Punish British Petroleum but Do Not Put it Out of Business

It is a given that we as human beings should not make decisions in the heat of an issue of passion; it is best to wait until passions are tempered before we posit our ideas to address the issue in question. There are clarion calls to punish BP into nonexistence; those who are of that mindset should stand back and ask themselves if they really want BP completely out of business because they are unintended consequences, if this comes to reality.

Let us address the economic consequences of putting BP out of business: BP employs thousands of American citizens; it pays literally billions in taxes; many of our 401Ks are invested in BP's stocks; and many of our union pension are invested in BP. Does this mean, that BP should or any energy conglomerate should have carte blanche in breaking the rules – of course not.

The difficulty is finding that delicate balance of finding the solutions to deter and at the same time foster business endeavors. And for God sakes, keep the loons on either side of the spectrum out of the mix - meaning, we cannot take on the mantra of drill, drill or listening to the radical environmentalist who want to put all the energy companies out of business before the new forms of energy sources become a reality. Do we really want to summarily abandon coal when there are thousands employed by said industry in Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania?

Someone who read this, explain to me how is that Spain, the template of a country that replaced many of their industries with so called “Green Jobs,” policies friendly to the environment seem to be a failure – what makes us so different from Spain? Someone should enlighten me of a positive template that has employed the principles of “Cap and Trade.”

As I write, there are growing tensions between our cousins across the pond in England over what they perceive as our over indulgence in berating BP. Many of the Brits were reminding us that it is almost equal as to the share holders of BP.  We as Americans must be also mindful of the “tit for tat” syndrome. If BP goes out of business because of what the British see as disproportionate punishment, but seen as being warranted by us, what will happen when one our companies makes a mistake? Imagine McDonald being booted out of Europe or Microsoft being unfairly punished by the EU regulators for breaching monopoly laws?

There must be a way to find that equilibrium… where BP and others will be deterred from engaging in behavior that resulted in the environmental disaster in the Gulf. Perhaps, the 20 billion recently allocated by BP is a good beginning (I hope everybody does not come out of the woodworks akin to what we had in the 911 tragedy). The punishment should be commensurate to the crimes and putting BP out of business is not commensurate….