Hard to imagine on the day when you set aside $20 billion to pay claims, but this is an instant classic of bad PR: “We care about the small people.”
Hard to imagine on the day when you set aside $20 billion to pay claims, but this is an instant classic of bad PR: “We care about the small people.”
wfjag says:
Comparable to Leona Helmsley? Really?
BP has agreed to pay $20 Billion into an escrow fund that will be administered by Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw payments to families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and is currently President Obama’s “Pay Czar” who sets salary/bonus caps for the executives of companies getting aid from a $700 billion government bailout fund. BP has stated that the $75 Million cap does not apply to the Gulf oil spill damages claims. Additionally, BP is establishing a separate $100 Million fund to pay the salaries of off-shore oil industry workers idled by the President’s 6-month moratorium.
This comes after BP has already set up a claims adjusting operation, having hired approximately 577 adjusters, and paid nearly 50,000 claims amounts totalling some $30 Million.
BP appears to be going well beyond its legal obligations, or, at least, isn’t going to litigate each and every point.
I’m no fan of BP or its negligence in this case. Still, it hardly seems fair (or accurate) to compare BP to the late Ms. Helmsley. I realize that BP is suspending dividends, and a lot of retired people were depending on those payments. However, unlike the US government, BP cannot simply print more money. Accordingly, it might be fairer to look at those who demanded that BP set up these funds when deciding who to criticize for the effects of demanding that BP immediately establish and fund them.
DC: My post is limited to the PR of such a statement, not the substance of what BP has done. In the context of what has happened, the use of the phrase is actually worse PR than Helmsley’s about “the little people.”
June 16, 2010, 3:59 pmAaron says:
Yes, completely comparable to Leona Helmsley. The only thing she did wrong was tell the truth in an inartful manner. There are so many loopholes and tax-dodging devices that “only the little people pay taxes” is effectively true.
June 16, 2010, 4:08 pmSteve P. says:
BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg:
Leona Helmsley:
June 16, 2010, 4:09 pmS says:
‘We care about the small people?’ One would think that English is not their first language.
June 16, 2010, 4:33 pmgeokstr says:
That was the chairman who said that, and it was pretty obvious that English was not his first language. German, maybe?
It was also obvious, to me at least, that he didn’t mean it in the way Helsmley meant it.
June 16, 2010, 4:45 pmM. Gross says:
Meanwhile, down at the clean-up effort…
Last week, Plaquemines Parish President, Billy Nungesser testified in front of congress that local fishermen south of Venice, LA had to stop cleanup workers that were trampling Pelican nests, and throwing their eggs at each other, “as if it was a joke.”
June 16, 2010, 4:51 pmBen P says:
With a name like Svanberg I would suspect Norwegian or Swedish, but yeah, that sounds like an off the cuff mistranslation of an idiom. But even if he said “little people” it would still be awkward.
June 16, 2010, 4:58 pmS says:
In that case, I think we should give him a pass (for the statement)
June 16, 2010, 5:01 pmRPT says:
The $20B escrow looks like a super-attachment immediately liquid; an excellent deal to me. Exxon delayed a similar result 20 years. It is people like Haley (“send me some more $$”)Barbour & Monica Bachman are unhappy because the money s going to the “little people”.
June 16, 2010, 5:03 pmathEIst says:
I think we can trust wikipedia. Swedish
June 16, 2010, 5:16 pmhttp://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-yga&p=carl-henric%20svanberg%20wiki&type=
bailey says:
Has the leak been sealed yet? That escrow promise doesn’t mean a whole lot if the leak is still spewing oil. Although, of course, a 20 billion slush fund in the hands of Obama to funnel cash to political supporters does have a nice ring to it.
June 16, 2010, 5:35 pmRPT says:
And your suggestions to fix the leak are what? Call the Dutch? Let BP give away the money in prima facie fraudulent transfers? Partisanship over all else, after 8 years of slush well beyond the $20B mark.
June 16, 2010, 5:43 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
I suppose somebody should point out that in an egalitarian society there are no ‘small’ or ‘little’ people. Except, of course, for those who can’t afford the cover charge.
June 16, 2010, 6:28 pmSecond history says:
However, unlike the US government, BP cannot simply print more money.
The global oil industry can virtually print money by restricting supply of a product that can be described as absolutely necessary for survival. Sort of like a drug dealer restricting supplies to an addict. They will pay anything for their fix.
June 16, 2010, 6:57 pmAnti Federal Interventionist says:
BP caved. I would prefer they walk away from Deep Horizon and let His Highness try to fix it without the oil industry.
June 16, 2010, 6:58 pmSarcastro says:
Indeed. Who cares about responsibilities to shareholders or to the world in general? All that is important is to hurt Obama politically.
Priorities people!
