Business As Usual At BP

You must be wondering what new outrage BP has perpetrated today, eh? Look no further, I’ve found it for you:

Hundreds of fishermen from Lake Charles to Moss Point, Miss., were supposed to get checks from BP on Wednesday but didn’t.

Wednesday night, their lawyer wanted answers.

Jeffrey Briet represents more than 500 fishermen, and he said the payment system he set up with BP required his clients to be paid every 30 days. Now that process has suddenly changed without warning, Briet said.

“Not only did they spring it on us that the process has changed, but the people I’ve been dealing with for six weeks who’ve done a good job said, ‘We don’t know what the process is going to be. We’re not authorized to talk to you about it. Someone from BP will contact you,’” he said.

But Briet said he hasn’t heard from BP or its lawyers. He said the claims people have been given so much conflicting information about the process that they can’t provide answers.

Tell those fishermen to read the article posted below. Like those little commie girls giving away lemonade, these small people along the Gulf Coast seem to think there’s such a thing as a free lunch, a truly vile notion that’s infected civilization since Jesus and beyond.

Funny, when this kind of foot-dragging ineptitude and/or outright deceit is carried out by an institution like the IRS, conservatives uphold it as an example of the evils of Big Gub’mint. Now you have a company that’s been operating with an almost completely free hand acting as sluggishly as the DMV. It’s violating contracts, reneging on promises, and changing the rules as arbitrarily as any government bureaucracy. What gives? To paraphrase Alan Greenspan, this seems to contradict free-market models about “the way the world works.” I’m frankly stumped. Somebody ask Terry Savage at the Chicago Sun-Times. I want answers!