I know it's a little off-topic for this blog, but I just can't help myself.
9 days before Deepwater Horizon blew up, I wrote that even though oil prices would really be taking off this decade, oil companies would probably not be a great investment because even in good times, the government loves to hate them. If the economy starts to go south again and it can be made to look like oil companies are to blame, God help them.
And the spill came at a perfect time to bolster my prediction. Since the public now increasingly thinks of oil companies as "bad" and "dirty," politicians know it's good for their careers to look like they are "punishing" the "bad" oil companies. And punish they will.
If I were just a wee bit more cynical, I might suggest a government bailout of BP. I mean, the explosion could have happened to anyone, right? It was all about a misunderstanding of the systemic risk...
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