June 16, 2010, 7:40 pmAnti Federal Interventionist says:
The extortion of BP conducted by the Chicago mafia running the White House is destroying shareholder value. Who do you think receives the now-suspended dividends? Individual stockholders, pension funds, and other retirement plans, that’s who. Certainly they would have benefited from the $20 billion earned by BP but now going down some government rathole where those with political connections will get the benefits, not shareholders. BP’s first responsibility is to shareholders, not some holdup artist in the White House. The $20 billion is a thinly disguised downpayment on the 2012 campaign.
June 16, 2010, 7:47 pmgeokstr says:
Of course not, we should never give the Dutch a waiver of the Jones Act, a 100 year old piece of protectionism that our union buds love. After all, we could never have bought control of all three branches without their $400 million in 2008, and they have a lot of backs we need to scratch now in return. Let’s just let the oil pile up everywhere. Might become a big enough crisis not to let go to waste for passing a cap-n-tax bill which will do nothing to prevent AGW (if it even exists, ha-ha) but Algore, Goldman Sachs and CBS could always use a few hundred billion extra. Geez, if we play this right, we can kill all oil production in the US in just the next few months, then take over the entire energy sector when the economy collapses and blame it all on the greedy oil companies and Sarah Palin.
After all, if we had taken up the Dutch offer when they made it three days after the explosion, all they really could have done for us anyway is provide enough ships with proven technology for removing 80,000 tons of oil and sludge every day. Pshaw! That’s only 5,000,000 tons that we now have to pick up in one-ounce balls at a time off a couple thousand miles of pristine beaches. What the hell – all the felons that ACORN laid off have nothing to do for a couple months anyway, until the SEIU can hire them to overwhelm the registrars’ offices again.
Yeah, the hell with the Dutch. Who are they to interfere with our power grabs, anyway?
Gosh, that was a great shot. Have one of my Secret Service Agents hand me my 9-iron, will you?
June 16, 2010, 8:02 pmRPT says:
Typical libertarian advocate of “personal responsibility”; screw things up and run away. Are you a plant?
June 16, 2010, 8:23 pmRPT says:
Total disconnection from reality: the problem was caused by Obama! Call for another taxpayer bailout. Why don’t the ahareholders go after the responsible parties?
June 16, 2010, 8:26 pmRPT says:
First, we did accept the Dutch offers of help. Second, how is it that the Dutch would have stopped the leak? Please be specific.
June 16, 2010, 8:27 pmAnthony says:
Many of whom are not suffering any other harm as a result of the spill; if I decide to trash my neighbors yard, should I be free of liability for doing it, just because I created a company to do the trashing for me? In any case, if you invest in something, you’re taking a risk that your investment will lose value due to, for example, the company you invest in screwing up on a massive scale and opening itself up to enormous liability claims. As such, investors should (but of course, might not have) priced the risk of an accident like this into what they were willing to pay for BP shares.
June 16, 2010, 8:29 pmPerseus says:
Perhaps not “small” or “little,” but certainly common. Then again, Tocqueville observed that in democratic societies “men are all very small.”
June 16, 2010, 9:08 pmFedya says:
Why is it acceptable to use the word “big” in a way that’s clearly intended to have negative connotations (think “Big Tobacco” or “Big Oil”), but when somebody uses small in a way that’s clearly not intended to have negative connotations, it’s so horrid?
June 16, 2010, 9:08 pmChrisTS says:
Apart from the Dutch, could someone explain to me how having lots of [well-intentioned] folks from all over sail into the Gulf and try to help actually help?
June 16, 2010, 9:24 pmDuracomm says:
Morning Bell: How the White House is Making Oil Recovery Harder
June 16, 2010, 10:14 pmSarcastro says:
PROOF!
June 16, 2010, 10:30 pmDuracomm says:
Sarcastro,
The Dutch are well known for having a highly sophisticated and competent marine services sector.
Do you believe the Dutch engineering, maritime expertise, and sophisticated seaborne equipment would not help with the oil spill cleanup?
Could you provide a cite to support your belief that Dutch expertise and equipment would not help clean the oil slick?
June 16, 2010, 10:50 pmgeokstr says:
Yes we did, 60 days after they made their offer, which they made through formal diplomatic channels, so there’s no doubt that the Obama administration knew about their offer all this time. That’s the 5 million tons that could have already been removed, mitigating to a large extent the magnitude of this leak.
Obama should get a pass because he couldn’t personally stick his finger in the dike, when he could have easily and quickly done something that would have lessened a lot of the damage, but didn’t? Please be specific, and show your work, and don’t forget to factor in that the Dutch weren’t even going to charge us for the use of the ships.
And I’ve mentioned this before, if this and the past several administrations hadn’t been in thrall to nutjob environmental leftist whackos and NIMBY libs, we’d be drilling on land in the Western and Northern Plains states, in close on the continental shelves of the entire frackin’ coastline, and in Anwar, all of which could be done with proven technology and far more cheaply. And leaks in those areas would be infinitely easier to cap and clean up. Instead we’re so far down in deep water that James Mason and the Nautilus wouldn’t have been able to stop the leak.
