"BP oil spill liabilities could run into the tens of billions -- yet a majority of analysts still rate the stock a "buy." Proof that Wall Street is insane?" ~ published over 3 weeks after oil spill.
Why would anyone rate BP a "buy" after weeks of seeing the absolute destruction in the Gulf? And morally how could they rate BP a "buy" and how could anyone in their right mind buy stock in BP? This is sickening...and it is simply insane. I decided to look up the definition of "insanity"...interesting when applied to what is going on in terms of the banks and Wall Street undermining the US economy and its citizens...as well as the damage being caused in the Gulf due to BP's oil spill disaster:
"Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others..."
So if BP and Wall Street are insane, why can't the rest of the sane concerned citizens and our (seemingly fewer and fewer) sane representatives do something which stops this insanity forever? Make the regulations so tough that the companies will no longer operate in illegal ways taking their chances to simply not get caught or have a disaster on their hands. People are suffering and out of work, have had their retirement used for casino-like gambling of their futures, the public schools are a mess, and now the Gulf of Mexico has become a dead zone. Wall Street and BP have proven themselves to be violating societal norms and are most definitely a danger to themselves and others. We had to bail out the banks and will be dealing with environmental catastrophe for decades to come. We are paying for their insanity!
The profits they make are like the Prozac and painkillers they need to keep from falling into depression and realizing what they have done. They need to feel the pain of the havoc they have caused. It is only through suffering that they will learn never to act in these ways again!
They are insane. We have the proof. Those who are being rewarded are the ones who are doing the damage. We have proof that those who succeed in this sick economy are actually narcissists and liars, trading on inside information and sleight of hand. People who steal are making profits off of others. They steal ideas, nature, livelihoods...even lives. They put us all at risk.
I keep thinking of one of those photos of an oil-covered bird "rescued" from the Gulf. The bird's eye is looking out at all of us. That bird knows we humans are insane. Those haunting images of dead and dying animals should be a warning to us in our insanity. We will perish by the hand of our own greed. Unless we act together and stop those who place profits ahead of humans, ahead of nature, ahead of our children's futures...we will be damned to live inside an asylum, and the craziest and most destructive of beings will be the ones holding the keys to our freedom.
Follow Vivian Norris de Montaigu on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive
The point is they have been lying to us. The definition of "insanity" above puts it all in perspective.
If you want to boycott BP products and buying their stock, take that route, but don't try to convince of something using poor or inexistent logic that makes no sense.
Why would anyone buy and try to profit from this?
You are confused, not the woman who posted this.
You are absolutely right, of course. Yes, BP and Wall Street are positively insane. No doubt about it. They need help. That's how insane they are.
But it's not how things are going to change.
What matters is to call the bluff and to make them feel every day that every word they say is so incredibly uninformed and stupid and self-contradictory that you wouldn't (and shouldn't) allow a 14-year old to get away with it.
Ok, let's say you shouldn't allow an undergraduate majoring in finance or economics get away with it.
Certainly not a CEO. Not an analyst. Not an auditor. Not an investor. Not a journalist. Not a lawmaker. Not a lobbyist.
The fact of the matter is that there is NO way you could even dream up a sustainable free market economy in which BP is a 'buy' after the oil spill. That's a fact. It's not a question of where you stand politically. It's a fact.
The reason is that the only way they can manage to NOT be instantly bankrupt is because the LAW itself is rigged towards the oil industry. The law itself helps them in its current state because there's a nonsensical liability cap. There's no way an economy could be sustainable with such liability caps in place. It's a doomsday machine. And that's obvious. It's also a proven fact of economics. But that doesn't interfere with the fact that it's also obvious.
Maybe you would feel better if the stock in BP declined to zero and they could not afford to clean up the spill because of bankruptcy?
If BP remains profitable, and it appears that they will, it will be because they provide a product that their customers need. If they remain profitable they will be able to afford to clean up the spill and pay for damages with profits earned for providing a product their customers need. If they remain profitable and clean up the spill and pay for damages then they are a company worth investing in.
Why so shocked? Is it because you don't understand how investing works, or is this something more insidious?
BP has lied over and over. Their green washing campaign we all know it.
This is not a simple accident. It is no accident that we had a for profit only focus for so long under Bush which pushed through tort reform and removed regulations.
Am having a hard time believing peole would actually still invest in BP..."for profit"...Yikes!
Some people will never learn.
They won't profit from the costs of cleanup.
They won't profit from the payment of claims for damage.
You act as though they wanted to lose these things and somehow benefit from it.
Also - Bush never pushed through tort reform and I challenge you to show which regulations he removed on oil companies, if any. I truly don't expect a response because I think you made this up.
I agree with you that their greenwashing is shameful and they should never have bought into the Global Warming scam!
Our selection of leaders is pathetic. In an evolved Nation how can the Republican Party exist? Theirs is the most repugnant of philosophies. They embrace a lawless economic Darwinism where the most predatory consume the non hostile. They are Social pariahs that rely on bigotry, hatred and fear to vilify and denigrate their opposition and targeted minority groups. They call out the worst aspects of our species as their ideals. The Democrats speak of higher aspirations and deliver the same pustulance as their opponents. Theirs is a Party of self serving cowardice for the many and dashed hopes of the few. Corruption overwhelms the good and the fix is always in.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/capitalism-in-the-dock-as-kerviel-goes-on-trial-1994133.html
That sentiment echoes our own advocacy for reforming capitalism which begins with a core argument on human disposability:
"Economics, and indeed human civilization, can only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings. Everything in economics has to be adjusted for people, first, and abandoning the illusory numerical analyses that inevitably put numbers ahead of people, capitalism ahead of democracy, and degradation ahead of compassion."
http://www.p-ced.com/1/about/background/
"In that context of disposing of people, by all economic systems, and with capitalism having become predominant, financial profit came to rule the day. Profit, the bottom line, was master of all else. People and the environment we live in were secondary considerations. The vehicle of Western capitalism was, and is, corporations.
"Corporations are legal structures created as legal entities to carry out the business – financial – objectives. Under US law, corporations are a legal person. What sort of person? According the psychological assessment measures in the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) used for personality assessment, corporations meet the strict clinical definition of a psychopath. “Psychopath” is another word for lunatic, or, someone who is legally, criminally insane."
http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/sumy/iscs2009/