What do about the oil spill? Or more to the point, since apparently nothing can be done about the oil spill, what to do about BP?The position of the Cocktail Party is that BP, as a company, is finished. This is not the first time they have been caught violating maintenance safety regulations in the interest of more profit, but it should definitely be the last. Now their bankroll has a lot of bills to pay—not just the clean-up operations, which will take years, or damages due to the families of the men killed on the oil rig, but damages, unemployment benefits, relocation, job training and job placement services for all those folks who can no longer make a living in fishing and tourist industries along the Gulf Coast. And when they get done with that, they can support conservation efforts to re-establish the marine and marshland species that are probably going to be driven extinct.
However, the people now in charge of BP should probably not be trusted to oversee these projects. Some responsible non-profit needs to take over the administration of the funds, while those guys do some jail time and then start over with entry-level jobs in retail.
