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US Attorney General Launches Criminal, Civil Investigation Into BP Oil Spill
And here come the mutual fund liquidations. Will the US start involuntary bankruptcy proceedings against the oil giant next? Where is Steve Rattner to find some Chapter 7/11 loopholes dammit. In the meantime, we hope you are long BP CDS. Also, is it about that time for someone to ask a few questions of BP former Chairman Peter Denis Sutherland (until January 2010), who just happens to be a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs, which incidentally sold just under 5 million shares, or nearly 40% of their BP stake, in the quarter ended March 31?
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well maybe i wont buy any BP shares after all...
Where there's smoke there's fire....
Another BP casualty. This is just so sad:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/170684/SPONGEBOB-BP.jpg
see below
Conspiracy theorist...ok. Accident at outset or not...the modern epitome of fascism is a transnational corporation at war with a country on its own behalf or in cahoots with a country that has been subverted to its fascism...BP/England. Didn't the conservative party just come to power in Britain? Isn't Halliburton one of three corporations involved in the ongoing leak? If you say Halliburton you say Cheney.... If I were Obama I would have Cheney et al and the board of Halliburton and the Board of BP and all related parties under house arrest until it was proven they were not involved in seditious activities... our Our military should be on ALL BP oil rigs in the Gulf seeing to their orderly shutdown and the sealing of the wells permanently. The basis for such actions being national security. The relationship of our intelligence services with M5 should be reviewed... And England should be put on notice war with us is possible. It appears a coupe d'etat is occuring defacto post facto the accident...And if none of this is occurring, taking such precautions should trouble no one. Its not just about an environmental catastrophe, its about whether fascist transnational corporations run the world and our government or whether our government runs itself and its relationship to the world. Call it conspiracy theory. I call it a perspective that considers every likely possibility of how an 'accident' can be taken advantage of by opportunists who are not far removed from the actors in the disaster. Actions not taken, further a cause to end our freedoms as Americans and is hampers the ability of our government to govern. So if only theory, this larger perspective cannot be ignored. And if there is no basis for it, it is important to confirm that lack of a basis. The attorney general's actions don't go far enough. And if Obama's government doesn't note the potential for far worse going on here than a natural disaster and crime against humanity, I suppose it deserves to fail at a huge cost to all of us in the U.S. and the world. It would be naive not to consider what is afoot now the leak has sprung in the GOM. Too much is a stake not to consider every possibility. Obama's government will fall without action that moves against those that will then assume power the very same fascists he just replaced.
No doubt it's really a great article and I felt really great going through your blog post. Great to read more articles from your side.
Pellet Mill Manufacturer
wonder if MMS is on the hook as well given that they approved the rig
hussein will put this company out of business. their only saving grace is if they employ union workers that way the government will just put them into receivership like GM
Good logic in that second part. Didn't know any of the tarped banks were unionized. That explains the bonuses - greedy unions. Just come from a good Mish session?
Just happy the spill is in southern gulf states !!!!!!!!!!!! I don`t give a dam about the south !!!!!!!!!!! maybe this is gods pay back for south blocking healthcare ???????????
you are a true american sir
Yep. Just look for vulture type buyers now.
BP swallow Hess and rename to Hess. Problem solved.
Just like when First Union "became" Wachovia by buying it.
And?
thank god the kenyan born fake president is doing something right - the only time in his entire term of doing so.....british petroleum's ceo should be fried in the electric chair for crimes against humanity....and afterwards bush crime syndicate don baby bush should be fried too for permitting this atrocious experimental drilling.....
it was ill conceived and inadequately supervised and engineered - especially in terms of risk management.
this is a catastrophe of biblical proportions demanding a commensurate punishment....the first step is to order bp to evacuate from the gulf and then liquidate its operations in the usa....there is no excuse whatsoever for this mess....and don't forget to fry the regulators who presided over this cock and bull hall of horrors...
Too bad the investigation will take years. That's just me being pessimistic though - I don't really have a reason to be.
This doesn't even rank in the top ten worst spill disasters in the world....... looks to me like there is blood in the streets. I'll start accumulating BP shares here.
Estimates are for the costs to reach $5-$10 billion. BP free cash flow is $23 billion the past two years.So even if the costs run $20 billion, that just means they broke even the past two years.
