Friday, August 24, 2012

Obama does a Putin with BP!

...and arm-twists BP with open threats – is this ethical, if not illegal?

In a sequence of events reminding one more of the mafiosi-like Putin administration, Obama and his White House staff – with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel leading from the front – first hounded BP officials (read a detailed story on BP in our strategy section in this issue), then threatened them, and finally arm-twisted them to set up an escrow account of $20 billion for providing relief to the claims arising out of the BP oil spill.

There are many reasons why this particular case of money jostled out by Obama from BP is unethical and even illegal – despite the general public viewpoint – and one believes done purely for playing to the galleries for benefit at the hustings. Firstly, in the capitalist setup that the United States operates in, it is the insurance company (Jupiter Insurance Inc. in this case) that covers the spill that needs to be steamrolled by Obama and not BP. It doesn’t matter that Jupiter Insurance is more or less owned by BP; equity ownership always comes with zero additional liability – that is, BP cannot be legally asked to pay a penny more than its investment in Jupiter Insurance.