Disaster capitalists: Halliburton to make money off oil spill

"Does a company that both builds oil rigs and cleans up oil spills have any motivation to prevent oil rig disasters?"

Ummmm...no, of course they don't have any motivation. Isn't capitalism grand? Profiting from wars you encourage and support, profiting from natural disasters. Guess somebody's gotta/gonna do it but....

Source from RawStory

[edit on 19-6-2010 by ~Lucidity]

That's the question some people in business and politics are asking themselves after Halliburton's purchase of an oil clean-up company 10 days before the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and launched the worst oil spill in US history.

These guys are criminals and their every move should be watched. Disaster capitalists indeed, its the new 'how-to' of corporate capitalism.

reply to post by serbsta


Amazing, isn't it? And this...

'The New York Times reported in May that BP was concerned about the rig's well casing -- which Halliburton worked on -- as early as June of 2009. The Times also reported that a Halliburton employee warned BP three weeks before the explosion that BP's use of cement for the well casing was "against [Halliburton's] best practices."'

This was announced back in April.

The Boards of Directors of both Halliburton and Boots & Coots have approved the transaction, which is expected to close in the summer of 2010, subject to regulatory approvals, approval by Boots & Coots' stockholders and other conditions.

www.rigzone.com...

I wonder how much money they'll really make if they probably haven't even taken over the reigns of the company yet?

One of the comments to this article says another BP rig, the Atlantis is in even worse shape than the Deep Water rig.. Yay! Lucky for Halliburton that they bought Boots and Coots, eh? Halliburton is smart. We should invest in their stock.

"A former BP contractor who claims that the oil giant's Atlantis production platform in the Gulf of Mexico is unsafe is gaining attention on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are pressurisng the federal government to shut it down." Source

Look at Neil Plascencia's comment here and at the dates. Wow.

More than that. They are going to use GoM as a reservoir for all that "their" oil.
They have practically secured area and leased it for 20 bln dollars!

Don't worry, it's all clean job

MONEY IS GREEN!!!!!!!

I guess you all knew this and it's no big shock. The webs they weave never fail to shock me though...so many coincidences that make the few key players more and more money. I guess it pays to be among the big boys...and pays well.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Yep, that's true, but any contractor, including Haliburton, only does the work authorized by the owner, in this case BP. Who is ultimately responsible for this disaster? ..... the environmentalists, just like they were responsible for the Valdez occurence. By the way, anyone with a 401K also makes money from BP and most other energy companies.

The complaints that the oil/energy companies make too much money are crap, too. For every dollar they invest they make an average of 6 cents to 9 cents profit. Not much. Do the math.

reply to post by zappafan1


Oh I know and agree and have argued that myself. I guess I'm more thoughtful about them buying Boots and Coots what two weeks before the disaster? But then, if they knew how shoddy the platform/rig was that BP decided to go with, they may have just seen this as a natural

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Don't get me wrong, BP cut corners big time, and will pay for it (although I disagree with Barry Obama "making" them put 20 Million into that account. That money came from the stockholders, not BP, and that just plain sucks. Aside from the fact that Barry Obama has no Constitutional authority to make them do that.

Think of this... I'm a welder/fabricator with 35 years experience. If a customer comes to me to have work done, and I do a redesign of what they want, without first getting them to sign off on an Engineering Change Notice, how long will I be doing work for them? Even if they agree, they'll only pay the amount agreed to in the contract. Word of mouth of me doing that would ruin the business in a quick hurry.

You wrote "... "Does a company that both builds oil rigs and cleans up oil spills have any motivation to prevent oil rig disasters?"

REPLY: What the heck..... there's a French company that does the same kind of work as Halliburton, so why not use them instead? Well, they're partially owned by Halliburton. It's not their job to prevent anything. They build the rigs and associated equipment and then sell them to whoever placed the order. The oil companies then run the rig themselves or, as in this case, contract out the job.

First time I've seen this term used over this. I've been meaning to write a big thing showing how ObamaCo. are a bunch of disaster capitalists. The quotes like "don't lets a good crisis go to waste" are out there and all, but they're really proving it with this one.



Capitalizing on disasters... we all knew BushCo. did this, but now ObamaCo. has proven to be just the same.




RELATED: I had just started a thread about preventing BP from capitalizing on this disaster:
Stopping BP from profiting from our ideas that we submitted.

