Swell. If we crush BP British pensioners may suffer

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100005988/why-bp-bashing-americans-should-remember-1988/

Unreal.

They don't even have to buy politicians when they own the people outright.

...if a RWers said "too bad for American retirees" would you just shrug that off?

Those people deserve their pensions.

Of course people living on the Gulf deserve their homes and livelihoods as well.

Maybe they should be natonalized like GM until they can pay back their debts.

deregulating banks that played the wall street casino with pension funds, remember?

the UK made the mistake in utilizing a company with a huge track record of accidents as the basis for saving their economy. Do *we* have to suffer because of that?

Why are we repeating it?

We're not RWers now...are we?

If people get hurt, it certainly is not in any way our fault. Demanding justice is not a bad thing to do...

But what about the pensioners?

Was each and every individual pensioner supposed to personally monitor BP day-to-day operations on every single rig?

I've heard some pretty whacky libertarians say the FDA should be done away with because if some food plant mass poisons people the people can sue so its people's responsibility to use market forces to buy safe food.

As if we can test everything we put in our mouths before it kills our children.

I'm seeing a lot of that mentality in this thread.

These pensioners are as much unwitting victims as the Gulf residents and eco-system. I want the mess cleaned up and BP held responsible but I don't want to burn down villages to save villages.

This was a known risk. The pensioners should not be surprised.

They disregarded safety, they made a mess. Boohoo for the Brits.

They have been profiting richly by polluting the earth, now they should pay. They are the responsible party.

It is easy to collect the checks on their oil profits.. It is not so easy to have the checks cut off and be responsible for the cleanup and the destruction of ecosystems and lives here.

Then the pensioners can take legal recourse or something. But too damn bad.

Do what we say, and nobody gets hurt....



WESAYSO is the omnipresent, seemingly omnipotent corporation on Dinosaurs. The company has many subdivisions and an economic interest in nearly every conceivable field. The WESAYSO Development Corporation is its most visible branch, focusing on tract housing development. B.P. Richfield is one of the field executives for this division, acting as supervisor and senior foreman

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/WESAYSO

And dead on.

There are no safety nets when things go wrong.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1004/gallery.top_5_tax_bills/2.html

Exxon paid $15.2 billion in taxes last year.

U.S. federal: -$156 million (yup that is a negative, like earned income credit)
U.S. state and local: $110 million
International: $15.2 billion

How does that happen. US tax code allows US companies to write off foreign taxes paid against projected taxes owed in US.

So Exxon would have had to pay around $15 billion in US federal taxes but because it paid $15.2 billion overseas it go a ~$200M refund instead.

Insane.

Thank you very much for finding and sharing that. :thumbsup:

from BP's poisoning of the waters.

:nopity:

Claiming the profits when times are good and denying responsibility when catastrophic mistakes become a public emergency, that's the Goldman Sachs business model. If we're going to OK this then we may as well do away with governments entirely and let the law of the jungle rule; it would be more just than a political/financial environment geared to have everyone trying to steal from everyone else.

Whether they realized it or not is another matter. But I bet they did.

Don

The managers of their retirement funds do.

Retirement fund investment in the market sometimes ends up being a lot like setting up a hostage situation. Kind of like the bank robber who takes over an orphanage and threatens to kill all the kids unless he gets his way.

They can remove their money; they can direct certain investments and positions. If the plan locks them in so they have no choices, they can refuse to participate, or they can demand a change in the plan.

What cannot and should not be rewarded is the attitude that investments are fire-and-forget. Giving money to people has consequences and if it's your money the responsibility ultimately falls on you.

and the various company holdings are spelled out in these reports.

Individual investors have no excuse for not knowing where their money is invested regardless of whether it is in the form of a retirement fund or not.

Of course it is easier to not read the prospectus, not read the reports, cash the checks and then claim ignorance when a disaster occurs.

Akin to our Social Security.

I'm glad Bush was stopped before he could hand OUR retirement funds over to these monsters.

