The BP Shakedown: Paying Off The Democrats’ Mistakes
30th July 2010
Second, if BP was solely bowing to political pressure by assisting people it’s harmed, that would be one thing. But what it’s doing here is assisting people the Democrats have harmed, by a moratorium on offshore drilling by companies other than BP. In other words, the Democrats have used the leverage of fear of government to get BP to pay to cover up the damage caused by their own policies.
Third, consider this dynamic in the context of the vastness of BP (the company’s size is the only reason it hasn’t been run out of business by the spill). Other oil companies are big, too, but not everyone in the industry is on the same scale as BP, and equally able to buy off an angry government or weather the storm of the moratorium. This entire process of shaking down companies for political favor is designed with large corporations in mind – if you’re a smaller business, you’re not worth shaking down (or can’t afford the extra burdens of unionized workforces and heavy regulatory obligations on top of paying off politicians) and can be left to whither on the vine as collateral damage of insane economic policy.
That’s the way the Crust works, boys and girls.