremely limited. Although the United States has large areas with population densities comparable to Western Europe and East Asia, there exists only one high-speed rail line. Moreover, this line is considerably slower than high-speed rail lines provided in most other developed societies. High-speed rail began in 1969 with the introduction of the Metroliner. Services initially ran at 125 mph (200 km/h), with speeds later increasing to 135 mph (220 km/h).[citation needed] In 2000 Amtrak introduced the Acela Express, which operates at a maximum speed of 160 mph (260 km/h) between Washington, D.C. and Boston. These trains tilt into curves along the track, allowing them to travel between Washington and New York in 2 hours and 45 minutes. This time—an average speed of only 83 mph (130 km/h)—is heavily influenced by the need to travel through and around Baltimore on tracks which are in some places over 160 years old. Ambitious long-term plans by the Maryland DOT to create a new express route through Baltimore for Acela and MARC commuter trains would significantly reduce this travel time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_the_United_States#U.S._high-speed_rail
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Can High-Speed Rail Succeed in America? :http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1957575,00.html
"We want to start looking deep into the 21st century and say to ourselves, There's no reason why other countries can build high-speed rail lines and we can't," Obama told a crowd in a University of Tampa arena. "Right here in Tampa, we're building the future."
That's a nice sentiment, but America's antiquated rail system will have to advance a long way just to make it to the present, let alone the future. U.S. intercity railroads are a laughingstock compared with those in most other developed nations — and, increasingly, even those in developing nations like China, which is investing more than $300 billion to build more than 16,000 miles of high-speed track by 2020.
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"Today you can travel the 250 miles from Paris to Lyon on the high-speed TGV in two hours. Covering a similar distance from Philadelphia to Boston takes some five hours, and that's on an Amtrak Acela train, the closest thing the U.S. has to high-speed rail. "Every other major industrialized nation has recognized that high-speed rail is key to economic growth and mobility," says Petra Todorovich, director of the America 2050 program at the Regional Planning Association. "It's time for America to realize that as well."
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1957575,00.html#ixzz1ASstfPPR
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A Vision for HighSpeed Rail in America- a fact sheet: http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RRdev/hsrspfacts.pdf
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@ #162. At 4:39pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote: ... according to the federal government's own estimate, the total number of permanent jobs created will be 55. That's $14.5 million per job, not including any hidden costs!" (http://www.notrain.com/ ) Do you follow the references others provide?
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yes I do. But quoting a website(www.notrain.com), which is dedicated to oppose highspeed rail system (than to evaluate its positive and negative points in a unbiased way with any degree of technical or administrative authority) does not warrant any response.
Anyway, here are some points (besides the foresaid points in previous posts) you may consider.
"Governments, of any variety, may opt to subsidize public transport, for social, environmental or economic reasons. Key motivations are the need to provide transport to people those who cannot afford or are physically or legally incapable of using an automobile,[10] and to reduce congestion, land use and emissions of local air pollution and greenhouse gases. Other motives may be related to promote business and economic growth, or urban renewal in formerly deprived areas of the city. Some systems are owned and operated by a government agency; other transportation services may be commercial, but receive greater benefits from the government compared to a normal company.
Subsidies may take the form of direct payments to financially unprofitable services, but also indirect subsidies are used. This may include allowing use of state-owned infrastructure without payment or for less than cost-price (may apply for railways and roads), to stimulate public transport's economic competitiveness over private transport, that normally also has free infrastructure (subsidized through such things as gas taxes). Other subsidies include tax advantages (for instance aviation fuel is typically not taxed), bailouts if companies that are likely to collapse (often applied to airlines) and reduction of competition through licensing schemes (often applied to taxis and airlines). Private transport is normally subsidized indirectly through free roads (paid for largely by gas taxes[11][12]) and infrastructure[11], as well as incentives to build car factories[13] and, on occasion, directly via bailouts of automakers[14][15]".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport
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Jay, (#163. At 5:07pm on 08 Jan 2011)
”High-speed rail in the United States is extremely limited ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_the_United_States#U.S._high-speed_rail“
While interesting, your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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Jay, (#164. At 5:10pm on 08 Jan 2011)
”Can High-Speed Rail Succeed in America? :http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1957575,00.html
... investing more than $300 billion to build more than 16,000 miles of high-speed track by 2020."
