The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) has sold 2,200 licenses since the spill, Lt Col Jeff Mayne of the LDWF Law Enforcement Division told the BBC today. (If things are so bad in the Gulf, why are people still getting licenses in Louisiana?)
So far BP has paid $308million to those whose livelihood has been threatened by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But to receive compensation, fishermen must display a valid fishing licence - and applications for such licenses have spiked by nearly 60 per cent, despite most fishing grounds being closed by the disaster.
Three people suspected of abusing the system have been arrested in the past week in the U.S. See more here
"Call it socialism, call it communism, seize their assets."
Hey Rosie, over 300,000 individuals own shares of BP. About 40% of them are US citizens. That means that you want to seize the assets of over 100000 fellow citizens. It is not a company that you want to seize. It is the money invested by your fellow citizen. And once you seize the asset, the value of the asset plummets. Go to Venezuela and see how seizing assets worked for them. The human assets go elsewhere. The engineers, the experts, will go elsewhere with their skill. The investment money for development will go elsewhere. And BP is owned world wide. About 60% is owned by investors outside of the United States. Do you think that Britain will sit by when we try to seize the assets of their citizens? And if we seize the assets, such as the oil one mile down beneath the ocean, and then not drill for it, is it still an asset? If we make laws to say that no entity can drill for that at all, is it still an asset? An asset is only an asset, if you can use it, sell it, develop it. The real value of BP is at the bottom of the oil rigs. If we seize the assets, your goal of paying the people with damages with the assets, will be buried under the ocean. To put it in a more tangible scenario, if a fisherman owns a boat that catches $1,000,000 worth of fish every year, causes damage and has to pay $2,000,000 in damages, would you seize his assets? OK, take his boat. Will you get that $2,000,000 now? No,you only get the value of the boat. You lost the real value of the asset. You lost the fisherman. The damages will only be covered by 5% on the dollar. Seize BP, and the people of the coast will get next to nothing.
According to Politico,...BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals… During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records. See VARight for more
