"Spillionaires": Profiteering in the Wake of the BP Oil Spill

[Donnachaidh]

http://truthout.org/spillionaires-profiteering-wake-bp-oil-spill/1302678000

The oil spill that was once expected to bring economic ruin to the Gulf Coast appears to have delivered something entirely different: a gusher of money.

Some people profiteered from the spill by charging BP outrageous rates for cleanup. Others profited from BP claims money, handed out in arbitrary ways. So many people cashed in that they earned nicknames -- "spillionaires" or "BP rich." Meanwhile, others hurt by the spill ended up getting comparatively little.

In the end, BP's attempt to make things right -- spending more than $16 billion so far, mostly on claims of damage and cleanup -- created new divisions and even new wrongs. Because the federal government ceded control over spill cleanup spending to BP, it's impossible to know for certain what that money accomplished, or what exactly was done.

Some inequities arose from the chaos that followed the April 20 spill. But in at least one corner of Louisiana, the dramatic differences can be traced in part to local powerbrokers. To show how the money flowed, ProPublica interviewed people who worked on the spill and examined records, including some reported earlier by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, for St. Bernard Parish, a coastal community about five miles southeast of downtown New Orleans.

More at the link --

[Frustratedlady]

1. No surprise there. Were these companies set up by BP, as well?

Make the mess and then get the fines back by using your own satellite company to charge exhorbitant fees?

Sounds logical to me.

[lonestarnot]

2. Hope it was some libs that profiteered and kept the wealth local for health care expense.

[Kurovski]

3. Part of the Shock Doctrine.

as spelled out by Naomi Klein.

[glowing]

4. 16 billion.. makes BP look like they are really shelling out money..

However, I beleive, that total includes the costs of creating a cover for the well and the man power... Very little of their totals have gone to helping those directly hurt by the BP gusher..

And the insanity of calling it "all cleaned up" is false and disgusting. We still have dolphins dying and major "dead" spots.. and its not even the heigt of summer when our normal dead zones appear due to the Mississippi delta run-off of the "bread baskets" nitrates/ phosphates used for fertilizing crops mixes with heated water and creates an anoxic dead zone.