Svanberg is going to care about the small people quite a lot when they sue BP out of existence or at least demand BP be banned from further US EEZ offshore oil operations.

Clearly this Swedish guy sat through some meetings or phone calls in which Americans (like Obama) tried to hammer home the importance of showing (faking?) concern for the “little guy” or “the little people.” That’s a fairly common expression (one that Leona Helmsley was fond of also, as I recall).

So the Swedish guy dutifully follows his talking points and it comes out “we care about the SMALL people.”

Classic. You can’t make this stuff up.

This is not totally correct – this is partly why we are still arguing over this. They also made an early decision to try and stop it in ways that would leave the well viable figuring that it would save them more than it would cost them in the long run – exactly the attitude that caused the break in the first place.

What our govt is set up to do in disasters – be they oil spills or hurricanes – is to provide resources, not leadership. This is by statute and DHS is the primary provider of resources now (FEMA is paperwork).

What should have happened – again by statute and it is one of the few good statutes the govt has come up with – is the Coast Guard zoom in and oversee. DHS has money, physical resources, access to experts BP doesn’t have, and many many other things. It is the feds job in cases such as this to make sure that *our* interests are looked after, BP’s main interest is itself.

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of barriers sitting in warehouses and more than one company with the ability to produce 100,000 feet per day. We have regulators that are quite capable of noting that BP wasn’t really trying to contain the oil that leaked or tried to stop the flow that *should* have been there. Dispersants were readily available as oil came closer to our beaches. That is only the tip of the iceberg of what we could have had going.

I can’t say we wouldn’t still be watching a growing disaster but I can assure you that we would be MUCH further down the road with respect to what we have tried to stop it with and the spill would not be covering such a large area. The disaster will end up with a significantly larger impact one way or another now because of it.

Instead we let BP go about it business while the president played golf. BP stayed true to what they had done in the past – play PR damage control while trying to do the cheap (for them) thing. They didn’t move into a real disaster avoidance mode until it was too late and the feds *still* have not done so.

Once the fallout of this is fully explored I do not think Obama is going to have a political life left.. I think it is a such a betrayal of even his very inner core that all but the true “yellow dog” democrats are going to jump ship. I also suspect that the gulf coast states will *not* vote for Obama in the next election either. BP will most likely go the way of Exxon after the Valdez – have a fairly large corporate shakeup (at least in terms of focus) or risk massive stock losses.

Frankly, I’ve started to have some sympathy for BP. Yes, they screwed up, big time, and the responsibility is theirs. On the other hand, they had the misfortune to screw up right when a floundering President was desperately looking for a scapegoat. They didn’t deserve to be demonized the way they have been. As many have already said, we should let them fix the problem, offering any help we can, and THEN lay into them as necessary, LATER, when the crisis is over. (Demonizing them now — and threatening them with bankruptcy — doesn’t give them huge incentives to do their best work, does it?)

I’m also sorry that it takes a disaster of this magnitude to get us to pay attention to the engineering miracles we do routinely now. They found a rich oil deposit more than THREE MILES down under the seabed — under a mile of water! — and successfully drilled into it, and were pumping up large quantities of oil from it? That’s just amazing. I find it even more amazing to contemplate that 5,000 feet of water is far too deep to send divers down, or even most submersibles; EVERYTHING had to be done remotely.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

If the 60 Minutes piece was correct, the jackass who authorized the initial shortcuts was doing so because it would save BP $1 million/day.

IMHO, 60 Minutes got this right. The well was over schedule and over budget. The decision maker(s) had either forgotten or never learned the old oil field adage that you don’t cut costs downhole.

What is even more maddening is that the idiots in charge didn’t by pass just one procedure, but four or five different procedures to check on cement integrity and influx of formation fluids.

English is easy to learn, but hard to master.

Coming from Canada, there are many here (mainly but not restricted to French-speakers) who use English in an awkward way. They simply aren’t aware of the subtleties of everyday language use.

It may, but not necessarily, imply a condescending attitude toward those affected by the oil spill.

What the guy needs is someone to do his talking for him, it’s clear.

I wanted to note on neo-neo’s quoting of the book about Nazi rank-and-file, in regard to the `little people’ –

Hitler and the rest of his henchmen were also `little people’ who made it big. The Nazis were despised by the nobility (such as former general Hindenburg, the president who later appointed Hitler to power) when they first came on the scene. The latter believed, completely falsely, that they could control Hitler for their own ends. Of course, they couldn’t have been more wrong…

If the 60 Minutes piece was correct, the jackass who authorized the initial shortcuts was doing so because it would save BP $1 million/day.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings will not be denied.

Ahem. What their soi-disant betters think they should want.

And while we’re on the sujet, the constant use of the term “elite” for lefty p*ssants has always irked the tar outta me.

I’m singularly lacking in the servile impulse. My folks have been Americans since the Jamestown days. [Bronx cheer here!]

As earlier commenters alluded, the Democrat Party has amassed untold millions of votes over the last 70 years or so based on the risible notion that they are “the party of the little guy”.

The real BP villain is the person who gave the order for the drilling mud to be replaced with seawater. Practically every oil industry person I know on the internet (I don’t know any in real life) has had a WTF? reaction to that.

Add to that BP’s rather chummy relationships with various governments, as well as their acquiescence to Obama’s Chicago/Chavez-style shakedown, which has some dark fascist undertones. Not to mention their support of cap & trade.

Compared to all that, the “small people” statement is small potatoes.

i would suggest:
Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

Charles Laughton, Zasu Pitts, Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles (who doesnt play a ruggle).

Personally i think Laughton’s speech on the stair is great.

Anyway. if you do get to see the film, you will understand why i recommended it to you in terms of what you said. because your description fit how the Americans were compared to Europeans, and how it rubs off. 🙂