While interesting, your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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"State governments have subsidized Amtrak trains for years, but attempts to add faster and more frequent service have been thwarted by lack of money and, sometimes, by resistance from Amtrak itself. ...The $8 billion program bypasses Amtrak and will provide funds directly to selected state and regional agencies. The plan follows the precedent of the Interstate Highway System, initiated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, for which states planned and built the highways according to standards set by the federal government, which picked up 90 percent of the tab..... While maybe not a pie-in-the-sky project, instituting high-speed rail—or even getting train speeds back to 1940s standards—will be a tall order requiring years of commitment and vastly more than $13 billion to pull off. Given Americans’ well-known penchant to jump in a car or head for the airport to get where they’re going, how realistic is Obama’s plan?
Diesel-powered trains use 27 percent less energy per passenger mile than cars and 21 percent less than airliners, according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. If high-speed rail lines were operated with nonpolluting electric locomotives, they could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as two million tons annually, according to the Center for Clean Air Policy. “Not since the implementation of the Interstate Highway System have we been afforded such a momentous opportunity to change how this country moves forward,” Edward G. Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania and chairman of the National Governors Conference, told Congress last June.
Last year, Amtrak earned 72 percent of its costs from ticket receipts and received about $1.2 billion in direct federal subsidies (yet I do not see much opposition against Artrack from the Republicans who are so (generally) so against high speed railway and federal subsidy).
http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/printarticle.cfm?aid=1476
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Jay, (#165. At 5:13pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"Today you can travel the 250 miles from Paris to Lyon on the high-speed TGV in two hours ...
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1957575,00.html#ixzz1ASstfPPR”
While interesting, your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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<RICHPOST>Jay, (#166. At 5:17pm on 08 Jan 2011)<BR /><i>”A Vision for High¬Speed Rail in America- a fact sheet: [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]<BR />While interesting, your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.<BR /> </RICHPOST>
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Jay, (#166. At 5:17pm on 08 Jan 2011)
”A Vision for High¬Speed Rail in America- a fact ...”
Jay, my apologies for the odd formatting in #172. What it should read is:
While interesting, your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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Jay, (#170. At 5:38pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"State governments have subsidized Amtrak trains for years, but attempts to add faster and more frequent service have been thwarted by lack of money ...
http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/printarticle.cfm?aid=1476 ”
Wow! I had no idea you read The Wilson Quarterly! Very cool! I read that article a year or so ago. Perhaps when or if the Federal government underwrites the full cost of the PROPOSED system, and GUARANTEES the operating costs, the states will smile upon the proposals. Until then, while interesting, your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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Jay,
Why did you post all those irrelevant items? As the objections from the states are that basically, they don’t want to pay for the system, what on earth possessed you to post the info on European rail, on President Obama’s vision paper, the claimed eco-friendliness, etc? How are they relevant to the cost criticism?
Have you adopted the position that the Governors of the various states are not empowered by their citizens to allocate, with the approval of their respective state legislatures, the money raised by those states as they deem apropos? If you believe that the different states may have different priorities, then why are you so adamantly opposed to them exercising their right to spend their discretionary funds as they want?
Surely you don’t claim that the states MUST accept the proposals by the Federal government if the states don’t find the proposals acceptable, do you?
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Ref 140 LucyJ-
"publius wrote: Could one anticipate that he learned not to take short-cuts and would make better decisions now that he has witnessed the impact of poor decision making?
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Is it that the regulations were simply not in place or that the regulators were not doing their job?"