But now we find ourselves in the unenviable position of Solomon's Dilemma.

by returning to a hard currency model, eliminating central banking or at the very least the 'targeted inflation' scam.

With a sound currency you can preserve your money by burying it in the backyard. Dig it up a hundred years later and a sound currency will have the same value.

By using targeted inflation, central banks force savers to take risk to preserve their capital. Saving (as opposed to seeking a return by investment) should be a zero-risk affair; through the inflation-based economic model a mechanism has been set up by which savings can be stolen by financiers through risk manipulation.

would have more than a few percent of their holdings in BP.

Even if the BP portion became worthless, the fund would only take a small hit. Offsetting this, their holdings in other petro stocks (Shell, etc.), might see an uptick due to BP's misery.

It's called diversification.

They committed suicide.

Don

No bail out, but put them into receivership like a failed bank until they pay off their debt while maintaining their pension fund obligations.

Then--and once they have prvoen themselves responsible--allow the execs to start making their full salaries again.

If it takes 50 years so be it.

in this thread. BP is largely made up of a bunch of middle class working stiffs no more culpable for this mess than somebody who doesn't work for BP. I'm guessing very few working people anywhere work for an organization that doesn't act in fairly sleazy ways at times. I've worked for a number of places, some I've had the luxury of being able to leave when they disgust me, some not. Ya do the best ya can. Most of us, in some ways or many ways, are dependent upon The Man for something involved in our well-being. We settle sometimes. Otherwise we'd all be Ted Kaczinski

well at least there were until these big corporations offshored so many jobs.

There is no excuse when one chooses to work for a corporation who is selling you the rope to hang yourself with.

People do have a choice to work for a little less and work elsewhere, and not lose their soul to a corporation like BP.

Consequences abound.

...Separation of Church of the Mighty Dollar and Government

Some Jewish guy once said loving money led to evil.

Pretty smart guy he was. Too bad nobody listened to him.

that happen. Do you?

BP. Unfortunately, those invested in BP whoever they may be, will have to pay for the clean-up of the mess. We taxpayers already cleaned up the banking mess and the automobile industry mess. We cannot pay for BP's mess too. No way.

The law needs to be changed so that those who run these huge corporations are personally liable when they are negligent to the extent that BP's management was negligent.

I say that because I feel certain that the major stockholders in BP and the management of BP are well protected from sharing the losses of the corporation and from owing any part of their personal wealth to help with the clean-up.

Let's face it, the idea of a corporation works well when it comes to developing industry, but it does not work well when it comes to safely running a business. That is because a corporation, in contrast with a partnership or a sole proprietorship, is essentially irresponsible. Companies are organized as corporations in order to protect the shareholders and employees and boards of directors from having to bear any personal responsibility for the company's losses beyond their investments in the company.

We need to revisit the idea of the corporation.

:nopity:

If they Insist on making justice difficult to deliver they need to pay the extra cost of delivery.


If they are going to use old men and women as financial human shields for their pockets they need to loose more than money.

:eyes:

A scheme could go something like this so the little guy isn't destroyed as much as the big fat cat, corrupt thugs at the top of BP:

If you have less than 100 shares you can cash out and get all of your money.

If you have 500 shares you can cash out and get 90% of your money.

If you own 5,000 shares you get only 50% of your money.

If you are a BP executive you get nothing because you are part of the culture of corruption that led to the deliberate disaster.

And if you are a BP director or CEO you lose all of your stock, and everything you personally own will be seized to compensate your victims. And once all of your mansions, luxury cars, bank accounts, retirements and private islands are sold you go to prison for life, without parole.

I'm tired of having two judicial systems, one for the poor and the other for the rich.

People shouldn't have to gamble their retirement on that rigged game anyway. Getting regular folks into the market was a bit of evil genius, it makes folks dependent upon that which oppresses them and kills the planet.

hey, I lost my pension last year and I'm SOL.