Does 'B' in BP stand for 'Bankrupt?' Not yet - but let's wait and see
I'm not one for wacko conspiracy theories. But I think it's entirely possible, for example, that Kenneth Lay of Enron faked his own death. Come on: If you knew that all the lawsuits against you would be thrown out of court the moment you kicked the bucket, how hard would it be to take just a little bit of that stock money you ripped off from investors, then pay off a coroner to find your "corpse" and ... oh, well, never mind.
When you think about how non-feasible that scenario is, I can think of an even better one: Once upon a time, a company named Enron convinced us -- including the half-asleep media watchdogs -- that the rolling power blackouts in California were the result of real electricity shortages. We now know that's not the case. But when it comes to a new major energy story and another power giant, why are we so damn quick to believe the industry line yet again?
This time the company is BP, and the scenario is the biggest oil spill in, oh, the History of Planet Earth. Which ain't even plugged up yet, despite all the petrochemical equivalents of chewing gum and thumbs in the dike to fix it. "There's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole in the bottom of the sea..."
While you sing along, so sing the so-called "experts" in a chorus of shaking heads. And they're lining up to say, in between bites of caviar and key lime pie with their Wall Street buddies, that the notion of BP possibly going bankrupt over this is preposterous ... ridiculous ... not feasible. They have billions of billions of dollars, you know. Oh, those proles in the working class think so small. And didn't Jon Pack, a BP spokesman in Houston, tell Reuters that the company has not been in discussion with anyone regarding bankruptcy? It's only $1.4 billion in costs so far, and BP has hundreds of billions to play with.
Really? To those reading this who think, "Oh, well, l guess BP will get away with it and live to profit another day," I say this:
Don't believe it. Not. One. Word. Let me explain why.