The poor decisions made by the operating manager of Deepwater Horizon which resulted in the blow-out were not so much the violation of regulatory agency initiated rules as it was a violation of the natural laws of fluid dynamics. The manager should have had the education, training, and experience to know better than gamble against the odds. He had plenty of information available to him that should have led to a more reasoned decision; but chose to ignore the facts.
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175. At 6:15pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
Jay,
Why did you post all those irrelevant items? As the objections from the states are that basically, they don’t want to pay for the system, what on earth possessed you to post the info on European rail, on President Obama’s vision paper, the claimed eco-friendliness, etc? How are they relevant to the cost criticism?
Surely you don’t claim that the states MUST accept the proposals by the Federal government if the states don’t find the proposals acceptable, do you?
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It may seem "irrelevant" to people like you, blind supporters of Republicans who are less interested in informed debate and more interested to oppose any argument that contradicts your faith and more importantly expose your insane arguments (as a typical trend for you).
There are some governors in some states who hardy work for the state and the people but work more for their corporate lobbyists and special interest groups.
There are many people who believe that US car manufacturing companies and auto insurance companies are too powerful to stall any talk to civilized public transport here in US, that includes highspeed railway. GM and Chrslar are one of the main donors for Republican party in the last bu-election.
"New GM CEO is Longtime GOP Contributor and Though 80 percent of their contributions have gone the GOP's way,":http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/06/new-gm-ceo-is-longtime-gop-con.html
"While GM suspended its contributions as it solicited the government for financial help, it is back in the game of political giving, increasing donations from its federal political-action committee steadily over the past few months.
And GM is not alone. Companies that received federal bailout money, including some that still owe the government, are giving to political candidates with vigor. Among companies with PACs, the 23 that received $1 billion or more in federal money through the Troubled Asset Relief Program gave a total of $1.4 million to candidates in September, up from $466,000 the month before. Most of those donations are going to Republican candidates, although the TARP program was approved primarily with Democratic support and President Obama expanded its use to GM and other automakers.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013250262_campbailout25.html?syndication=rss
You can not say that "states are opposed to high speed railway". You can say that Republican admins in some states are opposed to that highspeed railway proposal. State of Ohio was in full agreement for Highspeed railway under its Democrat admin. It is not that the opinion of general Ohioans changed when the admin changed hands. Opinion of general Ohioans did not change much. If Ohio admin (irrespective of party) wants it can have a public refedundum on that issue. Same in Wisconsin or Florida.
Besides highspeed rail way (which you hardly can justify your stand from valid facts and figures), Gun control is another issue where Republican nexus with arms manufacturers and powerful organizations like NRA is very prominent.
After so many gun violence (even after today's news- "A US congresswoman and several other people have been shot at a public event in southern Arizona" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12143774 ) Republicans will not cooperate to impose meaningful gun control law in US.
If you think of any valid reason to maintain the current status in that issue, I will really feel pity on you and your ability to think and take decisions for yourself.
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174. At 5:54pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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First of all the speed of any public transport does not increase in exponential terms. It improves gradually. out current railway system do not run even at it used to be during 1940s (Yes, 1940s). If a public transport system cannot operate with a speed of 50 miles/hr. then it will be foolish to target 150miles/hr at this time. Of course that can be achieved if we are ready to allocate more resource for that. A decent increase will be a good start to reform it.
Secondly, if speed is the issue, then Republicans can set their own seed limit for that railway system. Ohio's republican admin can tell that highspeed railway will run at 200miles/hr, at least in Ohio. But such republicans oppose rail-network reform in the first place. To me, speed or maintainence cost subsidy are just excuses. In fact thee are enough people who do not believe the subsidy story, aggressively propagated by the opposing Republicans ("Wis., Ohio high-speed rail money goes elsewhere": http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101209/ap_on_bi_ge/us_high_speed_trains).
I think Republicans are worried as they simply can not get campaign finance donations (as GM did) from any proposed project while opposing business interests will pay them in real term, in real money, as and when needed, even now.
