1. To those who have passed, the ones we know of, and those we don’t…rest well.

2. To those still struggling to get through this…all the best to you and your families.

3. To those trying to ease their consciences with public relations spin and lies to the press…rot in your hypocrisy.

Help out someone who needs it…

Have a nice day.

- Drake

This is Ken, see Ken bristle...

From the St. Petersburg Times:

“Lenny Stamos, owner of Beach Cyclists in St. Pete Beach, said he sent in five years of sales tax returns to document his $34,000 loss for last summer. The agency turned down his emergency claim for insufficient documentation, he said. He’s represented by a lawyer.

“My wife and I borrowed $30,000 on our credit cards to keep the business going,” Stamos said.

A claims agent told him he didn’t see any emergency if they had money to borrow, he said.”

And at a news conference on Monday, Ken Feinberg bristled as to why his office has approved $3.8 billion dollars from the $20 billion dollar fund while rejecting thousands of claims…

Keep bristling, Ken…

At least until you answer some basic questions, such as – when will you finally open the books so people can find out what is going on with the GCCF…or, why is it when reporter after reporter continues to find people the GCCF has done wrong, you shrug it away, saying:

The GCCF isn’t perfect…

Yes, we’ve made mistakes…

We’re handling a lot of claims…

Hey Ken, we know this already, and these answers aren’t sufficient.

If you can’t figure out why these mistakes are being made, why people are being left behind…open the books and give somebody else a try…because your lack of payments are hurting people, hurting them badly. As long as there is a dollar left in that escrow account, the money should keep going out -  one person losing a business, losing a house, or one family who’s had to break things up for awhile, is simply one too many.

It certainly doesn’t make things right, no…not at all.

Read the article:

BP claims czar defends payouts of just $3.8 billion from $20 billion fund

And in case you missed it, a good overview of the GCCF, from it’s beginning to the present:

Oil spill claims czar Kenneth Feinberg is ‘bloodied, but unbowed’ – David Hammer

Have a nice day.

Sleigh Bells – Treats

The hidden subtext?

Obviously…

Well, hello again MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and FoxNews!

 Welcome back, so glad you have a budget, no…please, tell us how we should feel…what we should think…how to behave…the proper response to misfortune…how gracious we should all be…yes, we have someone who will cry on camera…yes, we can show you the eviction notice…yes, we can also…hey, wait!!!!

Where you going?!?

Hey…Hello?

I guess…

I guess we’ll see you next year…

Have a nice day

From what I've heard, the Gulf Coast loves me like a brother, and I've heard nothing to indicate otherwise. Why do you ask?

From Danielle Thomas, an attorney with a legal aid group, who has been assisting people with their GCCF claims:

“These people are still really, really hurting…bills are coming due, or they’re already way past due. They’re borrowing from friends and families. There are people living out of cars with their children… It’s unbearable for people.”

From Ken Feinberg, administrator of the BP fund:

“I’m doing my best…the program is not perfect, but I think we are achieving what BP and the administration wanted to see done.”

And that is, exactly what?

British Petroleum appears to have been about cutting costs, from their actions on the Deepwater Horizon to their commitment to the Gulf Coast after the oil spilled…be it trying to influence the scientific research into what caused the spill, to the lowballing of flow rates from the Macondo Well, to their recently stated denial of responsibility in paying to reseed oyster beds which were damaged while combating the spill.

As for the administration, well, President Obama doesn’t even have plans to be in Louisiana for the anniversary of the rig’s explosion, instead opting to spend time in California.

So, if it appears BP and the administration are just trying to save money and/or pretend the Gulf Coast doesn’t exist, and this is what Feinberg says he is trying to achieve…it might explain why he is constantly trying to rewrite the narratives of what is happening with claimants every time a journalist asks him a question.

