One ‘Small’ Statement Backfires on BP | Hacker News Reader

One ‘Small’ Statement Backfires on BP

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

14 pointspx13 comments

I have very little or no sympathy for BP and for their CEO or for their apologists.

However, I think it is unfair to attack a Swedish guy (who probably speaks English as a 3rd or 4th language) for saying "small people" when he probably intended to say something like "little guy" or "ordinary people"

Or the American politician's encomium of choice, "working families."

Honestly, I think people already hate BP, I doubt this has much effect.

Ah, but BP is bringing in their own sob story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1287222/BP-oil-spill...

A misunderstanding that I believe is at the heart of the lyrics for _Common People_ by Pulp :-)

I speak English as a second language and I was convinced that "small people" is a synonym for "ordinary people" until I read this article.

The German expression "Der kleine Mann" means "ordinary man" (in the context of an ordinary man against a big company or the government), but the word "klein" literally translates to "small"/"little".

"The little guy" means something similar, but with the added connotation of being an underdog (which sounds like what you describe "Der kleine Mann" as). Tiny idiomatic differences!

That article left me with no respect for Gov. Haley Barbour. His concern is that putting money in an escrow account will hurt BP's ability to do business and make money to pay people back. But the escrow account is being filled by diverting money that otherwise would have gone to dividend payments, which is money taken out of the company and put back in the pockets of investors. Therefore this does not change by one cent how much operating capital BP will have to pursue its business.

Not paying dividends for 2 years is going to significantly change BP's ability to raise capital; dividend cuts or suspensions are always taken as a sign of financial stress, and that's certainly what's happening here.

And who says 20 billion is the limit? A lot of people fear it's just the start.

Not paying dividends for 2 years is going to significantly change BP's ability to raise capital; dividend cuts or suspensions are always taken as a sign of financial stress, and that's certainly what's happening here.

You're shooting the messenger here. Their ability to raise capital has been hurt by their legal liabilities, not by the dividend cut. In fact the dividend cut helps their ability to raise capital, not hurts it!

What this move does is transfer money from BP's investors to inevitable creditors. This therefore costs investors money up front, and reduces the chances of eventual bankruptcy. That makes it harder for them to raise money by selling stock, and easier to raise it in the credit markets. With their current problems they are better off going to the credit markets, so this helps them.

And who says 20 billion is the limit? A lot of people fear it's just the start.

I agree that 20 billion is a lower limit of their likely liabilities. Which is why they should start saving up to pay those liabilities as soon as possible.

Not to hijack this thread, but I find it interesting to compare the fallout of the BP CEO's speech with the analysis of Obama's speech about the disaster: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/16/obama.speech.analysis...

Choose your words wisely because people are going to interpret them in ways you didn't expect.

It would be typical of the media/American public to act as if this statement was what made them think that they were not respected by the individuals who run corporations, while they didn't seem to get the idea from 150+ years of being abused by corporate aristocrats.

and if he had referred to the average person, doubtlessly there'd be someone ripping on him for thinking he's above average.

Blame BP, blame regulation, blah blah blah. When it comes down to it, the real problem is the american people who sit on their asses feeling they've done good by voting for the next (obvious to those who pay attention) promise-anything-for-power president.

As far as I'm concerned, this has nothing to do with a "private" over-sized company and everything to do with how relaxed americans have become when complaining about their goverment or goverment-assisted companies. Where's your nationalism now?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com