Yeah - I am stepping up to the plate here and will continue to add on the way down.
please enumerate worse offshore oil spill disasters.....
Here is a little perspective:
http://envirowonk.com/content/view/68/1/
"The Exxon Valdez, the tanker responsible for the worst oil spill in American history, has come back into the news this week, as the Supreme Court finally decides the price that Exxon will pay for ruining the fishing industry in Alaska."
The article was written in 2008. Good indicator of how today's announcement should play out. Perhaps we'll get a verdict on BP before 2050.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/05/guess-the-volume-of-oil-spilli.html
average of 70,000 bbl/day since 4/20/2010.
i wouldn't care if it were top 10 or top 100 - it was an unecessary disaster which will affect millions of lives....
You should check those numbers.
Real quick, just look at the contradicting numbers in the second one.
By your own information this will be one of, if not the worst, oil spills in world history. Estimates are as high as 1.5million tonnes which is at least equal to the Gulf War Oil Spill.
I'd wait for the panic bottom and then accumulate on the way up. Once the funds begin selling. It'll be buy-one-get-one free time for the shares.
Good luck with that.
People like you are a big part of the problem . I hope you lose everything fn satanist.
My napkin says it is already tied for first place. Your napkin probably has a PB logo.
Government gave them the permits.
Congressional feeding frenzy...
The President is going to need to score some political points with the financials I believe. This is already a major political defeat so getting in front of tougher financial reform is one alternative I am betting on. This oil volcano should serve notice on how destructive unchecked greed can be for all parties. I honestly cannot imagine what those in the Gulf sates are facing in coming years but it is a sad picture. Their real estate values were depressed as it was..this is catastrophic. BP should be nationalized.
“BP should be nationalized”
yer the uk government needs to diversify its portfolio, its over weight banks at the moment
lol
Careful what you wish for.
Sure, PB will be nationalized. It was always the plan, wasn't it?
What hasn't been nationalized? Parenting is next, though we're already mostly there with public schools.
never let a crisis go to waste....
I doubt these guys do anything. These are Civil charges. They will settle out of court for pennies.
U.S. Stocks Drop on Report Israeli Warplanes Are Fired Upon From Lebanon
From Bloomberg...
Confirmation?
The story behind that link has nothing to do with the headline?
Confirmed.
Lebanon fires on Israeli warplanes: security official
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hqnsjn-X8BvXzzReH6y_f...
Yeah it's all over Twitter too. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.984c60f1f6d018375cbcf93436d3...
They're making it into a bigger deal than it is. They don't fly within range exactly because they are always fired upon if the fly too low in this zone. This time, Lebanon fired anyways, knowing the jets were out of range, just to say something. He said, she said.
Yawn - wake me if/when Holder starts launching criminal/civil investigations into GS, JPM, Fannie/Freddie, etc.
Oil can be cleaned-up, eventually (either by us or by Mother Gaia). The 10's of trillions those criminals cost us all is gone for good.
+1
I'm almost shocked Holder is getting with the BP thing while the Wall Street crime in progress gets squat, I think Wall Street is is saying "Leak, baby leak!", anything to push us off the front page.
"Wall Street is is saying "Leak, baby leak!"
Bingo.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Well, the question is whether Holder is really getting with the BP thing, since he's actually taking time off from his ultra-busy schedule of imprisoning all of America's whistleblowers to do this BP thing.
(Evidently, there are still some lowbrows out there who believe the Obama Administration contains a democrat or two! Good luck on that!!!)
"..who just happens to be a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs.."
Please let us not forget that Sutherland is also a member of that antiworker, antilabor and antiunion lobbyist group for the ultra-rich, the Bretton Woods Committee (brettonwoods.org).
Thank you.
The moron that gave this group a freakin safety award should get 5-10 for that..
Show trials first.
Waaaay overdue. I know there are some BP apologists in this crowd, but the lying and obfuscation have been too much. Why were they drilling at that depth without the proper permits? Why didn't the BP prod mgt listen to the drilling engineer when he mentioned the rubber gaskets coming back up the column? Why were they using seawater in the column instead of mud? Why did BP provide lowball estimates for the spill? why has BP continued to use Corexit when it may be exacerbating the problem? Why are they denying the submarine oil plumes? I am not usually a fan of government intervention, but I welcome this investigation.