Take, for example, his continued explanations on why so many people are taking the quick pay option which pays only $500o dollars to individuals and $25,000 to businesses, and requires them to sign away their rights to sue BP for future damages:

“Feinberg believes people…either received an emergency payment last year and feel “adequately compensated” already, or they simply lack the proper documentation to prove further damages. If people were being pushed into quick payments, “you would think there would be a flood of citizen complaints in the Gulf,” he said, “and we haven’t seen that.”

He hasn’t seen a flood of citizen complaints?

I find this hard to believe considering he has repeatedly stated in the press that he’s read the well over 3000 comments submitted to the GCCF website during the Final Claims Methodology public comment period.

Go ahead, take a look for yourselves. I do think that unlike Feinberg, you’ll find many, many people saying that after reading the methodology, they’re considering the quick pay claims because the continued stalling has made them financially desperate, also, just so they can be done with the GCCF for good.

Comments such as:

Feb 16th – “I started a business five years ago that was successful prior to the oil spill, and now It may not make it another year without your assistance. I’m just trying to live the american dream and have something to pass on to my children. This methodology you proposed is just a delay and a scare tactic, you are playing poker with our lives. This methodology is so unfair it now looks good to individuals and business to take the quick pay, you hold all the money and the cards. What a sorry business man you are. We will not go down without a fight. Do the right thing and you may sleep better at night.”

And, of all the comments on the GCCF website, I would challenge Feinberg to find 1%, or 30 of them from claimants who state they have been “fairly compensated.”

So yes, like the price of gas and faulty cleanup efforts, and like the giveaway to Wall Street and large investment banks, and like the way GCCF’s claims process is being handled, it would appear that British Petroleum, the administration and Ken Feinberg are all on the same page when attempting to screw the residents of the Gulf Coast, in the accustomed Feinbergian ways:

1. If you repeat a lie often enough, people who aren’t paying close attention will start to believe it.

And

2. The way to deal with residents harmed by the oil spill is to stall them into submission, or at least until the media, and the claimants themselves are forced  to simply give up and go away.

In the press, Feinberg can say he is doing a good job all he wants, but his narrative, just like British Petroleum’s “Making Things Right” commercials, is nothing more than a well-produced spin tactic.

And in the real world, we refer to spin by it’s more proper name: lies.

Have a nice day.

Meet Capt. Louis Bayhi…

Before the spill he had a lucrative business, his health and the health of his family, a home, cars…but now, he’s lost his house, his vehicles and he and his family are staying at a relative’s. He’s also sick, and so are his daughters who came to swim in the waters around Grand Isle, after he was assured by BP and the government that the water was safe…it wasn’t.

Let him tell it to you…and know he is one of many who are suffering the same current fate…without health insurance, and not being taken care of…

British Petroleum and Bob Dudley, Ken Feinberg and the GCCF…things have not been made whole, not in the least and the two of you and your companies/organizations are directly responsible…

Everybody but those two…

Have a nice day.

...And Bob's thoughtful, focused eyes, they scanned the horizon in serious contemplation of actions, and most certainly not, just words...

Bob Dudley, presiding over the British Petroleum shareholders meeting, read aloud the names of the eleven men who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and then spoke of , “working hard to earn back trust…through our actions, not just our words…”

- Oh, and he proceeded to mock an activist shareholder, Antonia Juhasz, who read a letter written by the father of one of the men killed, saying in response, “Many of your statements sound like they were prepared by a plaintiff’s attorney.”

Bob Dudley, presiding over the British Petroleum shareholders meeting outlined several of the changes British Petroleum has made to revamp its management structure and build safety into its everyday operations, thus hopefully making drilling safer.

- Oh, and shareholders proceeded to re-elect as director Sir William Castell, who as chairman of the company’s safety, ethics and environment assurance committee presided over the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.

- And…Mr. Castell was also the individual at the meeting who tried to cut off Antonia Juhasz when she read, ”This was no act of God — BP, Halliburton and Transocean could have prevented this…but it would have taken more time, more money, and you were too greedy to wait. You rolled the dice with my son’s life, and you lost.”