Despite of severe opposition by many Republicans in Florida, the admin there is proceeding with the project. A good sign.
There are very few projects where federal govt give 100% and there are many projects going on in many states where state govts pay for its share and also subsidizes the public services.
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your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
It may be irreverent to people l like you who blindly support Republicans, which I can not help. Go through those links (they are not from any interest group websites, as I know) I sent and try to understand it in a unbiased way.
It will be foolish to label that people in a state is oppose or support highspeed railway. You can say that republican admin in a state oppose the proposed highspeed railway.
There are many people who believe that the current opposition against the proposed railway is mainly from a very influential car manufacturing and then auto insurance industry more than for any ideological or budgetary reason. In fact many of the big federal aid availing companies (mainly the finance companies/banks, US auto manufacturers) have donated more to Republicans in last by-election. Check for example, GM.
Although the Obama administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress now own a majority stake of General Motors, the retired executive appointed yesterday to be the company's new CEO, Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., is a veteran Republican fundraiser.. Though 80 percent of their (GM) contributions have gone the GOP's way". http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/06/new-gm-ceo-is-longtime-gop-con.html.
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174. At 5:54pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
your post is irrelevant to the objections of the several states that the systems AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
----------------------------------------------------------
It may be irreverent to people l like you who blindly support Republicans, which I can not help. Go through those links I sent (those are not any interest group or political party websites, as I know) and try to understand it in a unbiased way.
It will be foolish to label that people in a state is oppose or support highspeed railway. You can say that republican admin in a state oppose the proposed highspeed railway.
There are many people who believe that the current opposition against the proposed railway is mainly from a very influential car manufacturing and then auto insurance industry more than for any ideological or budgetary reason. In fact many of the big federal aid availing companies (mainly the finance companies/banks, US auto manufacturers) have donated more to Republicans in last by-election. Check for example, GM.
Although the Obama administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress now own a majority stake of General Motors, the retired executive appointed yesterday to be the company's new CEO, Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., is a veteran Republican fundraiser.. Though 80 percent of their (GM) contributions have gone the GOP's way. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/06/new-gm-ceo-is-longtime-gop-con.html.
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174. At 5:54pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
Surely you don’t claim that the states MUST accept the proposals by the Federal government if the states don’t find the proposals acceptable, do you?
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No I do not claim that.
Let there be transparent debate with facts and figures and if there is severe difference in opinion (among Dems and Reps) then let there be a general referendum to have a timely and legally binding decision. It should not be (valid for both Dems and Reps) that one party spend about $ 1 billion and then the next party admin abruptly stop the project (as hapened in Ohio for this proposed highspeed railway project).
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In short, until or unless the political donation, more importantly corporate (national and foreign origin) donations, during election campaign and banning any form of (corporate) lobbying is taken care of in state capitals and Washington DC, no meaningful reform for a more representative US democracy is possible.
Be it gun control/violence (see today's news-"A US congresswoman and several other people have been shot at a public event in southern Arizona". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12143774 ) or mandatory green house gas emission control, or immigration reform or high speed railway or development of green energy or any other pro-people policies.
It is NOT any republican or democrat specific problem. But some people/party are more equal than others in preventing that to happen.
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Jay, (#178. At 8:36pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"...AS PROPOSED by the Federal government, are not high speed, will not be fully paid for by the Federal government, and when operational will need to be heavily subsidized by the state.
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First of all the speed of any public transport does not increase in exponential terms. It improves gradually. out current railway system do not run even at it used to be during 1940s (Yes, 1940s). If a public transport system cannot operate with a speed of 50 miles/hr. then it will be foolish to target 150miles/hr at this time. Of course that can be achieved if we are ready to allocate more resource for that. A decent increase will be a good start to reform it ..."
True, but irrelevant. "A decent increase" is not "high speed." You don't really want to take the Humpty Dumpty path of argument, do you?
"... Secondly, if speed is the issue, then Republicans can set their own seed limit for that railway system. Ohio's republican admin can tell that highspeed railway will run at 200miles/hr, at least in Ohio ..."
