I hope Neil Young will remember those southern men don't need him around.

Has anyone passed along to Thom that the Chief Justice between Earl Warren and William Renquist was Warren Burger? Who I will forever curse for leaving the bench during Reagan's admin. And allowing Reagan to nominate one Antonin Scalia.

One of the features of Committees, Partnerships, Congresses and Corporations is that any decision or non-decision can be taken without responsibility for the outcomes of the decision, Those interested can read about the introduction of the Wesringhouse brakes in the railroads. I suggest Howard Zinn's account.

Interestingly a large part of the benefits of Unions is the emphasis on safety. Corporations are not interested in safety as it reduces their profits and increases their capital costs. Note the efforts of the John L. Lewis's efforts to increase mine safety even though it would reduce workers and membership. I wish corporations would be so responsoble!

Adam Smith says all wealth id created bu labor.

KEND yer blak gold pals Bush and Chenney threw out the book on safety regulations to help their oil buddies cut expenses...Them BOP's ain't cheap, and in an all out profit driven market...Well you know how the story goes.

...and you are correct; It's the little people who will suffer the burdon of increased prices at the pump, the grocery store, etc. etc. While those who are tardy, careless and irresponsable, continue to reep the benefits while getting away with murder.

I've also worked in the oil industry. And with Kend I agree that it is and must also be in part due to inadequate inspection. Many people in a long chain of command approved or let this happen.

If deregulation or inadequate monitoring approved inadequate designs or procedures, the responsible leasing and regulatory authorities must also be held accountable --(not just the inspector out in the field)-- but his or her supervisors right up to the top-levels of government, agencies who should have been demanding accountability (but must have been looking the other way).

Fear of high-liability costs due to injury or plant shutdown losses due to equipment failures can and do affect management decisions. From my experience BP has relatively high standards and procedures when it comes to plant operations and procurement for themselves. They get high quality where it counts. And safety inside most refineries is very good --due to the high costs of liability. Insurance rates can and do result in changed (improved) operating procedures.

Apparently, they (or someone) thought they could cut corners drilling offshore and get away with it. And, THAT is why accountability must hurt BP and other stock-holders (owners) and insurers where it hurts most, their profits and value.

No, BP can not simply "pass it on to consumers." If BP raises it's prices too much, intelligent consumers can simply drive to another vendor down the street. We have options, if consumers are aggressive enough to exercise them, (instead of just whining about it).

Even if the entire industry must raise prices due to increased liability-risks, management will tend towards minimizing those risks. Meanwhile consumers (and shareholders) can demand greater regulation and accountability of the industry (thereby reducing real-risks, liability-risks and costs) -- instead of bought-off legislators and regulators looking the other way. We all (should) have responsibilities for how our systems do or do not work.

I agree with you, Thom, that whatever BP pays, it will never be enough to compensate for the devastation that this oil giant and others have caused.

Dear Tom,

This is what I sent to Wyden, Merkley and Blumhauer, my congressional reps in Congress, and also to our old friend Carl Wolfson. I know it is long, but some things can't be said in a 5 second sound bite.

As I listened to the news driving in to work this morning, the head of the FAA was citing how controllers would be furloughed for one or two days per pay period, small airports control towers would be closed, airlines would be delayed, flights would be cancelled, and so-on. Leon Panetta was quoted earlier in the week saying troop pay raises would be only 1%, the 800,000 civilians would have to take 1 day a week unpaid, aircraft carriers and cruisers would not be deployed, and our military readiness would be compromised. Then we hear of the 50,000 children that will not get food or be taken care of, 900,000 patients that won’t be seen, more workplace deaths (OSHA inspection reductions), meat and poultry shortages, forest fires, nuclear catastrophe, national parks closed, and even pest infested crops.

Come-on guys, what do you take us for? I dusted off the 216+ page (2012) Federal Budget and did some looking. The total annual budget is $3,699 B. You have to take out Social Security and Medicaid (exempted in the Budget Control Act of 2011 which is the cause of all this panic) and we can’t sequester the interest payment of $ 240B per year on the debt, so we are left with $ 2,410B to apply the sequester to. The sequester amount is $85 B for this year, which is a reduction of funds of 3.6%, although newscasters use numbers like 9% reductions. Alternately we are told that the reduction is ½% of GDP.

So what is going on here? It is apparent that the government, Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of trying to scare the American public. They must think we are stupid, and we have been letting them get away with it. 3.6% is a manageable amount. In private industry, if a 3.6% downturn couldn’t be managed, I would fire the managers. Yet here we have the Federal Government going into disaster mode. And it is obviously spawning a tactic both by Obama and the GOP of spreading fear and scaring the public, and for that I say “shame on you, those we elected to lead our country!”