- And…shareholders then proceeded to award bonuses to various executives, including making Tony Hayward eligible for vested performance shares for 2010, worth up to 8 million pounds.

BP Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, also presiding over the British Petroleum shareholders meeting, said a lot as he tried to reassure restless stockholders, “”Everything we have done since Deepwater Horizon has had one aim; to win back the trust of shareholders and communities the world over…” and, “BP remains a great company, with a great history and, I believe, a great future…” and, “I can assure you I will do everything I can to bring a prosperous future for this company.”

- Oh, and shareholders proceeded to authorize BP to continue making political donations…

- Because…donating to political figures is something BP will surely need to do, for though Mr. Svanberg is confident in the future of his great company, the future is not so assured for the “community,” for the Gulf Coast residents who have been so harmed by the actions of his company, and there still remain a few politicians who will need donations to forget this fact.

- And…even though Bob Dudley can say that 99% of fishing waters in the Gulf have reopened and the EPA nd FDA’s testing of seafood from said opened waters is safe to eat, the general public is still not so convinced, thus, nobody is buying the seafood.

- And…even though Bob Dudley can say he is determined to earn back the trust of communities, it is his company which unleashed a Ken Feinberg on the Gulf Coast who while doing his best to ensure BP remains solvent, is doing far less to guarantee the same for the Gulf Coast residents.

- And finally…though Bob Dudley can respectfully recite the names of eleven men to his company’s shareholders, many will debate just how much of it was media/political theater, and how much of it, considering the other activities that occurred at this meeting, was sincere feeling for both the grieving families, and for a region still trying to recover, a region that still hopes, one day soon, their reality might again sync up with the glowing reports from British Petroleum’s own public relations campaign.

- Oh, and have a nice day.

Never let 'em see ya sweat, Bob...

I’d buy a ticket, hell, I’d even buy a few shares of British Petroleum stock just so I could get in the door to watch, and then set them on fire during the middle of the meeting:

From the Independent…

“Annual general meetings are sometimes stormy affairs, but the tempest swirling around the London AGM of the oil giant BP this morning looks unprecedented.

At least half a dozen vociferous and angry groups are set to lay siege to the British Petroleum board and its American chief executive, Bob Dudley, when they go through the annual ritual of facing their shareholders at the Excel convention centre in London’s Docklands.

Fishermen and women from the Gulf Coast in the United States who were hit by the oil spill that followed the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig will be joined in protests at the meeting by indigenous communities who are angry about the company’s involvement in tar sands extraction in Canada.”

And the quote of the day, from Diane Wilson, a commercial fisherman from Texas who will be at the meeting today, the same Diane Wilson who had to be dragged out of a US Senate hearing on the oil spill last year:

“I want to give a voice to an outrage and make it clear that these corporations need to be held accountable for what they do…I have three charges against me, have been banned from Washington DC and I could face 800 days in jail. Yet no one from BP has been charged with anything.”

Enjoy the article:

BP executives brace for a stormy meeting with shareholders

Have a nice day.

Go Sharks!

When will these people understand, the process is transparent, so long as they take me at my word...

“The idea that there’s some sort of conspiracy to force people to take the Quick Payment is totally false… mounting a soap box and making that argument is no substitute for taking a close look at the statistics, reviewing the claims and seeing what is going on here.”

So says Ken Feinberg in response to Mississippi Attorney General Hood’s district court filing where Hood requested the court appoint officials to oversee the claims process, in effect asking for an audit of the GCCF. Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but it would appear taking a close look at the statistics, and reviewing claims to see what is going on with the claims process is precisely what  Jim Hood wants to do.

The problem, it seems, is Hood wants to look at the entire claims process, not just the parts Feinberg is willing to show, or as Hood states, “It just seemed kind of surreal and defensive to me. It seems like they are nervous the judge is going open the books on this process…transparency is what we want.”

Feinberg also writes that Hood’s assertion the GCCF is forcing people into quick payments by way of intentionally stalling claims until people are financially desperate is an “unsupported and damaging assertion.”