True, but irrelevant. The Governors are rejecting the system AS PROPOSED. Try to keep in mind that the Federal government is proposing the system, not the state Governors.
"... But such republicans oppose rail-network reform in the first place ..."
Can you substantiate your claim that there exists a class, or category - "such" identifies them as a group - of Republicans who "oppose rail-network reform in the first place?" I very much doubt you can do so.
"...To me, speed or maintainence cost subsidy are just excuses ..."
That's easy for you to say, you will not be held responsible, will you? Further, MAINTENANCE is not at issue, subsidizing OPERATION ($7 million to $10 million a year to operate the trains after the line is built) is. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/us/05rail.html )
"... In fact thee are enough people who do not believe the subsidy story, aggressively propagated by the opposing Republicans ("Wis., Ohio high-speed rail money goes elsewhere": http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101209/ap_on_bi_ge/us_high_speed_trains)... . "
Enough people to what? You neglected to specify that detail.
"... I think Republicans are worried as they simply can not get campaign finance donations (as GM did) from any proposed project while opposing business interests will pay them in real term, in real money, as and when needed, even now ..."
Do you have any evidence to substantiate THIS claim, or should we add it to the empty claims list?
"...Despite of severe opposition by many Republicans in Florida, the admin there is proceeding with the project. A good sign ..."
You neglected to point out that this is because the Federal government is now paying for all the project. "Its been reported on December 2010 that the US Dept. of Transportation is redistributings approx. $1.2 Billion in HSR funds that have been rejected by governors elect in Wisconsin and Ohio. Florida is projected to receive as much as $342.3 million of the reallocated rail funds which would then about close the gap of the entire projected cost of project." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_high_speed_rail ) Odd that you forgot to mention that, eh?
"... There are very few projects where federal govt give 100% and there are many projects going on in many states where state govts pay for its share and also subsidizes the public services. "
True, but irrelevant. If a state elects to not participate, that's the state's right.
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It is also becoming harder to differentiate which organization or institute belongs to whom; who is/are their financial sponsor(s), what "no conflict of interest" declaration they adhere to.
More and more such organizations are mushrooming these days in the guise of NGO or "think tanks" or "research institute" with unclear mandate and very dubious financial promoters.
A research project or an institute or a policy maker funded by concerned industries/interest can severely damage public information and/or policy making decisions, as happening more often now than any time in our recent history.
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Jay, (#183. At 9:20pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"It is also becoming harder to differentiate which organization or institute belongs to whom; who is/are their financial sponsor(s), what "no conflict of interest" declaration they adhere to ..."
Yes. It can be frustrating and disillusioning to learn that data from an organization that purports to be unbiased is nevertheless slanted, or spun for a hidden agenda.
"... More and more such organizations are mushrooming these days in the guise of NGO or "think tanks" or "research institute" with unclear mandate and very dubious financial promoters.
A research project or an institute or a policy maker funded by concerned industries/interest can severely damage public information and/or policy making decisions, as happening more often now than any time in our recent history."
Yes again, unfortunately!
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Jay, (#179. At 8:54pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"... It may be irreverent to people l like you who blindly support Republicans, which I can not help ..."
Would you care to identify the post(s) of mine to substantiate your claim that I "blindly support Republicans?" I think you will fail.
Again.
"... Go through those links (they are not from any interest group websites, as I know) I sent and try to understand it in a unbiased way ..."
There is little "wrong" with the links other than they are irrelevant to the contention that the Governors are empowered by their electorate to choose how to spend their state's money. I am sympathetic to several of the points made. That I am does not change the fact that the points are irrelevant.
"... It will be foolish to label that people in a state is oppose or support highspeed railway. You can say that republican admin in a state oppose the proposed highspeed railway ..."
It is usually referred to as a representative democracy. Get over it.
