Educate me: Why should I care about BP shareholders?

[XemaSab]

My initial sense is to say that they knew when they bought that stock that the value could drop to zero, so why should it be any business of the US government to protect share price? :shrug:

[hatrack]

1. Think of the widows and orphans! The Sunday School picnic was rained out, and . . . (*sniff*)

Have you no sense of decency?!?!?!?!?

[XemaSab]

2. .

:toast:

[phantom power]

11. You leave BP Alooooooooooone!1!!11!!

:rofl:

[Skidmore]

3. So did those who bought stock in the American auto industry

and as part of portfolios that were part of the bailout of the banks.

[Barack_America]

6. I'm really quite sick of seeing the auto bailout and banking bailout compared.

[Skidmore]

18. Bottom line is that both industries were badly managed.

Those are the facts. BP is badly managed. That is a fact. I would wager that there are many more industries out there which are whistling past the graveyard for the same reasons. Bottom line is that businesses should be allowed to fail when they cannot cover the risk they've assumed.

[Barack_America]

22. You are assuming the government had no previous involvement with these industries...

Which is, of course, incorrect.

The government severely undercut the American automotive industry with trade policies. The same cannot be said for the banking industry. Obviously there the govt. bears the responsibility for proper regulation and oversight and certainly dropped the ball there, but we also now know that the banking companies intentionally broke the existing regulations, so...

I also think the Dems made it quite clear that the automotive bailout was aimed to save potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, rather than reward bad management. It was much more about saving the few manufacturing jobs we have left.

[Skidmore]

26. All of these industries have jobs in them.

Like it or not the American automobile industry actively participated in making itself next to irrelevant over the years.

[Barack_America]

4. The privileged aren't accustomed to seeing the downside of capitalism.

And as far as I'm concerned, a job that provides benefits such as 401K represents at least some level of privilege. Perhaps not out and out wealth, but privilege.

So, actually, I cannot argue that you should be concerned about BP shareholders/stockholders. If one expects to profit from the capitalistic system, one must be prepared to suffer it as well.

[Dappleganger]

5. Because the Brits say you should!

And their poutrage is more civilized (or is that civilised?).

[texastoast]

7. Care is one thing

But being aware of who owns BP stock is another, especially if things like teachers' retirement funds are investing in funds containing BP stock. The teachers don't know. Who the hell reads all those 100-page prospectuses in 8 point font? Well, everyone should, especially now that we are ALL aware of the shenanigans of the deregulators.

[avaistheone1]

29. The teachers should know regardless of whether their money is being invested in a retirement fund

or not. That is why by law everyone receives a prospectus. One doesn't have to dig very deep in any given prospectus to learn risk that is involved, and their is no guarantee that ones initial investment will be returned to you.

Teachers are not stupid. They need to be a responsible investors just like every other investor. No one has any objections when they are making lots of money, but when things go south everyone suddenly goes "stupid" and doesn't want to accept the consequences and losses. Boo hoo.

Welcome to the free market.

[texastoast]

32. I must confess

I don't know each percentage of each holding in my mutual funds retirement accounts. They are managed by a fund manager who makes changes daily.

I know the objectives of these funds, but not the day-to-day transactions.

Do you?

[Arkana]

8. I don't care about shareholders.

The only people I feel bad for are the schmoes who work on the rigs and the gas station franchise owners who get hurt because people believe that driving past BP stations hurts BP.

[gratuitous]

9. Because some of them are really wealthy?

And some of them are not wealthy at all. And we need to protect investors, because you're not supposed to lose money in the free market, you're only supposed to make money. Lots and lots of money. And if you lose money, it's because you're a loser, and nobody wants to be a loser, especially if they're wealthy. How else are they going to measure their worth as a human being, if not money? And if they have less money, they'll feel bad about themselves. And who wants that? Don't you care about them, you heartless slug? And some of this stock is held by pension investors, so that means that some retired people will lose some of their pension. You obviously want everyone over 65 to starve to death in the streets! Did I call you a heartless slug yet? (Re-checks babbletalk.) Yeah. So there!

Besides, it's the highest and noblest calling of the government, through the taxpayers, to make sure that large corporations are shielded from the worst repercussions of their own stupidity. But if you get flim-flammed by one of those same large corporations and their army of professionals, well, you deserve to get taken by their anti-matter language contracts.

[Stevenmarc]

10. You shouldn't, when you purchase stock you assume the risk as well as a possible profit

[heliarc]

14. Tell that

to everyone I've ever spoken with about "investing for retirement" "OH.. you should invest in this super safe mutual fund... look at it's 5 year performance" yadda yadda. They'vebeen selling us "safe" retirement options since the sold out our pensions in the 90s ...

[heliarc]

12. I'm with you.

But our pensions and 401ks got so sold out in the 90s to risky mutual funds that the investors are now more likely than ever just going to be your everday middle class white-collar worker. It didn't used to mean that a crash on wall street sucked all of a working class families pension fund, but now that is exactly how it works.

