Explain to me what 'nationalizing' BP would do.

[gateley]

Would BP effectively be able to sail off into the sunset and say 'it's yours now, you deal with it'?

Would it absolve BP of financial responsibility?

How would it benefit us?

I ask because I hear many suggesting that's what we should do, and if it's a good idea, why haven't we done so? Please, no snarky political comments about being in BP's pocket, etc., -- I'm sincerely trying to understand this.

Thanks!

[dipsydoodle]

1. Not a lot

given you could only nationalise BPs US operations and unless you could use them to generate the same level of profit which BP would've done it would be self defeating.

[gateley]

2. So does nationalizing essentially mean we just take over the company? (Or in

this case, US operations?)

Thanks for responding!

[dipsydoodle]

22. To do so

they'd need to buy the shares. That would also need BP America splitting off before hand - it's a division / wholly owned subsidiary of plc at present.

[blindpig]

32. Buy? Hell no, expropriate without compensation.

I think we can be sure that BP will never cover the cost if extant or otherwise. Let us get what we can, punish those investors who have been the beneficiaries of BP's rapacious behavior, and run those operations for the benefit of the people or shut them down if that is more beneficial.

Kill Capitalism

[melm00se]

48. please read the 5th amendment

[blindpig]

49. If the law is inadequate to the needs of the times

it should be changed. Laws which protect Capital from the just redress of the people certainly fall into this category.

[KittyWampus]

53. So during wartime you support disposing of due process? After all you just said >

"If the law is inadequate to the needs of the times".

That's pretty much what Bush/Cheney and their flying monkeys argued.

Who knew it was that easy to change laws, totally disregarding the Constitution?

[jdlh8894]

4. How does the US nationalize a UK corporation?

[dipsydoodle]

21. It not so much that it can't

its that's to do so they'd need to buy all of the shares. In the process of doing that the shares they were buying would perpetually increase in value as the numbers remaining dimished assuming all owners sold.

Here's their geographical distribution etc for them to nationalise BP plc :

http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9010453&contentId=7019612

The cost would be 18,748,994,754 shares x current market price is about US$ 120 billion. I dount you government would want to own an oil company and even if it did it doesn't follow they'd get any futher business from Russia or China. China of course would outbid the USA anyway.

I think eventually once all this is sorted in an appropriate manner that BP America will be split off and US owned , with a name change, and BP will operate elsehwere in the world.

[Hawkowl]

36. The same way the rest of the world did?

The Arab states and a lot of South American states all nationalized "foreign" oil companies to keep the profits at home and stop the oil companies from destroying their countries.

The US won't do it because corporate welfare is the American religion which we spread by holy jihad to the rest of the world.

[Cant trust em]

3. Nationalizing BP would change little, IMO.

It wouldn't make the gusher stop any faster. It could stop the use of toxic dispersants.

[BeFree]

5. The word actually means SEIZE BP

The US should seize all of the BP assets that it possibly can and sell off those assets or use them to supply our military.

The US should own as much BP as we can get our hands on otherwise BP will leave US holding the bag.

[jdlh8894]

10. How do you Seize assetts from a company that is based in the UK?

[gateley]

11. Ah - I think that's what I was failing to understand, the actual action. And knowing

that, I gotta revise my initial plea to not be political and say - it seems as though their reluctance to do so may indeed be politically motivated. The US seizing a British company would not sit well with much of the world.

What a fucking nightmare.

Thanks!

[ladywnch]

27. first, BP does have US assets to seize. second the US has seized

foreign assets in the past. so why should BP be treated differently?

My understanding is that if BP can be put into temporary receivership (I'm not sure if nationalization results in the same thing) so the US would be in charge of BPs resources and we could get more accurate info......we would at least be allowed into the Gulf rather than being run off our own waters by foreign corporations.

[Cetacea]

6. If only we could nationalize their trade secret hold on COREXIT n/t

[gateley]

15. No kidding! I just don't get that! nt

[HughMoran]

7. It would force those who are screaming it to move onto the next item on their list

...and not a damned thing more.

[DJ13]

12. That might be a good thing

A nervous Goldman Sachs would be a plus.

[The Straight Story]

8. It would allow us to focus less on profits for investors and more on safety (nt)

[Ozymanithrax]

9. Nationalizing BP would mean that the U.S. would take ownership...

of all BP's U.S. assets and would also own all it's liabilities. Because BP is a British Company (British Petroleum) with world wide assets, we would not actually be able to nationalize the entire company. BP would move on with the U.S. owning the Asphalt volcano in the gulf.