We'll see how much you welcome it when the majors stop drilling in deep water and Pemex, uh, I mean Obamex is responsible for drilling. It's comical. 20% of the oil spewing out of the earth belongs to the US government. They have a royalty interest. They knew bloody well what the risks were and simply didn't care because to stop drilling is to let gasoline go to ten bucks a gallon and then you'd want their head. If we're going to be totally honest, consumers who demand cheap oil are the ones who push the BPs of the world to take risk and the governments of the world to look the other way. The hypocrisy of folks like you makes me physically sick.
Pemex and PDVSA are so much more methodical and considerate of the environment! That's why house boating on lake Maracaibo is considered a must when visiting Hugo.
"The hypocrisy of folks like you makes me physically sick."
Not sure if I feel as strongly as you, but there is something to be said regarding the effortless sanctimony that is typed on keyboards and sent through computers that are made of oil.
+1
@Rusty_Shakleford
Please read my response to economicmorphine (I didn't junk him or trav7777). Where's is the sanctimony in punishing offenders? Do you not want thieves and murders arrested, tried and jailed? Do you not want Chinese imports that contain lead kept off of America's shelves? Would you not punish negligence. I have not problem with the search for and production of hydrocarbons. Proudly worked at Exxon for over 7 years. BP claims that it is a responsible oil company. If you promise to do a job and you screw it up, you can't later say, "Uh, it's really eveybody's fault who buys our products." That would be the real hyprocrisy.
+infinity and fuck everyone who junked you
There's no fucking oil anywhere else to go get. It's this or face the types of production cliffs that Cantarell had
@economicmorphine
You show me the hypocrisy and I'll gladly watch you throw up. I worked over 7 years at Exxon. Post-Valdez, Exxon implemented the Operations Integrity Management System (OIMS); this was not a public relations scheme; it was a systemic management reponse to ensuring that Exxon maintained an organizational focus on moving hydrocarbons safely and environmentally sound. Since Valdez, have you heard of any significant problems that Exxon? What about Chevron? What about Shell?
You and some others who responded below my OP seem to lump the major integrated oil companies into one group. BP's safety and environmental record over the last 10 years has been abysmal. Google "Alyeska". Google "Texas City BP refinery". However, when a company proves that they cannot be trusted, and in this case BP has proven repeatedly that it cannot, there is room for government intervention. There is no hypocrisy in that view. The real hyprocrisy is turning a blind eye to a negligent operator. The even greater hypocrisy is supporting a company whose public relations push was to change it's color scheme to green, market itself as "beyond petroleum" and, yet, it is the antithesis of a "green" company.
Aside from the oil volcano BP is profitable, so then why nationalize? Just make sure every dollar they make is deposited in the clean up/Gulf economic devastation fund. If they say no, then confiscate their US holdings and auction them off.
BP's loss has already been nationalized.
I thought JPM was under investigation!
i want to be a lawyer in my next life, thats where the coin is.
I want a law degree in this life. Criminal defense, as the gov't puts too many people away for petty annoyances. In my next life, I want to be a cat. :-)
Imprisoning wild animals in the home (fka 'pets') will by then have long-since been outlawed
and thats why he wants to be a cat in his "next" life, he'll be free.
heh! - he'll also be a quick snack
+1,000! (Good choice... nine lives comes in handy at times!:)
Good Postal. Why wait?
If any of this were on the up-and-up (that is, anything other than a scam, sham and flimflam), the coin should be in forensic economics and forensic accounting....
"Also, is it about that time for someone to ask a few questions of BP former Chairman Peter Denis Sutherland (until January 2010), who just happens to be a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs, which incidentally sold just under 5 million shares, or nearly 40% of their BP stake, in the quarter ended March 31?"
Shush up Tyler. You're not supposed to dig too deep here. Just stay transfixed on the BP Internet feed of the magic machines attempting to apply the latest experimental Trojan condom on the gusher.
This weekend I actually overheard a woman telling her friend that she found those pictures strangely arousing. Please, just shoot me now. I'm sure those pelicans, fish, crabs, whales and other assorted soon-to-be-dead sea life are all swimming around with a huge boner over this entire affair.
This market is reacting to the MSM's refusal to ask questions...
Looks like the organized crime syndicate that is our 'economy' is circling the wagons...
