For the record, this is not a great photo op realized.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek pair.
In the lead editorial, Paul Barrett goes after Obama with some cause, saying he knows the president can’t do a whole lot about the spill but that he could make something larger out of it instead of bragging on TV that he talks to experts so he knows who’s ass to kick (when Obama talks tough, he summons his inner Mike Dukakis, spicing his language in oh-so-calculated a fashion).
The bit that caught my eye: the characterization that the USG was basically unprepared for any deep-water blowout, expecting that the private sector would have such assets in the ready. BP’s true guilt (as accidents and operational stupidity will happen) is not having those assets in its toolkit—CEO Tony Heyward’s explicit admission.
That to me is enough for BP to be demolished—not by the government but by shareholders. This is basic insurance thinking: low-probability all right but stunning high impact, so you HAVE to carry the requisite insurance, especially when we’re talking the money involved, both upside and downside. For BP to have taken a flyer on this is just inexcusably dumb.
And dumb companies should die.
But even more annoying than that, and here you have to think Obama could be doing more than just holding Oval Office confabs, is the way BP has hogged control of the response effort while exhibiting a “we’ll-get-back-to-you” mindset on all the ideas flooding their way.
The numbers, say BBW, run like this: 35k ideas submitted, with 800 making the first cut, and 4 ideas tried to date. You’ve got 200 words to describe your approach to the 70 workers fielding call. Close to four dozen engineers evaluate the incoming. They come from BP, the US Coast Guard, and various USG agencies.
The complaint of serious companies with seriously proven technologies for capturing oil in water? Everybody comes out of the woodwork when disaster strikes, so the kooky drown out the credible.
But again, my point is, BP shouldn’t be fielding ideas for God’s sake. That stuff should have all been filed over the past years, leading to action—not some sophomoric all-nighter effort (“Oh my God! Get me ideas for soaking up oil—stat!”).
When you operate on that level of strategic brittleness, you, Mr. Dinosaur, deserve to die when the big meteor hits.