But let’s take this a little further. If the Department of Defense takes 20% out of the 800,000 civilian contractors (one day per week of furlough), instead of 3.6%, where is the other 16.4% going? As Panetta speaks of “grounding aircraft, returning ships to port, and sharply curtailing training across the force,” I have to seriously question the leadership of what is acknowledged as the largest military in the world. I went back and rechecked my math making sure I didn’t misplace the decimal point, (36% reduction instead of 3.6%) but I didn’t make a mistake.

So let’s deviate for a moment by talking about the military. The expense is scattered all over the 216+ page Federal Budget, forcing one to have to work to find all the dollars. There is $881B for Security. But there is another $503B for Veterans benefits, and $380B in interest on the National debt, which we would not have if we hadn’t gone to war in the first place. There is also a whole array of “Non-security” items such as Military Retiree pay, Nuclear Weapons cleanup, Homeland Security, the State Department, and something called Overseas Contingency Operations, which it turns out is $117B mainly for Afghanistan continued operations. All told the US Military expense totals somewhere around 48% of the Federal Budget, which by my math is $1,372 B.

So how much is that really, compared to China or Russia or even the UK? And to be fair, let’s only count the claimed $881B part of the DOD budget called “Security”. China, with over 4 times our population; $143 B. Russia military spending is $71B. The UK spends $62.7B on its military. In fact, US military spending is equal to the next largest 14 military nations added together. Wow, does that blow your mind?

It is my opinion that we need to do something to get control of our military regardless of sequester. As we have developed drones and robots (tanks) to take the foot soldier out of the line of fire, as we use satellites and twitter feeds for intelligence, perhaps we don’t need as many $610M F-35 fighters (we have spent $400B on them so far and they are currently grounded due to engine defects), nor do we need as many ships, or tanks, or bases, or men to fight wars. Maybe we don’t need wars, but that is a different discussion. What is clear to me is that the US has the largest and most bloated military in the world, and that is the biggest contributor (48% of budget) to our financial problems at home. Maybe we need sequester to stand down our military, and not carry the reductions on the backs of the civilians or soldiers pay but instead on meaningful reductions in weapons, bases and solders.

The rest of the sequester discussion seems to be more or less based upon political positioning; the Republicans choosing one GOP face per day to announce on Fox, Meet the Press, and myriad other outlets, that Barack wants more tax increases, and Barack denying the accusation. Witness this morning on NPR; Ray LaHood, head of the FAA discussing not being able to staff control towers, delayed flights, airport closures, etc. “This is going to be painful for us and our employees but very painful for the flying public.”

And yet Barack is not really asking for tax increases per say, but rather reductions of tax loopholes. In other words; stopping the tax incentive to move companies offshore, stopping tax incentives to the fossil fuel industry, and stopping companies from being able to write off their penalties and fines for lawsuits as a cost of doing business (for example BP taking $Billions in deduction on their penalties for the gusher in the gulf). The public can be counted on to make informed decisions, but “informed” is not what they get from these continual GOP mis-statements.

The final point I wish to make is the GOP claim that “nothing has been offered by Barack, no plan, nothing.” The fact is that there is a highly detailed 44 page OMB plan offered by the Whitehouse that lays out in line item by line item, exactly what President is proposing. Further, there is a one page summary released days ago summarizing the 44 page plan. And what has to be acknowledged is that our president has already signed more than $2.5 Trillion in deficit reduction. So here is a quick litmus test to see who is guilty of doubletalk, the GOP or President Obama. Google the following; “Obama plan for sequester” and then “Republican plan for sequester”. The result will be self-evident.

And what is clear to me is that if the sequester is so distasteful, so draconian, so mindless; that the Congress could just vote to stop it. They could pass a new piece of legislation to say “Stop”! In fact they already passed legislation in January (remember the Fiscal Cliff deal?) which delayed sequester for 2 months. If they could do that, they could stop it completely and instead pass the legislation necessary to enact the plan laid forth by our president.

So fasten your seat belts; the next week should be exciting, and remember that in another month we will once again be arguing about raising the debt ceiling. Kind of reminds me of the children’s fable about “chicken little and the sky is falling.”

I agree. All this noise he's making about the terrible loss of jobs etc. If we go over the big bad fiscal cliff (which congress would never let happen) is just the backdrop against which he'll cut into programs like Social Security and Medicare in the name of "compromise". He keeps going half way to the wall. A Republican incumbent couldn't do it any more effectively.

Because they have been elected by the general population of which 50% have IQs below 100. They are representative of the religitard, libertarian, greedy old bastard sort who don't give a flying fuck about anything but the 1% from whom they are financed.

I f Barack is somehow charged with deciding where to make the cuts, he should find ways to pull the rug out from under the GOP. Pull their security and all the benefits they get with their jobs. Intern programs, drivers, martini lunch expense accounts, cell phones, etc...

Amen ;-)

Very insightful blog and I would have to agree. The only way to punish these people is to send some to jail. At some point the rich who are undeserving should give something back and it is not always about the money but sometimes about the peoples lives they have ruined. medford oregon attorneys