"... There are many people who believe that the current opposition against the proposed railway is mainly from a very influential car manufacturing and then auto insurance industry more than for any ideological or budgetary reason. In fact many of the big federal aid availing companies (mainly the finance companies/banks, US auto manufacturers) have donated more to Republicans in last by-election. Check for example, GM ..."
You've made your accusation, now substantiate it.
"... Although the Obama administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress ..."
The Republicans control the House of Representitives.
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RE Chryses 180. At 9:02pm on 08 Jan 2011, Jay 174, and previous
I am a big fan of rail and public transportation. Even so, I am often dismayed by the stupidity of various public administrations, at all levels. You are both right on this issue. We need good public transportation, but deliberately planning and implementing inferior systems is stupid. It is also counter-productive.
I think the problem may be that "public" transportation is seen as secondary to "private" transportation, i.e. the car. In the late 40's and the 50's the oil companies and car companies conspired to kill public transportation in order to promote their business interests. The propaganda campaign was so effective, apparently, that people [especially government officials] can't even think about public transportation in a reasonable manner.
Examples of stupidity:
Sections of the NE Corridor [between Bridgeport and Providence] were supposed to be electrified in the late 1940's, still not finished by 2000.
Boston's new "Silver Line" has two completely unconected segments, one has to get off and take the Red Line 2 stops and pay an extra fare.
The placemet of bus stops and rail stops in the Boston area is bizarrely ineffecient, busses that could, and should, share a stop have stops 1/4 mi. apart, or there no direct connections.
Riding public transportation can be inconvenient and uncomfortable, so the administrators make it MORE so rather than less. When people abandon the public transportation because of such problems they cut services and raise prices. If they are not deliberately trying to kill public transportation it is very strange, because they could hardly do a better job of it if they were.
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Jay,
I am very familiar with the railroad industry, and I am a big supporter of just about any kind of railroad project. But having said that, I am, largely, not in favour of "high speed rail".
Why?
Because the costs per passenger mile are, except possibly along the NE
corridor, simply vastly beyond anything that can be justified.
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The cost of operating a railroad varies, roughly, as the cube of the design speed.
If you are going to operate a train that moves at 200+ m.p.h, it is going to require its own dedicated right of way. If that train goes any great distance, you are going to have to scare up a very large number of passengers - more, I think, than is plausible at present - or the costs of the public subsidy per passenger is going to be completely untenable.
In the countries that have really good high speed rail systems there is also huge public support for the public subsidies that are required to build and maintain those systems.
Keep in mind that North America has not had a serious passenger business for half a century. In essence, we would be starting over from scratch.
Those European countries have been investing in incremental improvements to their passenger systems for over a century. The capital investment required to play catch-up is huge. It is the kind of expenditure that is spread out over decades.
Note also that those systems are generally (though not entirely) electrified. Electric systems provide the best traction and have the lowest marginal cost of operation, but they require the highest level of initial investment.
I happen to believe that if North Americans were allowed to vote directly on the matter, the amount of public support for an improvement in railway passenger service would be much larger than the budget of public funds currently allocated to it.
Nonetheless, that day has not arrived.
In the meantime, let's look at what can be achieved in areas of relatively high population density, at reasonable cost, in a reasonable period of time.
If you aren't going to swallow the cost of new, dedicated lines, then you are going to have to do a deal with the freight railroads. These are privately owned businesses (and very successful ones, too). You cannot reasonably or fairly expect them to carry passenger trains that impair their ability to move freight - freight is the bread-and-butter work that pays their bills. So a fair deal is to subsidize double, triple, and quadruple tracking in existing freight rights-of-way to expand capacity, and then to share that expanded capacity.
There is no need for a 250 mph train to go to Buffalo (leaving Buffalo, perhaps, but that's a different topic.) A 100 m.p.h. train would be fine. In fact, an 85 m.p.h. train that goes at the same speed as intermodal double-stack container freight trains would probably be ok, and it would be compatible with the freight system. It would be a lot better than sitting parked on the QEW every morning and night.