"Also, is it about that time for someone to ask a few questions of BP former Chairman Peter Denis Sutherland (until January 2010), who just happens to be a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs, which incidentally sold just under 5 million shares, or nearly 40% of their BP stake, in the quarter ended March 31?"
How...fortuitous of the BP former Chair to sell 5m shares, just at the best time.
reminds me of the mystery bet against the airlines one day prior to 9-11
Yes, since BP knew that they were in trouble with this oil well in mid-March..
For all those "advanced cavemen" who buy into the idea that we all evolved and believe in the survival of the fittest, you should be excited at seeing your scientific theories in action here.
The world will go on greenies - trust me.
I think we need a harder captcha...
So your brilliance says this is the end of the world then eh?
Short BP then - take the other side of my trade. You will make a killing on helping to kill the evil oil guys......
greenie
the liberals did not want to hang Suddam even though he lit and entire country on fire...but they are crucifying anyone and everyone at BP
No sweat. Who cares that the various plankton supply only about 50 to 70% of the planet's oxygen. Thats enough to get me HOT.
Sorry CD, I will not shoot you now. We need you too much. Besides, BP has given up.
In the meantime, George Washington announced on his blog that he has quit writing for now and he was a good source for this blog on the spill.
yeah yeah, maybe the fish should stay out of the shit.
Im on the Buy bandwagon for BP shares, look at the dividend FFS.
She probably attended one too many mud wrestling matches.....
given Obama made it clear in his press conference last week that the GOVERNMENT has been IN CHARGE since the day of the spill...lol.
Holder will spend years deciding where to try the case...
Is there a statute of limitations on these types of cases?
Great catch.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Just like the investigations into Wall Street fraud!!!!
HAHAHAHA........
Perhaps the Attorney General could add an additional investigation:
Curious Trading by Federal Reserve Advisor May Result in JPMorgan Chase $1.264 Billion Windfall
http://english.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/curious-trading-by-federal-reserve.html
that's good soap man...definitely ZH material on the old school tip.
This administration is just a careening clown car....Personally, I have done so much for so long, I can now do anything with nothing.
If you didn't like Bush your going to hate Obama.
+1,000
Witch cnbc junkees bought BP the day after the oil volcano exploded?
Cute freudian slip there with Witch...
Obama is hitting this problem with the only tool necessary to fix any problem in his universe - lawyers.
Whether or not BP is at fault in any or many ways, that shit can wait until after this problem is under control. Obama should have sent the AG down to New Orleans on day one to put the heat on BP and keep them motivated but right now Obama should be offering up (or forcing) any and every federal resource and capability and then some. I'm pretty sure he's not doing that. This is not what the people who are going to suffer the the most from this spill are going to want to hear about right now. The want the problem fixed right now.
What a lame, pansy-ass, lack of leadership.
BingFuckinGo
That's it inna nutshell.
There is no leadership....only Traitors.
Rattner, that pension fund chooch!!! BP is going down hard, but something tells me the big hedgies are loading up here for a Big Pop before the major drop. Hey, that rhymes!
I'd rather short squeeze the Squirrel's nuts, first.
(squinting, making pained-face look) Oooooo.
Score one for the Obama team and his Socialist cronies. Obama & team are laughing their asses off. They are going to milk this one until all of us are paying out the ass for cap & trade. Better learn how to calculate your CO2 folks.
Go short bean soup manu.
When the Feds maintain they've been there 'since Day One', are they saying that they were there when the well blew?
BTW, Goldman owns the company who makes the dispersant being used. NALCO.
wow, not just them but blackstone bought it in 2003
http://www.nalco.com/aboutnalco/history.htm
looks like they did a reverse LBO in 2004.
curious to know how many shares they still own...
Not sure, but check out bayou child's expose' for more info: http://bayouchild.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/bombshell-expose-the-real-reason-the-oil-still-flows-into-the-gulf-of-mexico/
One of the articles he links: Buffett bought 8.5 million shares back in '09: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3095068
paging Mr. Dylan, juicy tidbits on aisle 2.
thanx BC, here's my beef with the expose : why is it more profitable for BP to let continue to spill? profitable for NALCO, yes, but where's the connection between BP & NALCO? jumping to conclusions makes for good tinfoil but we need to fully connect the dots if we wanna follow the yellow brick road, yes?
something certainly smells fishy tho.
absolutely. Their is definitely a series of odd coincidences but BP is losing a lot of money right now so I have a hard time buying into any conspiracy, but it's interesting that they got that one right too.