[edit on 26-6-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by DangerDeath

I think you have the right idea. The fastest way to extract the oil is to just let it spill out, then collect it. Especially if you know there may be a conflict in the middle east that will cause a supply issue....

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


You post is decent, and you're thinking along the right lines. But it's going to turn some people off to it and to what you have to say when you use inflammatory language to make your point.

What I mean is, why bring Obama or Bush into this at all? This has been going on far, far longer than either of them. And it goes way above and beyond partisan politics or political parties or even one person.

What term are you referring to? Disaster capitalists? First time you've heard it used during this administration? What about Haiti? That's one example off the top of my head. And to get technical, disaster capitalism is as alive and well and thriving under this administration as it was under the last.

Halliburton always has its hands in multiple cookie jars at once. Many citizens haven't learned nothing from how much profit Halliburton made on the Iraq war.

Their stocks sky rockets after the "rebuilding" Iraq. Government contracts to rebuild were mostly given to Halliburton which was in t he billions.

If you haven't already I would suggest watching "Iraq for Sale" and "The New American Century". Great documentaries which show war profiteers and the corruption.

reply to post by zappafan1


Stockholders take a risk, as do companies.

If the stockholders who invest in a company and the money people who recommend the stocks go solely on the bottom line, caring nothing about a company's history or safety record or even the very nature of the business they're in, then they didn't do a very good job researching the company or making themselves aware of these risks.

Any company in the oil drilling business knows the risks, or should, whether these risks are self-inflicted, as in this case, or inflicted by circumstances beyond their control. And they have contingency and risk mitigation plans. If they never get caught they begin to think they can let things "slide." The bean counters win more.

Yes, technically the $20 billion could have been the stockholders money had nothing unforeseen happened. Unfortunately for all, it did happen.

As to the quote about motivation, that was not mine but from the article. I did agree with it and I still do to a degree. They make money either way. They can't lose. They're smart.

reply to post by Equinox99


Another interesting tidbit to look up about Halliburton is how they worked in Iran and North Korea (two of the three planes of the axis of evil) on nuclear-related building and light-water reactors. I

n Iran, they stayed there well past the time they were told to get out.

As far back as the early 1990s Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya.

A normal citizen would be in jail for spying if they're even found near those countries.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Being inconsiderate of others' rights and profiting off of others is not capitalism. It's just something that some people do. They could easily do this in a non capitalist society. I'm not sure where all this capitalist hate is coming from (especially since we haven't even had purely free markets since 1913).

If you want to call it something, call it what it is. Fascist Corporatism.

The government allows this sh*t to happen because they (politicians) benefit from it. There is nothing wrong with capitalism. There is something VERY wrong about fascist corporatism and nepotism which seems to be running rampant ever since the civil war.

Back on topic. I can't stand the stuff Haliburton has done, and it surprises me that they are still profiting without some much as a whisper from the people in charge. They know what's going on, and they even help it. Can't say I'm not surprised.

Why call it 'disaster capitalism' when it's simply capitalism.

Capitalism has always exploited war, disasters, Human suffering.

The owners of the means of production don't care about us, we are just another resource to use or discard.

Calling it 'disaster capitalism' deflects away from the real issue, like the term 'corporatism' which again is simply capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of needed resources. The very thing that owns controls and enslaves you into a life of working for someone else to get rich while you struggle to pay your mortgage.

It's an artificial system that creates an artificial scarcity of resources through either under production, or the destruction of unsold resources.

There is no reason for anyone to be poor in a world of abundance, but that abundance is hidden away and only released to those able or willing to pay what the capitalists demand.

Capitalism IS the disaster, and it has destroyed society physically and mentally.

Capitalism is awesome!

What we have here is class struggle. The corporations have grown so large and are now global in nature. They are not run by men. They are run by individuals of a bizarre nature.

Capitalism is a group of people investing in someone with a good idea to make life better.

BP is an example a gigantic scam that sells worthless crude oil at outrageous prices to enrich upper class pinheads who play with toy boats and think us "small people". It's a good ol' boys game at our expense.

Do not confuse the wealth generation of people working together (capitalism) with the criminal scams of big corporations and big governments (feudalism)

The Board of Directors of BP fancy themselves lords and our land their demense.

There is a difference.