Gulf Oil Crisis

Day 50. Wow. Time for me to post.

First, let me say I am in the minority of people on this issue. I think Pres. Obama isn't doing as bad of a job as people say. He's responding at the level that a President should. There are two camps of critics: those that believe that the government is the answer for everything and those that are just mad because Bush got so much crap for Katrina (By the way, according to federal law before a president can intervene, the governor has to request help. Bush actually broke to law to send in FEMA without request.) His response is adequate for his responsibilities.

The problem is the age old problem, greed. BP, instead of plugging the "d%@# hole" as our president so eloquently put it, is still trying to get all that oil. They don't want to stop it. They want to control it so they can get the money. I'm about to the point that I think they should award a contract to any company that wants to drill a relief well and get some competition to get there fast.

Another problem is with the freaking tree huggers. This well is in water that is so deep, it makes everything more difficult. If they were allowed to drill off Alaska where the waters were shallower, they could have stopped this. Trying to be ecologically sound, they actually made the problems worse. Irony of ironies.

Moving to a related topic: gas prices. This seems like the perfect excuse for price gouging, but prices aren't moving up. Why? For starters, with the bad economy and people cutting back, they would actually cause people to cut on travel, even get rid of vacations. Second, and more importantly, by keeping prices low, (with people already boycotting BP over anger from the spills) they force BP to keep prices low when expenses are high. They may actually be able to force British Petroleum to cut things, maybe even close down from American shores. Don't think that hasn't crossed Exxon or Marathon's minds.