So Obummer doesn't do shit for, what, 41 days and now this is his solution?! Methinks he is 40 days too late with this action. The economic and environmental damage has long surpassed anything that a few measely fines will resolve.
9000 Days And A Dying Economy (May 31, 2010 - The Automatic Earth)
So what should both the US and UK governments have done 40 days and change ago? It's simple, really. They should have immediately declared everything they could an emergency zone, situation, whatever, anything in their power. In the US, Homeland Security would have been the number 1 agency to turn to. But they’re probably too occupied with Arab Americans tying their shoelaces in airports.
---
The argument that the White House didn’t and doesn’t have the expertise to intervene in issues such as Deepwater Horizon is ludicrous. If Obama would have, as he should have, declared it a national emergency on April 20, all the best resources, the best people, the best material, on the whole wide planet, would have been available right from the get-go, not just the resources of BP, which has always had a vested interest into downplaying every single aspect of this boondoggle. Unfortunately for every party involved, with the possible exception of BP, governments consciously and deliberately choose and chose to be asleep on both sides on the Atlantic.
---
Could the president have prevented the calamity? Probably not. But that's not the point. The point is he never really tried. He, intentionally or accidentally, misread the situation to a huge degree, one that he can never have back, no matter what his spin team comes up with. The economics behind the karbunkle will tell the tale.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/05/may-31-2010-9000-days-and-...
+100,000
And NOAH attempted to do a research dive to determine a more precise amount of oil leakage, but BP forbade them to do so.
Oh, you mean NOAA. LOL. I think I'm severly OCD where I'll will read things several times until they make sense.
Here's a nice little muckracking bio of Sutherland from 2007:
But that article actually misses the full highlights of Sutherland's (un)involvement with corrupt and periodically insolvent Irish bank Allied Irish Bank[s]. (No, not Anglo Irish Bank, that's a different ... Yes, that Allied Irish, this week's bronze-medal Euribor dog.) In 1991, while AIB was running a tax-evasion scam for a good proportion of its retail customers, Sutherland was involved with the departure of the bank's internal whistleblower. (Apparently for unrelated reasons.) In addition, FitzGerald was the man who, just a few years earlier, had as Taoiseach (ie. prime minister) authorised the then-most-recent panic bailout of AIB. (See Shane Ross' The Bankers and the linkdump.)
"by former US Secretary of State James Baker didn't pull any punches."
i smell smoking tin
Quick as SHIT on the draw against BP.
Against financial firms? Gets shot 10/10 by a 3-toed sloth.
I really hate to break to you people but this indictment of BP is a complete joke. In most countries you send in your top troubleshooters to fix a problem here in America we have this crazy belief that we can "litigate" a solution. In all honesty who cares if the government indicts BP if the government can't even go out to spill sight and cleanup the mess in the gulf. The most important thing here isn't winning some court case against BP it's stopping the oil leak!
America is such a joke. In any other country the executives in question would be arrested and the cleanup would begin in earnest. Here in America we somehow think suing these people in court will somehow help the cleanup! Even here in the US there is no reason Obama couldn't have sent an FBI HRT team to arrest the executives at BP from the very begining of this mess!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_Rescue_Team
The key issue here is that BP may not be qualified to run the cleanup effort we need the federal government to bring in the best people from the Navy,the Army Corp of engineers and the private sector and figure out how to get this done in a week.
BP has had its chance and the people of this country are insane if they're going let BP poison the gulf until August. We need real leadership to take control of the situation and do whatever it takes to get this leak contained. US Military/Research and private sector assets need to be committed.
If there are no rigs available to drill another hole then there is no good reason Obama can't simply exercise whatever authority he needs to get another out there ASAP instead of two months later. Honestly its hard to imagine that are collective leadership in the United States is so stupid that they believe filing a few legal motions will have any substantive affect on this whole situation. Its nothing more than a game or sideshow, if Obama or Holder wanted to those BP guys could be in jail right now. Of course that would mean the someone outside of BP would own the mess and God forbid that the man in the Whitehouse actually assume responsibility for this whole mess.
Interesting to read all the new responses, thanks for all the current news and updates. Hope to read more very soon.
moulin farine