I disagree, due to just a few simple facts:

1. This oil spill and its aftermath have been going on just a few days short of a year.

2. Some people have been out of work, or making a minute fraction of what they did pre-spill for a year.

An entire year, Ken.

3. At this point, again, a year later, the GCCF has paid 98% of quick pay claims, $5,000 dollars to individuals and $25,000 dollars to businesses, all of which require people to sign away their rights to sue BP for future damages and at the same time, the GCCF has paid only 3% of interim claims, payments which allow people to keep filing for damages, and thus not waive their rights to sue…this of course can give the appearance claimants, if they need their money bad enough, are being steered to certain choices, and these choices benefit British Petroleum.

4. When claimants do receive a final claims offer, the acceptance of which also requires the claimant to sign a waiver not to sue, these offers appear to be of low monetary amounts.

5. When Ken gets all petulant in the press, stating there is no proof his final claim offers are too low, he often intimates his critics haven’t seen the claims which might prove the GCCF offers to be reasonable, but at the same time, he continually refuses an audit of the claims, something which might clearly show if he is telling the truth, or lying. This lack of transparency, once again, requires the public and local officials to take him at his word…

6. Ken Feinberg’s days of being taken at his word ended a long, long time ago…right about the time Judge Barbier ruled he was not a neutral arbitrator, and further bolstered by his law firm’s recent raise from $850,000 to $1.25 million dollars a month, all paid by British Petroleum.

Again, this has been going on for a year…

It should also be noted that in the court filing that contained Feinberg’s response, it is argued that Barbier’s court has no jurisdiction over the GCCF, claiming the GCCF is “working effectively” and any court intervention would “chill the ability of GCCF personnel to work expeditiously without fear of running afoul of an independent auditor.”

This may very well be true, so long as one considers that British Petroleum is the one the GCCF is “working effectively” for, and when it comes to a fear of an auditor, they mean, an auditor besides BP.

As Jim Hood said in response to Ken’s most recent legal tantrum: “At some point, I’m going to put his tail in a chair and make him raise his right hand in a deposition and get to the bottom of whether him and BP conspired to force people into the Quick Pay process…”

And again:

“Transparency is what we want.”

Yes, yes it is…

Transparency is what Ken has promised over and over again…

And these promises have held up about as well as his promises to do right by the residents of the Gulf Coast.

Read the article:

Gulf of Mexico oil spill claims administrator fires back at Mississippi attorney general

Have a nice day

The Gulf? Oh yeah, I ate some shrimp there once...and I've been watching BP's commercials, obviously things are going just fine.

Where Barack Obama and the vast majority of Congress remain mute, the Attorneys General across the Gulf Coast continue to call it like they see it, and they see Feinberg and the GCCF putting the screws to the Gulf Coast, at the behest of British Petroleum who has been screwing them all along:

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood wrote, in his second legal brief on the matter, how BP uses “economic duress to manipulate financially desperate claimants into providing BP … with an improperly broad release of claims and legal rights in exchange for inadequate consideration.”

Also included in brief is the dire need for court supervision of the GCCF process:

“A breaking point in the health and economic vitality of our coastal citizens and communities has now been reached as the result of the failure of the claims process to timely and fully compensate claimants with legitimate claims for the losses.”

He blames Feinberg, for basically being Feinberg, BP’s paid off cover-up agent, stating the claims process is still murky, still far from transparent, and Feinberg uses that lack of transparency to manipulate the public into thinking all is well:

“This distortion of the truth is emblematic of the media campaign launched by Mr. Feinberg, acting on BP’s behalf, to mislead the public regarding the GCCF [Gulf Coast Claims Facility] and to conceal the repeated violations of OPA [the Oil Pollution Act] by BP, through the GCCF claims process…this court can only rely on anecdotes from claimants to the press and to state consumer protection officials … to form the basis for any challenge to the adequacy of the current BP claims process or to fashion a remedial order to cure alleged violations of OPA by BP and the GCCF.”