I don't give a fuck about BP shareholders either, but I bet you I'm not as informed as I should be about how some managed fund in my 401k is tied to Oil Futures or BP or some other piece of shit corporate entity, and the banks even since they got totally deregulated... so all of us with any 401k in a mutual fund go down with BP too.

[fishwax]

15. yep -- the expansion of the 401k has socialized risk

So now when something like this comes up, the PTB say that we can't take appropriate action against BP without jeopardizing everyone's retirement.

[Barack_America]

25. 401Ks should never be so heavily invested in any one company.

If they are, the fault lies with the fund manager and not with the US appropriately insisting that a company be financially responsible for its mistakes.

[phantom power]

13. You'll socialize risk and privatize profit, and you'll like it, citizen!

:patriot:

[Barack_America]

24. That's what they're really arguing for.

And it's absolute bullshit.

[okieinpain]

16. man you guy's are really cruel, n/t.

[CanonRay]

17. It's a good object lesson in capitalism

fuck the shareholders.

[Greyhound]

19. K&R #5

(for now)
:kick: & R

[jgraz]

20. Because you're really concerned about JP Morgan / Chase?

They own 30% of BP stock.

[Igel]

30. And Blackrock owns 7%.

You haven't made your point. I'm not sure what your point is.

JP Morgan/Chase owns stock for two reasons. (1) To hold and invest money that provides the capital requirements for loans, to make money on depositors funds, to store funds in a safe place until needed. Remove the money and it becomes illiquid (ooh--didn't Bush/Obama just do things to increase liquidity, while increasing reserve requirements?). (2) Because they turn around and package the stocks as other securities. Just like Blackrock.

If Chase goes under, look forward to the FDIC spending billions of dollars and requiring a bailout. Welcome to interconnectivity and mutual interdependence. We on the left like to talk about it when it helps us. We don't like it so much when it leaves teeth marks on our own behinds.

Blackrock is the owner of record for its BP stock, but it's basically a shell: They own paper and sell shares in the paper. The owners of their shares are sometimes wealthy, but probably more often pension funds or IRA-account holders. For example, my 82-year-old former-steel-worker mother.

[jgraz]

34. The point is, it's money investing in money to make more money.

This is not the liberal view of "interconnectivity and mutual interdependence", it's a giant shell game kept in place to generate fake wealth for the top 1%. Meanwhile, the *real* shared wealth of our oceans and shore ecology is being destroyed.

It's not a matter of *if* this is going to collapse, it's a matter of *when* -- and whom it's going to kill in the process. If we start pulling the plug on crime syndicates like BP now, we at least have a chance of controlling a bit of what happens to us on the way down.

[AngryOldDem]

21. Just remind them that any investment carries risk.

It's in the fine print of any prospectus.

I don't recall anybody crying any tears for me when my meager 401(k) investments went into the shitter about a year and a half ago, so to BP shareholders: :nopity: Hope you enjoyed the ride while it lasted.

[kenny blankenship]

23. Because Britain is our partner in the Iraq & Af-Pak enterprise, & all other similar ventures to come

British Petroleum is widely owned by British citizens and the Royal Family. If BP craters it will be a disaster for Britain, who is our main - let's face it, our only real ally in pushing globalization/NWO. Britain already is facing disaster because of their corrupt financial industry, which is intertwined with our corrupt financial industry in many ways, including the huge "offshore banking" club for millionaires and multinational corps in the Caribbean. That's why you're being told to shut up about BP.

[skip fox]

27. This stockholders tactic was a pure Fox News creation.

Fox doesn't care about dividends, but it's a way to smack at Obama for talking tough to BP. They don't give a sit about the pensioners, but they want to spank Obama no matter what and they can't overtly do what they want: stand up for big oil.

[Igel]

31. Plausibly so.

Because the "risk" isn't primarily that BP stock will become worthless. It has assets and this is probably not going to bankrupt them. Perhaps. Probably not.

And the risk also isn't that the cleanup/damage claims from the oil spill will gobble up the September 2010 dividend it won't. The timing's all wrong. The claims will take years to litigate, while the funds that Congress and the president wants sequestered are very much short-term.

The risk is that the government will somehow force BP to make certain business decisions that hurt its investors so that the government will look good, to play off popular anger towards BP and classist envy towards the stereotypical rich investor. In other words, politicians seek to use extra-legal means to coerce a company to use investor funds do their bidding, in order to help their political prospects.

Now *that* is leveraging your assets.

It may be put cynically and in "RW-ese," but paraphrasing it just alters the form, not the content.

[Green_Lantern]

28. what do you mean "be worried about shareholders"?

Do you mean saying BP shouldn't pay damages because stock prices will fall?

or

Not putting BP completely out business because it'd hurt shareholders?

The former is the same cost of doing business that all shareholders know means less profit for them but BP profit will still exist.

[Odin2005]

33. I don't give a damn, either. profit is theft.

[blindpig]

35. Government is the enforcer of Capitalism.

If we can't see that now then I just don't know.

[TexasObserver]

36. You should not care. They chose to make a bet, and they're holding it.

Try walking into a casino, losing your shirt, and telling the casino "but I really need that money!"

People who don't want the downside of risk should not invest.