Over the past few days, a Robert Reich piece has been making the rounds, and appeared today in the Christian Science Monitor. It’s called “Five reasons Obama should put BP under receivership.”
Now, just for review. Oil has been spewing into the gulf at roughly 3-5 times the rate BP says it has for over a month. Coverup and obfuscation from officials continue. Oil has hit multiple states. BP’s half-hearted attempts to stop the flow (and save themselves billions of dollars) are officially over, and they hope that relief wells will stop the problem when they are done — in August! The fact that it is still described as a “hope” does not instill confidence. In the meantime, hurricane season is upon us. While the problem is many feet underwater, the humans dealing with it must contend with weather on the surface. That doesn’t even address the issue of high winds and waves as a “dispersant.” It should be obvious to everyone who isn’t hopelessly addicted to wingnut commentators that there is an environmental disaster that is quickly becoming an economic disaster for the people whose livelihood depends on the Gulf of Mexico.
The CSM asks what kind of “reforms” this will trigger. If it’s anything like our health insurance “reforms” and our financial “reforms,” expect nothing and suffer no disappointment should we receive it in abundance.
Back to Mr. Reich. He’s one of the Clinton Era fixtures that wasn’t returned to the White House when Mr. Obama arrived. All things considered, I suspect it’s because he’s too “L word” and I don’t mean “Lesbian.” (as an aside, where did this idea come from??) Anyway, Mr. Reich has 5 key reasons that BP needs to be temporarily taken over by the Feds. And unfortunately they are good reasons. They’ve been lying to us. We have no idea if they really are doing enough to stop this thing. They want to go ahead with risky strategies to (maybe) stop it, and the Feds currently have no way to stop them from making matters worse. For that matter we have little authority to do much of anything. Many on the Right want to blame Mr. Obama, but he’s not in charge and can’t be unless he’s willing to nationalize BP (a very Left position), in essence making their property forfeit due to bad management.
Liberal rock, meet conservative hard spot. That oily bit in between is what’s left of the libertarian position.
Only the Federal government is big enough to stop the environmental destruction that will eventually circle the world, and they can only do that if they are willing to seize the day — and the company.
In Closing: What morons thought this was a good idea and more importantly have they been fired yet?; Bank of America doesn’t care that she owns it free and clear, they’re foreclosing anyway (why exactly do I pay my mortgage?); Congrats to the many college grads, who are unfortunately both drowning in student loan debt and unprepared for the workforce; U.S. insists that Afghan peace plan must preserve women’s rights (which means there will be no peace); Dalian, China may look like this today, but to me it will always look more like this (turns out there is a Dalian Power Plant!); We just can’t afford to continue spending 155% of our average after tax income, at least not without serious debt and destroying the worth of our assets; bank failures continue; European unemployment is as bad as ours; Brad DeLong wonders if Washington really cares about the problem of unemployment (they will when the “unemployed” turn into the “angry mob”); solve the childhood obesity problem, the reputation of cops, and the made up problem of stranger danger in one brilliant move; it’s not 1967 anymore; basic economics at work (some would argue it’s a less dangerous crop than corn); and how to put on a yukata.