So while Obama gets a lot of the immediate blame for how bad this is turning out to be, the really big credit goes to all the green freaks under your tent.
And we haven’t even talked about the Maine boom and the berms Jindal begged for permission to build, et al, and were denied or ignored. If I was a cynical guy, I’d almost think some people wanted this to get really bad for political purposes, like passing more pet legislation.
June 16, 2010, 10:56 pmgeokstr says:
Please. I don’t know if I ever remember Sarcastro listing a cite or a site. His thing is pure ridicule of anyone to the right of Karl M.
To again quote Reese in Terminator:
June 16, 2010, 11:04 pmSarcastro says:
Duracomm is right. The Dutch are the magic bullet! We should just assume they will solve the oil problem cause that way we get to yell at Obama for not solving it.
Just like we got to yell at Bush for not preventing 9-11!
June 16, 2010, 11:25 pmPeter Shalen says:
In South Pacific, Emile de Becque refers to Nellie Forbush’s native city as “Small Rock.” (He also says “A hick is one who lives in a stick.”)
June 17, 2010, 12:02 amrpt says:
“But they made me drill so deep in an unsafe manner cutting all possible corners without a plan to remediate any mistakes”. Boohoo. It’s all Obama’s fault; and Charles Manson had a tough childhood. Get on the personal responsibility bandwagon, Geo; they broke it and they bought it. We’re not interested in your bailout proposal.
June 17, 2010, 1:51 amrpt says:
Karl M. Rove?
June 17, 2010, 1:52 amBen P says:
I like how the arc of this thread has gone from “the government should stop meddling and just let the industry take care of it” to “Obama should have rushed to invite foreign governments to help out!”
June 17, 2010, 8:24 amBen P says:
Also, trying to avoid going JBG, but with some actual facts.
Deep Water Horizon Response
Also regarding the rather silly claim that Environmentalists are somehow the cause of Deepwater drilling.
the MMS in 2004
The MMS in 2008
The New York Times in 2009
USA today in 2008
[link=http://www.cfr.org/publication/22204/us_deepwater_drillings_future.html#p3] in 2009 the CFR noted [/link]
June 17, 2010, 8:47 amwfjag says:
Professor:
If style and phrasing are of interest, then, rather than focusing on a phrase by someone for whom (it appears) English is not his first language, and, instead, focus on articles like this one:
Language guru: Obama speech too ‘professorial’ for his target audience, CNN Wire Staff (June 17, 2010)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/16/obama.speech.analysis/index.html?hpt=C1
The President, after all, is a native speaker of English. Further, according to some, he is a great orator. Moreover, what he says (or doesn’t say) and thinks are a great deal more important than the inartfully phrased statements of BP’s Chairman of the Board.
June 17, 2010, 11:36 amElliot says:
Intention alone doesn’t matter. Intention plus capability and experience does.
Having lots of very experienced and capable people with the world’s best equipment sail in from all over the world would be a very effective and efficient way to meet the clean-up challenge. As someone said above, had those ships been welcomed three days after the spill, they could have picked up a lot of oil that has now dispersed and will be much more difficult to contain.
There are people besides the Dutch who are very good at this.
June 17, 2010, 11:40 amBen P says:
Where’s the evidence they weren’t welcomed.
June 17, 2010, 11:45 amElliot says:
“Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.
“It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.
“The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.
“Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.”
Houston Chronicle
June 17, 2010, 11:55 amJune 8, 2010
Ben P says:
Were people even aware the spill was occuring three days after the accident? The Deepwater horizon rig didn’t even sink until 36 hours after the accident.
and if the moment it became apparent there was an oil spill, if the goverment had stepped in, commandeered all of BP’s equipment and said “We’re taking over” how many people would be saying that it was just another federal power grab on his part.
June 17, 2010, 12:29 pmChrisTS says:
Thanks, BenP, for all the info.
Hidnsight is great, of course, but I wonder what most of us would have chosen to do in those first weeks? Organizing an international response in the Gulf would be daunting and possibly distract from the efforts of the purported experts (BP) to get the leak fixed. Also, given that BP seems to have misrepresented the extent of the leak[ing], the administration might have thought it was not the crisis it turns out to have been.
Personally, I point my finger at those most directly responsible: BP and its confederates in building the rig; an underfunded and incompetent/co-opted regulatory agency; and the administration and congress that let BP and others get way with not employing the back up system that might have prevented this. Then, of course, there’s the rest of us: oil-drunk and self-indulgent.
June 17, 2010, 12:42 pmDuracomm says:
Ben P said,
I’m curious how you go from waiving the jones act to let foreign spill response vessels work in the gulf to commandeering bp’s equipment?
Trying to compensate for obama making george bush and michael chertoff look competent?
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