Less parochially, it makes sense to think that major population centers that are not too far apart should be able to support a rail passenger service, with a public subsidy that is comparable to that given to aircraft or roads.
That kind of service, operating hourly, running at something on the order of 100 m.p.h. between the east coast and the mid-west would take a lot of traffic off the roads, and a lot of passengers away from the airports.
100 m.p.h. by train to Chicago? Detroit? Toronto? Montreal? Boston? New York? Sure. It's pretty much what the NHL used to do in the golden era. It would be vastly better than flying, even if it took somewhat longer. It can be done at reasonable cost. There would be sufficient demand to justify the service.
That is what we should be aiming for.
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Jay, (#180. At 9:02pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"... 174. At 5:54pm on 08 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
Surely you don't claim that the states MUST accept the proposals by the Federal government if the states don't find the proposals acceptable, do you?
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No I do not claim that ..."
Good. Now, if you really mean what you posted, then you are pretty much obligated to accept that states are free to NOT accept the proposals by the Federal government if the states don't find the proposals acceptable.
That's what they did. Two of the three said, "Thanks, but no thanks Uncle Sam." When Uncle Sam offered to Florida the money Ohio & Wisconsin didn't want, guess what? Uncle Sam stumped up for the whole project, and Florida said, "Thank 'ee muchly, Uncle Sam." Seems that when you give freedom a chance, things worked out to the satisfaction of all three states, and the Federal government.
"... Let there be transparent debate with facts and figures and if there is severe difference in opinion (among Dems and Reps) then let there be a general referendum to have a timely and legally binding decision. It should not be (valid for both Dems and Reps) that one party spend about $ 1 billion and then the next party admin abruptly stop the project (as hapened in Ohio for this proposed highspeed railway project)."
It is usually referred to as a representative democracy. Get over it.
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Jay, (177. At 8:11pm on 08 Jan 2011)
"... You can not say that "states are opposed to high speed railway" ..."
That's easy, as I have not posted that they were.
"You can say that Republican admins in some states are opposed to that highspeed railway proposal ..."
You can say that the legally elected Governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida found the systems as proposed to be unacceptable. You could further say that after the proposal was changed, Florida accepted the new proposal. You could say that. Yes.
"... State of Ohio was in full agreement for Highspeed railway under its Democrat admin ..."
True.
"... It is not that the opinion of general Ohioans changed when the admin changed hands ..."
It was the opinion of general Ohioans to change the people who make the decisions.
"... Opinion of general Ohioans did not change much ..."
The opinion of Ohioans changed enough to change the people who make the decisions.
"... If Ohio admin (irrespective of party) wants it can have a public refedundum on that issue. Same in Wisconsin or Florida ...
The states of Ohio and Wisconsin did not. The state of Florida did. It is usually referred to as the practice of democracy.
"... Besides highspeed rail way (which you hardly can justify your stand from valid facts and figures), Gun control is another issue where Republican nexus with arms manufacturers and powerful organizations like NRA is very prominent ..."
Interesting but irrelevant to high-speed passenger rail service.
"... After so many gun violence (even after today's news- "A US congresswoman and several other people have been shot at a public event in southern Arizona" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12143774 ) Republicans will not cooperate to impose meaningful gun control law in US ..."
Interesting but irrelevant to high-speed passenger rail service.
"... If you think of any valid reason to maintain the current status in that issue, I will really feel pity on you and your ability to think and take decisions for yourself."
Interesting but irrelevant to high-speed passenger rail service.
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JMM, (#186. At 9:43pm on 08 Jan 2011)
I am a big fan of rail and public transportation ..."
I prefer rail to air myself. When my son was in Charleston, my wife and I would take either the Silver Meteor or the Palmetto when we visited. It was an overnight, so we arrived fresh and ready to visit. Cross country however, I never seem to have enough time, so the only way to go is to fly.
"... Even so, I am often dismayed by the stupidity of various public administrations, at all levels ..."
It is frustrating.
