Hacker News Reader

Comment by joegaudet | Hacker News Reader

All I can think is... if ifs and buts were candy and nuts....

It'd be great IF bp were going to be held fully liable. From my understanding there is a limited liability clause that is going to hold BP to some unimaginably low number.

And of course, there will be a question of what cleanup means. Cleaning up the coasts, cleaning up the animals, cleaning up the sub sea plumes? I am sure some big oil lobbyists have already tempered the language of what ever legislation is in place to hold BP accountable.

So charity is going to clearly have to step in a close the gap.

Bing, Bing, Bing!

View on HN

How can you tell if donations are going to help "close the gap", instead of paying for things BP should be covering?

Is it clearly defined what BP is covering? If not, how do charities know that the money they're putting into action is filling the gaps instead of just reducing BP's checks?

Yeah man you got me there, I am from Canada, I have no idea what is going on legally with regards to this situation.

As I said, I understood it that BP is liable up to some amount (in dollars). How that amount is assessed and so forth, I have no idea.

BP might not even be held liable (ultimately) as they weren't personally operating the rig (as far as I've been able to tell). As far as I can tell BP only leased the rig to drill it new wells, I believe (although I could be wrong) that their staff weren't operating the rigs. So I really have no clue where the liability will ultimately land.

Right. All of the hate directed at BP is a little unfair, since it wasn't actually them operating the rig at the time. But then we as a society need someone to blame, and who better to blame than a big company.

In a screw-up of this magnitude, people stop caring about the individuals who make mistakes at the bottom—they want to find the person whose greed made the situation possible, and publicly punish them to discourage others from being greedy in the same way in the future. Of course, since corporations, unlike people, are sociopathic and don't "feel guilty" the way our animal minds expect them to, this won't actually do anything.

Technically it's Transocean (IIRC) who were the ones so incredibly greedy that they didn't maintain the rig they owned and operated.

Maybe the people to blame are the US public who complain if gas prices rise above "So cheap I don't care". Try paying £1.20/liter for petrol. Then everyone will use less.

Maybe for some people, the point is to clean up the mess. To them, assignment of blame is less important than aversion of disaster. I'm not sure if I subscribe to that view myself, but I can certainly sympathize with it.

I get that. I guess my point is that it doesn't seem like lack of money is the problem that needs solving.

It's not about blame so much as the fact that with BP on the hook for the bill, money isn't the thing that's in need.

You know what will be a million times better than sending clean-up money? When the clean-up is done, book a vacation and go patronize the tourism spots that are currently deserted.

Your understanding is a bit off. If it's found that BP was guilty of gross negligence or failed to comply full with regulatory agencies, which seems to be the case, their liability is unlimited.

Media keeps repeating the $75 million cap story because it makes for controversy and controversy sells newspapers (so to speak).

Also, the $75 million is only for economic damages, not for environmental damage or the cost of the cleanup. Plus, it looks quite possible that the limit will be raised anyway...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com