Hayward, the good looking BP CEO, failed absolutely. I think the accident that caused the death of eleven BP workers in the Gulf was avoidable, as BP is known for its lax occupational safety. The interminable bungling and technical incapability demonstrated is bad, but the CEO's testimony in the Congress was a total disaster. "I dont know" - something a CEO should never say - was repeated 66 times (!), convincing me that BP was led by an idiot.
In his testimony yesterday, Hayward not only failed to convince lawmakers he was committed to making BP safer, he may have deepened suspicion of the company by repeatedly pleading ignorance to events that took place under his command. Mr. Hayward’s comments today, saying ‘I don’t know’ 66 times, evaporated any feeling of responsibility,” Eventoff said. “Any goodwill that the company bought back yesterday eroded today with his testimony.”BP had lost half of its worth and thousands of Britain's small investors and retirees have been hurt.
10 comments:
"I dont know" - something a CEO should never say -
What should he say if he doesn't know the answer to something?
"Please accept my resignation."
Does this mean that a CEO is supposed to be like God - all knowing? The slimy Congressmen were trying to trip him up, reading from obscure emails, etc. How can a man who is the head of an organization with tens of thousands of employees know everything that transpires in that organization?
You have to understand that US congressional hearings are political circuses - they accomplish nothing except making the Congressmen look good on TV (at least in their own minds - to me they usually come off looking like pompous blowhards).
In retrospect many mistakes were made but at the time the people involved all had faith that the blowout preventer (which itself had several levels of redundancy) would fulfill its function and, duh, prevent blowouts. Ultimately this whole tzimmis comes down to the failure of the blowout preventer, for which Hayward is in no way responsible.
K
BP had lost half of its worth and thousands of Britain's small investors and retirees have been hurt.
Is it time to blame the Jews?
J, as a water-fundi, could you explain to us novitiates why it is not economic to scoop the polluted water and separate then capture the large amounts of oil?
Anon.
As Alfin explains what BP attempted to do was new and untried as no one had the experience of working at that depth and conditions. Dr Chu or Tom Covey were not going to do any better and certainly not B Hussein who in the one project he was involved in, managed to spend millions of Annenberg money with nothing to show for it. The Americans are malicious bullshitters when it comes to gouging corporations, I remember the hue and cry when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. Marine life was never going to recover. All the fisher folks, and the Inuits including Sarah Palin's husband were going to be wiped out. And the damned oiled birds that keep showing on TV with the teary-eyed teenage girls. It was an excercise in media manipulation that would have made Goebbels proud. 5 billion dollars and a few years later, the fishing grounds were richer than ever; possibly due to the fact that the young of the marine life were allowed to grow to maturity without the fishermen's depredations during the years of pollution. One saw the same thing when Saddam Hussein released crude from Basra into the Persian Gulf. The world was going to end, no more fish for the Gulf Arabs. Then the heart tugging mascot was the manatee, an animal too stupid to live.
But perhaps BP (Beyond Petroleum)deserved the tarring, seeing that they were among the most avid of global warming scammers. At this stage Obama is reprising Stalin, purging all the true believers in the various leftist cults.
Mr Hayward is not only an idiot, but also a lazy idiot. He was found spending the weekend enjoying in his yacht. Those times when the CEO spent weekends yachting and golfing have passed.
The Americans are malicious bullshitters when it comes to gouging corporations,
Ivan, in the modern world the most effective weapon is highly emotional whining, not nukes. Think of the Palestinians who miss their olive groves, the Blacks who are forever being oppressed...you get the idea.
Highly emotional whining after the Exxon Valdez disaster was effective enough to get a few billion thrown at the problem. On the other hand, the leader of North Korea is on track to liquidate half of his subjects in his quest to acquire nuclear weapons and accurate rockets and the amount of money thrown at the problem in the form of foreign aid is about the same or possibly even less.
So let's review. An oil spill in the middle of nowhere that threatens no crops and no major metro areas is dealt with through the liberal application of money because of the successful campaign of on-screen whining. OTOH, millions die offscreen and the world shrugs.
Let me give you another example of HEW: The American Rust Belt. I assume that the average age of the commenters here is around fifty. What fifty year old on this board has not heard his entire adult life that the RB is dying, along with highly emotional pleas that this needs to stop?
But why is the RB dying? Or more specifically, why is Michigan dying? In order to find out, let us compare Michigan to Arizona. Stupidly, Arizona has a state income tax like MI, but Michigan's is usually higher. MI also has what is known as the "Single Business Tax" in which the value of a businesses output is taxed every time it passes between companies, AZ on the other hand does not. On top of that the city of Detroit has a city income tax! Where would you rather build your next plant? Even if we cutoff all imports the jobs aren't "coming home" to the RB. Any jobs created by protectionism will either be in the government or in the Sunbelt.
The reason we are subjected to this for decades on end is that those states vote Democratic, and that the media always has an open door for stories from liberal groups (like unions) that will help them promote the meme that Republicans are causing innocents to suffer.
Another good example of the usefulness of HEW is Arizona's illegal immigration problem. Supposedly the human flood across our southern border is because of the feds unwillingness to fence our border. In reality the amount AZ spends on welfare is so great that we if we diverted the money to fence building we could spend around $6.5m per mile to fence our 400mi border with Mexico. On top of that we spend an amazing amount of welfare money subsidizing the lives of these people once they set up shop here. And some of this river of gold intended to be used to "help the poor" is diverted to fund leftist organizations.
Normally when I think of canning welfare I think that doing so will lower wages, since those thrown off of welfare will be forced back into the job market, thus increasing supply. But since a large minority of AZ's Hispanics are dependent on welfare while still working they will leave the state when the money dries up. Thus cutting welfare might possibly *raise* wages. And since these Mexicans will have to leave the state their apartments will go empty, lowering average rents.
Going further, I suspect that my employer's largest locally owned competitor will go under without welfare, benefiting me.
Mark,
Guilt-tripping the gringos,(whose ancestors behaved no differently than that of any other race and in many cases far better than the others) has been a paying proposition for the leftists for a long time now. I dislike it because it is fundamentally unfair.
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