US lawyers are drooling over the prospect of what one of them called "the largest tort we've had in this country". Some financial analysts are predicting the death of BP, as the fines and compensation it will have to pay outweigh its earnings. I don't believe a word of it.
ExxonMobil was initially fined $5bn for the Exxon Valdez disaster, in 1989. But its record-breaking profits allowed it to pay record-breaking legal fees: after 19 years of argument it got the fine reduced to $507m. That's equivalent to the profit it made every 10 days last year. Yesterday, after 25 years of deliberations, an Indian court triumphantly convicted Union Carbide India Ltd of causing death by negligence through the Bhopal catastrophe. There was just one catch: Union Carbide India Ltd ceased to exist many years ago. It wound itself up to avoid this outcome, and its liabilities vanished in a puff of poisoned gas.
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Oil Firms' Profits Ignore the Real Costs
by George Monbiot from the Guardian. In spite of Obama's dramatic theatrical performance--cursing out BP--you can be sure that BP will continue on its merry, profitable way.