But nationalizing BP is a fantasy. The only time the U.S. even did anything remotely like that was with the railroads in World War I with the United States Railroad Administration (USRA). They were turned back over to private ownership after the war, and it was done with Congressional authority. The Congress and Senate would never get a bill though nationalizing BP, or what part of BP operates here in the U.S.

[gateley]

13. Thanks for the explanation - very helpful. Since some of those calling for

nationalizing seem to be credible voices, maybe Obama should address this. There are so many criticisms of 'why don't we do this' and 'we should just do that' that he and we might benefit from an explanation from him as to why or why not _______.

[Ozymanithrax]

18. Unless there are 60 credible votes in the Senate...

and a majority of credible votes in the house, it will not even be addressed. This is an election year, and the right has convinced a sizable minority of people that Democrats are socialists. (The accusation is so ridiculous that it is hard to understand how anyone with two neurons to rub together would believe it.) An attempt would not play well on main street.

Any congressman in a moderate district that was taken by the Democrats in 2006 or 2008 would immediately become leans Republican. Most Americans have already forgotten what it was like under Republican rule with Bush. It would be very ugly indeed.

[blindpig]

35. All of which shows that our government is owned by Capital

Kill Capitalism

[Ozymanithrax]

41. No, it shows that there is a political price for everything...

and the Democrats do not want to pay te political price of nationalizing a private company home based in a foreign ally. Allso, DEmocrats do not want to take over and pay for the closure and cleanup with tax payer funds. That is exactly what they would do with such a stunt.

[blindpig]

45. The only political price of consequence is the loss of cash inflow

and that money going to the opposition. Like I said about Capital owning Government....

BP will never cover the cost, even now these are looking so great that if you sold off the entire corporation there wouldn't be enough. And in any case they will lawyer this to death, just like the Exxon Valdez, major investors will bail and get away clean. Better to grab what we can, put operations under the auspices of government scientists with a more holistic view than the single minded drive for profits and covering BP's ass.

The entire energy sector should be nationalized, it is too important, generates too much destruction, to be left in the hands of capitalists. That might be said of other sectors too.

[spin]

14. It would gain some short time support for Obama ...

and make him look like he was "kicking some ass".

He might look like a leader taking charge of the situation.

If he does make such a move, it needs to be carefully considered. I would like to see Obama talk to BP executives and work on a process to clean up the existing oil more efficiently and to make timely payments to the people who are losing money because of the oil spill.

Nationalizing BP could be used as a threat to insure that they make an honest effort to pay for their screw up.

[gateley]

17. I think his threat of not not granting any more permits to BP to drill in our

waters is pretty serious, too. It's worth billions (natch).

I can't help but think they've considered this, but rejected it for whatever reasons.

As apoplectic as we are, I really think Obama is beyond angry and fed up. I'm thinking/hoping that even though we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, they're planning and plotting.

[spin]

26. Obama can remain cool and still be strong ...

anger is not always the best approach to winning a fight.

But it does look like BP is doing everything they can to minimize their responsibility. It also looks to me like they plan to wait until the oil geyser is plugged before they make a real serious effort to clean the environment. BP probably realizes that until the leak stops, cleanup will be almost futile as the oil will just float in again in a few days or weeks.

Obama needs to convince BP that all efforts have to be made to protect the wetlands and the beaches and the cost and the effort be damned.

[laughingliberal]

30. " BP probably realizes that until the leak stops, cleanup will be almost futile "

BP probably hopes a lot of people believe this. Yeah, their highly inadequate efforts at cleanup are window dressing and futile. They hope no one realizes that a vigorous, continuous effort, even with the gusher still going, would have done a lot to mitigate the amount of oil reaching shore and the amount in the ocean doing damage.

[spin]

33. I don't think BP considers the wildlife all that important ...

I heard that the CEO said something like, "The Gulf isn't the only place where shrimp is caught".

Money trumps everything for BP.

[laughingliberal]

34. +1 nt

[gateley]

37. Yes - we do have to do more about about the prevention/clean up. And you're

right - BP is probably thinking 'why bother?" at this point.

I just watched a special and I'm still convinced BP is doing whatever it can to stop the eruption because it behooves them financially to do so. I think the people/engineers are giving it their all.

But I'm also still convinced that the powers that be -- the money men -- are furiously attempting to downplay every aspect then can to minimize their ultimate liability. They're still trying to PR their way out of this. I understand it's their job, but there comes a point where you have to decide what your priorities are. Human life, wildlife, the ecosystem, peoples' culture, or money. They've chosen money. I wonder if they can sleep at night.

[spin]

38. If I was a BP executive involved in covering up this catastrophe ...

I would be hoping that there was no God to punish me in the afterlife.

