THE WRITING ON THE WALL

From the New York Times courtesy of Hullabaloo:

Imagining the Worst in BP’s Future

The idea that BP might one day file for bankruptcy, particularly as part of a merger that would enable it to cordon off its liabilities from the spill, is starting to percolate on Wall Street. Bankers and lawyers are already sizing up potential deals (and counting their potential fees).

And

And already, flinty legal minds are dreaming up scenarios in which BP would file a prepackaged bankruptcy and separate the costs of the cleanup — and potentially billions of dollars in legal claims — into a separate corporate entity.

More here.

Yes, well, I wrote this back on May 2nd:

There's just no way American taxpayers can avoid taking a major hit on this. I'm sure that BP lawyers are already discussing ways to reorganize under bankruptcy laws that will allow them to avoid the lion's share of costs, just as Union Carbide did with the Bhopal disaster back in the 1980s.

That is, early on, the scale of the disaster, the sheer size of it, was such that such an outcome seemed, and still seems, all but inevitable.

Indeed, all the weird BP maneuverings, all the bizarre statements and lies, like their extraordinarily low estimates of leakage, or this latest denial of the existence of underwater oil plumes, all the secrecy, the taking control of Louisiana beach areas and denying access to reporters, the refusal of ventilator masks to fishermen hired as cleanup personnel, in spite of numerous reports of illness, which BP attributes to food poisoning, and on and on, all this stuff makes complete sense if you're looking at an organization preparing itself for a massive court battle. What did they know, and when did they know it? This is all about positioning the company in terms of liability.

Bankruptcy is just another tool to use in a legal fight, and quite an effective one, at that, if history is any indicator.

Like I keep saying, corporations are legally bound to do nothing but maximize their shareholders' profits. This is the sole motivation of the corporation, no matter what the circumstance. Every statement BP makes, every action they undertake, can only be understood in these terms. There is no altruism, no morality, no ethics. There is only profit, or, in this case, avoidance of loss. BP has been fighting these lawsuits from day one; it's just that nobody but them appears to realize it. And I think there's every reason to believe that they will have done well in court once it's all over but the crying.

We're going to pay for the vast majority of this, not BP. As the FOX people keep saying, this may very well end up being Obama's Katrina, the Democratic wunderkind's grand failure. But then, what's the alternative? Another Republican? More drilling with less regulation and oversight? Give me a break. If anything, this ongoing disaster proves beyond any doubt that corporate power literally runs this country: neither the Democrats nor the Republicans appear to have the ability or willingness to do anything.

This really is depressing.

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