"... You are both right on this issue. We need good public transportation, but deliberately planning and implementing inferior systems is stupid ..."
And a waste of resources.
"... It is also counter-productive ..."
Each FUBAR makes it that much more difficult to sell the next proposal.
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It used to be the unions who held us to ransom but now the power of big business and bankers is far more than the unions ever had. Top bankers etc. are still paid tens of millions a year and this years' bonuses are bigger than ever- and they're state owned.
I doubt if there's any government who can make eg. BP change its management structure and spend money on safety, Britain won't; if the US can, then I take my hat off to them.
As such, these big money organisations are now above governments and thumb their noses at democracy.
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Yes, Europe and many Asian countries invested in rail system since many years and developed its present status in a incremental way. We need to accept that we can not change the past (in US). Now we need to decide what will be the best way forward: should we or should we not start giving more attention to develop a world-class rail system, MAINLY for our future development and future generation. When a corporate business entity does survey for its new product lunch, they give enough time to become profitable and till that time they subsidize that particular product/business from other source (within or outside its own business).
In that sense, I think, even if the newly proposed railway system need some state (from state or federal) subsidy, it is acceptable. It is a long term project and long term commitment.
As I mentioned, all such seemingly controversial decisions (where our political parties differ in a major way that no decision is possible) then better to go for public referendum (as done in Florida, as Chryses mentioned).
In reality, too much money power in influencing electoral politics is ruining our democracy (and that is not limited to any specific party). There are many companies whose profit level is more than the GDP of many countries in the world. It is one of the reasons for national conflicts as well.
E.g oil giant,Dutch Shell, in Nigeria (http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/issues.html and "WikiLeaks on Nigeria’s oil, corruption, NNPC, Shell, US Ambassador, Attorney-General Aondoakaa’s demand for millions in bribe money and health of Nigeria’s President:http://www.usafricaonline.com/2010/12/12/wikileaks-on-nigerias-oil-corruption-nnpc-shell-us-ambassador-attorney-general-aondoakaa/.
US is also getting its fair share in such corporate manipulation. As I mentioned in many other posts, the structural problem will not be solved unless we follow an economic model that is environmentally sustainable and not only maintain but (if possible) reduce our demand ("de-growth" model). National Governments of "developed" democracies like US need to show the path.
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190. At 02:05am on 09 Jan 2011, Chryses wrote:
RE: JMM, (#186. At 9:43pm on 08 Jan 2011)
Well, my dear Chryses, we appear to be on the same side on another issue. There was revealed another bisarre similarity, that is, our having traveled on the same train [though probably not at the same point in time].
Everything seems to be hitting the fan at once in the US. I thought the US was going into a centuries long decline, like the Roman Empire, but nowadays it seems more like we are facing the Armageddon that some religious people actually pray for.
I actually heard a conservative, born again Christian [sorry for the repetitive statement] say at a funeral, "the world has become a terrible place, Lord. We are ready, come and take us home."
In the past this sort of attitude has led to people withdrawing from society rather than trying to make things better. Some may even try to hurry the Lord along [Please don't ask me to amplify this, it would send us down the "Levantine rathole."]
So to keep things neat and on topic, the failed oil industry has led us to a failing political industry and the possibility of apocalyptic results all around.
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JMM, (#193. At 6:49pm on 09 Jan 2011)
”Well, my dear Chryses, we appear to be on the same side on another issue ...”
It is possible for reasonable men to agree.
”... There was revealed another bisarre similarity, that is, our having traveled on the same train [though probably not at the same point in time] ...”
Yes, that was unexpected.
”... Some may even try to hurry the Lord along [Please don't ask me to amplify this, it would send us down the "Levantine rathole."] ..."
Patience, we are taught, is a virtue.
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It may be an industry failure but I'm sure the senior management will pay themselves a massive salary increase or bonus.
The disgusting management ethos that rewards incompetence and supports limited skill is endemic. I trust that this recent report will stop this at least in BP.
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