BP comment about 'small people' causes anger

I was reading this article on Yahoo news when I came across this phrase from Svanberg. Svanburg is one of the chairman for BP.

"I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are — are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people."
BP Agrees to $20 million fund

Sure enough as I exit the tabbed window this article appeared:

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters in Washington: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people."

Justin Taffinder of New Orleans was not amused.

"We're not small people. We're human beings. They're no greater than us. We don't bow down to them. We don't pray to them," Taffinder said.
YAHOO

Personally, I think this shows you how these guys think about the average Joe's.

What do you guys think?



[edit on 16-6-2010 by Equinox99]

reply to post by Equinox99

We care about the small people

This is how "Economic Royalty" views the rest of us peons.

reply to post by David9176


Agreed. What this phrase says to me is that BP is on the top of the food chain and think nothing of us critters.

I am glad Obama made them set $20 billion aside and suspend their dividends.

Isn't it time for the peasants to revolt yet?

I am tired of corperations interfearing with our day to day lives.

reply to post by Equinox99

I am glad Obama made them set $20 billion aside and suspend their dividends.

Unfortunately, 20 billion is small potatoes. There are estimates that this could cost over 1 TRILLION dollars....who's going to pay for that?

BP can't possibly cover that amount of money and it will take years....decades....to get that money if it's even feasible.

The people on the coast are going to get royally screwed...and it's a damn shame.

Not to mention.....
Reporters Clash with BP Security



[edit on 16-6-2010 by David9176]

reply to post by SWCCFAN

I am tired of corperations interfearing with our day to day lives.

East India Company ring a bell?

reply to post by David9176


$20 billion is to pay for any immediate claims. When the final bill arrives, there are other companies who have vested interest in that rig as well.

BP has taken the brunt of criticism because it was the owner of the well and was leasing the Deepwater Horizon rig that sunk. But when the day of reckoning finally comes, BP may not be the only one having to pay up. That's because Swiss-based Transocean Ltd. owned a majority interest in the rig. Anadarko Petroleum, based in The Woodlands, Texas, has a 25 percent non-operating interest in the well.
Yahoo

I watched this speech live and the CNN commentator presenting it mentioned that it was likely a "language-barrier" issue as apparently English isn't his first language. I'm going to assume he meant to say "little people"....

I'm not saying Corporations DO care about us "little people" but I will say used in the context he did, he's clearly trying to say "We AREN'T one of those big corporations who doesn't care for the "little people"....He's saying they do care for the "little people"....which are considered "little" in comparison to a "BIG GLOBAL" corporation.

I think that the idea that MONEY can fix this is ludicrous...

How do you put a price tag on an entire ecosystem? This will eventually affect the Caribbean as well as the Western Atlantic at the very least...

A Cree Native American Prophecy states this well:

"Only after the last tree has been cut down...
Only after the last river has been poisoned…
Only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." -


This is JUST the beginning - Wait until we get a Tropical System in the Gulf...

Teahupoo

reply to post by Teahupoo


I agree 100%. I have been against BP's clean-up policies since day 1. They tried to play down the situation and pull a quick one on us.

Why the outrage, like David said that is how the elites in the world seek the Peons, right?

I imagine that the term "littler people" is just the least colorful tag been used, I can only wonder what other terms they use in references of the slave working class.

I like to call them dirty rats, fat cats and corrupted upper class so is only fair that they use names on me too.

At least they didn't call us proles. Seems to me the executives, PR, and spokespeople at BP need more training. Actually, that was sarcasm...I'm kind of glad their true selves are coming out. Maybe it'll open some more eyes.

reply to post by David9176


Oh, come on now. Haven't you heard of this new change guy in office in Wash. D.C.? He will simply fire up all of the printing presses and spit out
2, 3, 5, maybe 10 trillion and not blink an eye. Problem solved.

reply to post by Equinox99


Come on, give the guy a break...

He's probably just a devotee of midget porn...Or a big Randy Newman fan...

BP cares about the little people eh
little people is just semantics right?
yeah right
read the body count

oil was a prime motivation for going to war in Iraq
no WNDs, no babies ripped from incubators, they didn't help el CIAduh do 911 etc

they never told the truth about a thing
I will withhold my personal opinion of anyone who thinks they did
so I can continue to be a member at ATS


www.washingtonpost.com...
Iraq has the world's second largest proven oil reserves. According to oil industry experts, new exploration will probably raise Iraq's reserves to 200+ billion barrels of high-grade crude, extraordinarily cheap to produce. The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972.

BP group wins Iraq oil contract

An oil consortium led by British Petroleum has won a contract to develop a large oil field in Iraq, as dozens of international firms compete for the rights to the nation's oil and gas reserves.

BP, along with China's CNPC, secured the contract for the Rumaila oil field on Tuesday, the largest of Iraq's six oil fields on offer to foreign and state-owned companies.

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.





[edit on 16-6-2010 by Danbones]

[edit on 16-6-2010 by Danbones]

reply to post by Danbones


And then my friend people still think that energy reform is going take us out of oil dependency, guess what they can just dream on while been taxed to death.

Oil rules the world. . .

reply to post by Equinox99


Being swedish myself, I can shed some light on his statement. "Small" translates to "små" in swedish, and "little" translates to "liten". But there is no plural form of "liten" in the swedish language, hence his referral to "small people".

Personally, I think the statement is demeaning even when disregarding the linguistic error. :/

Originally posted by Teahupoo

I think that the idea that MONEY can fix this is ludicrous...

I think that the idea that money CANT fix this is ludicrous! For 20 billion dollars we can put a base on the moon. I think that for 80 billion we can clean up a gigantic oil spill pretty damn good.


You pay people to float around in rowboats with buckets and machines collecting every last drop of oil. You pay teams of scuba divers to analyze and track every drop of oil and where it is going and you hunt it down with a crew of 10 million people.

Ok now the oil is all gone.


You pay a group of 10 million other people to track every single animal and plant that died as a result of the oil spill.

Now we know what ecological damage was done

You pay people to, after ever last drop of oil is cleaned up, to breed and replace all the lost plants and animals.

All the people who lost work or food could be reimbursed. A fisherman making 70 grand a year from fishing who is now making 0 dollars a year can be paid 70 grand a year with money.

BP who lost much value on it's stock and lost billions of dollars can get a government bailout.


Then, 20 years later (with a lot of money) fishermen are still fishing, fish are still swimming, birds are still flying, BP is still pumping oil, everything is status quo.

BAM MONEY JUST FIXED IT!


Before last tree has been cut down:

Someone will spend money to have 92873529837 trees planted

Before the last river has been poisoned:

Someone will spend money to have 298375 rivers purified

Before the last fish has been caught:

Someone will spend money to have 2983759873 fish bred



Whoever said that didn't understand you don't EAT the money! You use the money to buy things to eat! Money is way better than food! Food can only be eaten! Money can be used to do virtually anything! Including eat! By buying food!

[edit on 18-6-2010 by iamcpc]

Yeah, after what I have called Tony Hayward and other BP execs, "small people" or "little people" doesn't sound too bad at all. At least it's something that can be posted on ATS, unlike what I've called them.