So, any guesses on the size of the loss reserve BP is going to put aside to cover the cost of this spill? Going to keep the accountants busy for years trying to hide that number in the balance sheet. BP will also probably hire a legion of lobbyists to get Congress to pick up part of the tab.
In the following clip, Chris Matthews comes dangerously close to realizing the government (aka, tax payers) roll as insurer of last resort.
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Here's the transcript:
"It sounds like the damn situation on Wall Street - too big to fail.
Too big to fail. These complicated derivatives markets. You and I can't figure out, the government can't figure out, the chairman of the banking committee can't figure out.
They're so complicated these games going on in finances and now we have an oil company that is digging 5,000 feet below the surface of the water. 13,000 feet into the ground.
You're talking about an object that's almost on another planet in terms of distance from us and nobody in the government has any of the tools to deal with it.
Well what do we do? If we're going to keep drilling offshore, does that mean we'll have to build a parallel safety unit that's capable of shadowing companies like BP and able to when they screw up as they have done here historically. Jump in take over and fix it or otherwise we're going to have another situation where we're waiting for them to fix their own mess."
Wait, I thought having taxpayers fix corporate messes was the whole point of limited liability?