Is the entire market capitalization of BP sufficient to remedy the damage? What then?

After dropping $32 billion since the blowout, the remaining market capitalization of BP is currently $152 billion.

The remaining market capitalizations of Transocean and Halliburton ARE $29 billion and $28 billion respectively.

Disregarding the challenge of extracting damages from well-lawyered & elusive transnational, foreign based entities, what is and/or should be our contingency plan for dealing with damages that exceed the total market capitalization of the entities responsible?

And at what point should we put these plans into action?

Is this something we should be talking about?





:kick:

The GOP, with Dem help, has already defeated it in the Senate -- but it should be demanded still.

And there are LOTS of oil men here! None of them think this is going to turn out OK for BP.

Market cap is simply share price * number of shares. It doesn't represent a companies ability to repay:


The reality:
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:BP&fstype=ii


BP has about $25 billion a year in pretax profit (that isn't revenue but pure profit).

Balance Sheet:
Short Term Assets: $67 billion (cash, treasuries, other assets that can be liquidated in less than a year)
Total Assets: $235 billion.

BP has more than enough to pay for this spill.

their Equity would be their worth if they were liquidated

GM bondholders for example got $0.07 on the dollar in liquidation. (They weren't given cash but were instead given shares in new company).

Still you are technically right, shareholder equity is roughly $100 billion.

Liquidation would be a foolish and expensive way to resolve a massive liability. Anything less than $60 billion could easily be paid simply from BP cash & current assets. Anything more say $100 billion the balance could be repaid over say 3 years from BP massive cashflow.

Current Assets $60 billion + 3 years of cashflow $75 billion = $135 billion.

They have enough cash value in oil leases to pay.

...and the staplers.

Stupid is as stupid does. They know the oil is a finite source of energy. By now they could have invested billions in alternate energy and have the market cornered and making billions in profit soon. But they must have thought they could wait till they got the last possible cent of profit from oil. What fuck ups.

They have been funding a lot of alternative energy and renewable energy researchers - mostly start up and research projects, and have taken "future rights" in the resulting patents.

My job is the result of BP giving a grant to the research units. UC Berkeley shut down the administrative sections of the research departments causing many people to get laid off and then they hired a fraction back to do all the administrative work. Things don't run smoothly at all, especially with the purchasing and accounts payable sections which is one of the most important parts of research. The faculty are very unhappy about it.

It all looks good on paper but if corners have to be cut because there's a freeze on hiring new faculty and researchers then how much do you expect will be done in finding alternate energy? BP has billions it could invest and the research departments could expand instead of contract. Millions is crumbs.

to borrow the term from the book title. It's rapidly becoming an economy killer--no tourists in Fla., no work, no fishing, no boating, Disney World fails, I could go on but...

If this continues for only a month more, we're done for.

nt

I know it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the total worth of the corporations, but shouldn't all of the wealth accumulated by the executives of all three inept and corrupt companies be seized? Take their mansions, their luxury cars, their private islands and all of the money in their bank accounts and leave them with nothing. They so recklessly endanger millions of people's livelihoods without any concern for their well being so why should we allow them to keep a dime of their ill-gotten gains?

Corporate law needs to be changed to allow the seizure of all the top executives in any corporation if that corporation harms others or damages the environment. Current law limits or completely removes any personal liability for corporate executives. Why? If you caused harm to someone you could lose everything you own. Why are the rich and powerful exempt from the same laws we have to abide by?