John_Browning wrote:
Inventor wrote:
This will last a generation or more, and a fund should be established, and BP should put up several hundred billion now.
As total damages exceed market cap, all of the corporate assets should be transfered to the fund, and the stock become worthless.
This is what would happen to me, any other company, when liabilities exceed assets.
In 5 years it will be almost forgotten. Also be careful about being so zealous about penalizing BP that it causes repercussions to the rest of the economy. If you suddenly make blue chip stocks worthless, that crashes the DJIA and causes panic selling.
To Big To Fail? One oil company going under as the result of their behavior, would be a lesson for the rest. They are The Lehman Brothers in this story, caught taking risks that killed them.
It will be longer than five years for fisheries and tourism to recover, a lot of small holders are going to be foreclosed, lose everything. That will ripple through our Gulf Economy, drag down all other business, and tax collections. Our local banks hold the mortgage, and banking has been on thin ice.
This is the heart of the spawning grounds for the oceans, and for the Mississippi Flyway. The base of the food chain is the shrimp and what they feed on, they need the brakish water of the marshes and shallow lakes, bayous. and that is where the oil is going.
We take 3.5 billion pounds from the life chain, have had to limit catch, close a few fisheries, Redfish, to keep the numbers supportable. The oil will breakdown, stocks will recover, but not for decades.
Shrimp boats, charter boats, and the hotels, can not wait for decades. In today's news, beach tourists in western Florida are coming out of the water coated in oil they could not see, and are being solvent washed. They are leaving oil soaked trails where they walk from the beach back to the hotels.
Oil floats and is being left behind at high tide, to sink in to the white sand. We will have hurricanes, it will push the oil farther in, coating all surfaces where life grows.
Our economy was based on fishing, beach tourism, and oil. That is the human life chain.
BP does nothing, they sub contract exploring, drilling, and what they own is developed and capped wells, proven reserves. The quality of the assets will not change, just what used to be owned by BP Stockholders will be owned by other people.
The Stockholders voted for Directors who self insured and bet everything, they lost.
There is no way to "Make Whole," the fisheries, tourism, and the economy it supported.
BP stock is not falling as fast as the price of a shrimp boat, or a waterfront hotel. Millions of people are going to lose everything, including their future. In our coastal areas almost all income is from fishing.
This is a lot worse than a house in Las Vegas dropping by half. They had other jobs, or could move to another city. Fishing boats are worth nothing when there is no fishing, and the docks, processing plants, freezers, trucks, and the people have been fishing for generations. It supported all local services, schools, local government, and it just ended.
The human damage exceeds BPs net worth, then they are the fines, and the cost of cleanup, thousands of square miles of marsh, and all of the beaches.
Then there is the damage to life that will take decades to recover, and it will not come back as the same mix. If the shrimp do not spawn, there will be few fish, and other species will move in. Stinging jellyfish eat the same things.
Just from the damage so far, our way of life is over. The full extent of the damage will not be known for a generation. If BP survives, the US Government will not.