Does Incompetence > Greed?

As the decibel count of shrill howl of industry hate gets louder from our Masters and Pundits, another seeming paradox has emerged.  BP, no longer "Beyond Petroleum" but rather, perhaps "Badly Pummeled" by the media frenzy, has responded pretty well thus far by preventing land fall of the slicks.  In the next day or two, we will see if the British giant's thunder dome experiment will capture the rest of the oil escaping and actually turn this into a revenue stream to partially offset its costs;  costs which Obama quickly set at $8 billion or more in an amazing feat of on-the-fly actuarial prestidigitization, without knowing any more information other than there WAS an oil spill.   AIG actuaries are bowing their head in admiration. 

This event has been used to drum support for more government oversight, more industry regulation, and, to be sure, we will soon see some sort of tax or fee instituted in the name of this disaster.  

Never ones to let a good disaster go to waste, environmental groups are reaping the bonanza by cutting down trees and hustling their members and recruiting new ones with mailouts preying upon the fears that "corporations are destroying the Earth", despite all objective evidence to the contrary.  

Not one to be left behind in the lucrative pursuit of environmental, anti corporation hate mongering, The Democratic Party is also leveraging the disaster in order to increase donations and power, presumably to insure that they can buy enough jackboots to keep on the necks of all the citizenry that need it.  Having given money to folks from both political parties, I am the recipient of the steady diet of bullshit polarizing fear-mongering mail that passes for politics today from both pathetic sides of the aisle.

So, let's compare BP's "greed" in not having every type of blow out preventer on site and working to the Army Corp of Engineer's "incompetence" or "corruption" in having received hundreds of millions, if not billions of tax and tariff dollars throughout two decades to fortify New Orlean's levies. But they didn't get around to really doing it. And the money, though spent, really didn't get spent on that, although it was specifically earmarked for it.  Most unfortunately, though, this isn't a one off example of government competence, but rather, par for the course. 

But, unlike industry, they can't get sued them for incompetence, or negligence, or fraud.  

Insanely, those that decry "the evils brought about by of corporate greed" call for the oversight of it all by empowering UNACCOUNTABLE  entities  (and please, don't give me hooey about "our elected representatives"... we are run by job-protected bureaucrats that owe fealty to Unions and can interpret laws any Kafkaesque way they see fit) and PROVEN incompetents or at least substandard in virtually every endeavor they undertake!

Now THAT'S a tragedy!

Comments

[Jack Simmons]

Has anyone documented where, exactly, the money for the levees was spent?

[Hondo Lane]

Yeah, Jack. Commander's Palace, NOLA, Acme Oyter House, Rick's, Camelia Grill, Old Absinthe House, Rick's, Mr. B's, Galatoire's, Arnaud's...did I mention Rick's?

[driller]

Great comment Hondo - that made my morning!