I personally hope there is reincarnation and BP CEO Tony Hayward comes back as an oil soaked pelican again and again.

[gateley]

39. I honestly think they've lied themselves into believing that what they're doing is

okay. I've long felt the same about Cheney and Rumsfeld, they've convinced themselves what they do is the right thing, and if anybody gets hurt it's for the greater good. :grr:

[spin]

40. I wonder if this is a contagious disease ...

seems like a lot of the politicians in this country suffer from this ailment. What's good for the big corporations is good for all of us.

[gateley]

42. I think when you get into that rare atmosphere they inhabit, it's easy to forget

what 'real life' is like.

[Oregone]

16. By taking ownership of the assets in the US, the government could replace the board & execs

The technicians who are trying to fix this would therefore be airing ideas to managers with good will, and without a conflict of interest regarding the costs of the operation. It would actually empower the expert employees on the ground to a large extent, as well as open them up directly to other government resources and data. That could potentially help solve the problem more than allowing BP execs determine which methods of solving it are financially viable

Thereafter, the US can use those assets to forever profit from operations.

[gateley]

23. Well it looks good on paper, I'll have to say that. But Ozymanithrax

brings up a good point about the reality:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

18. Unless there are 60 credible votes in the Senate...

and a majority of credible votes in the house, it will not even be addressed. This is an election year, and the right has convinced a sizable minority of people that Democrats are socialists. (The accusation is so ridiculous that it is hard to understand how anyone with two neurons to rub together would believe it.) An attempt would not play well on main street.

Any congressman in a moderate district that was taken by the Democrats in 2006 or 2008 would immediately become leans Republican. Most Americans have already forgotten what it was like under Republican rule with Bush. It would be very ugly indeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sigh. Gotta agree with that, too.

Again, I have to say, I just can't believe the enormity of this nightmare on so many levels.

[Oregone]

25. Yeah, totally true.

[dipsydoodle]

24. I think that'll happen eventually anyway.

BP America will become American and fully split off from plc in which it is currently a division. Plc will deal with the rest of the world outside of the USA.

btw BP employ about 24,000 in the USA.

[uponit7771]

19. Not a damn thAng

[Blue-Jay]

20. We couldn't do it anyway.

How do you legally nationalize a multi-national corporation?

[Warpy]

28. It would make a lot of furious people happy short term

In addition it would do some practical things like changing the executive culture there from one of reckless cost cutting compromising safety to one of responsibility, reallocate company resources away from exploration and toward controlling the spill by drilling multiple pressure relief wells, the only thing that will work long term, and by allowing the gummint to sell off the assets once that has been accomplished in order to pay for a portion of the environmental damage done as well as settle international lawsuits. Note that I didn't say cleanup: that now looks to be impossible.

Putting them into temporary receivership might accomplish some of the same things while giving the libertarians and other nuts less to shriek about while maintaining it as a company with the possibility of not depriving pensioners of their livelihoods.

[JackRiddler]

29. Everything they have within reach is seized and used exclusively for (1) dealing with the crisis and

(2) compensation.

[doc03]

31. It would make some people feel better n/t

[William Z. Foster]

43. as you can see...

You have attracted all of the anti-nationalization people. That is because few here are advocating nationalizing BP, although what we have been calling for - nationalizing or federalizing the response to the catastrophe - continues to be misrepresented by people as calling for nationalizing the company. That sows confusion and is an obvious example of a straw man argument.

Those saying that it make no difference whether or not an activity is manged publicly or privately are making the right wing privatization argument. We may as well just close down the government and let corporations rule us directly if we are going to agree with the people making the arguments we see on this thread. They are not merely arguments against doing this or that with BP, they are arguments that undermine and sabotage the very purpose of having a government at all.

[maryf]

44. + 100

great post.

[TexasObserver]

46. BP will not be nationalized. Such suggestions are silly and baseless.

The response to the problem should be nationalized, but not BP or any organ of it.

BP should be placed into bankruptcy, and once there, all creditors and injured parties can vie for the assets of BP. An orderly disassembling of BP is in everyone's best interest.

The federal government taking over BP's assets and liabilities is insane, however, and completely unworkable.

[DailyGrind51]

47. We could liquidate the assets and pay those who have been injured.

Governments don't have to worry about issuing dividends.

[Prometheus Bound]

50. Piss off the Brits.

[treestar]

51. It's illegal - impossible for this government to do without violating the law

In a way we would have trashed rightly, the Cheney administration, for.

[mmonk]

52. BP and big oil are already "nationalized". They are in control.