And that’s just the beginning, the Attorney General for Alabama also weighs in…read the rest of the article here:

AGs Claim BP Given Pass to ‘Distort’ & ‘Subvert’

Have a nice day.

Not Ken Feinberg, and no longer employed by the GCCF

Oh, and you’re not needed anymore here…

Earlier this year, Kenneth Feinberg reached out to former US Rep, Ahn ” Joseph” Cao to serve as a liaison to Vietnamese coastal and fishing communities, and apparently Cao made the mistake of taking his role too seriously.

Ah yes, the tale of two stories…

From Feinberg, a man with serious credibility issues:

“We appreciate all that former Congressman Cao did in assisting the Gulf Coast Claims Facility…We have moved on to the next phase in the claims process, and we are grateful for his completing his assignment with us.”

From Cao, a former Republican politician from Louisiana, whose credibility is rarely even questioned by Democrats:

Cao said Feinberg called him in early March and told him he was being too “hands-on” and that his services were no longer needed.

It would appear Cao was spending a bit too much time criticizing the claims process, telling Feinberg how the process didn’t really try to understand the fishing communities, oh and also the former US Rep was holding too many town halls…making himself too available when Feinberg wanted him to restrict his duties to manning an office.

Perhaps Feinberg was jealous that during Cao’s townhalls, he didn’t need extra security or didn’t have people chanting “liar.”

Read the article:

Former Congressman Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao terminated by oil spill claims czar Kenneth Feinberg

Have a nice day.

The Clash – Straight to Hell

The hidden subtext?

Obviously…

So, I got an idea. It’s pretty simple really, but that makes it no less effective. Everybody, just blame everybody. Make people unavailable for hearings. If you can’t clean the beaches, buy the beaches. We’ll all trade off, sometimes it’ll be BP’s fault, sometimes Halliburton or Transocean and just for kicks, every once in awhile we’ll let Feinberg give an interview so he can take the heat off all of us, you know, to recharge. Blowout preventers, who could’ve stopped what and when…really, just make it as complicated as possible and don’t forget Nalco, sometimes it’ll be Nalco’s turn…but just keep it all going. Accept no blame clearly for anything, ever. Right, complicated, ya know? Once the people stop paying attention, then -in reality- it ceases to exist and we got an anniversary coming, so okay, so who’s gonna take the brunt on the anniversary?

Great idea…on April 20th, we’ll give Feinberg another raise. Double it, why not? Oh c’mon, we don’t need to ask, we don’t ask Feinberg anything, we tell him. Hell, we drag this out long enough boys, and climate change’ll render the whole thing a moot point, anyway.

Okay…good then, cheers!

Have a nice day. 

Well, lots of things could be killing these animals...underfishing, uh...a new toxic form of plankton...and zebra carp, don't forget the zebra carp.

Ken Feinberg, of course assured all in his methodology that everything would be fine in the Gulf by 2012…but certain species, even beyond humans might beg to differ…

Just ask the dolphins:

Oiled dead dolphins washing ashore, 8 months after spill

Or ask the sea turtles:

Sea Turtle Deaths Mount in the Gulf

Hell, even ask the dwarf sea horses if ya like:

Dwarf seahorses threatened by BP oil spill, deserve protection, environmental group says

The point simply being, for a body of water that Feinberg has expressed is quickly on the road to recovery, there sure is a lot of death going on, and it would seem to imply that his estimations, those little facts and figures he is trying to base all claims upon, they simply aren’t holding up.

Yet he keeps stalling interim claim payments…the only claims that can take into account ongoing damage in the Gulf, while speeding along quick payments, and now the final payments, both of which leave claimants - people and families – out of luck should things not improve by his timetable.

Course, with all those signed waivers, British Petroleum and its employees need not fear being placed on any endangered species list anytime soon and along with Feinberg, appear to be the only species so secure. 

Funny how that all worked out…

Have a nice day.

Transocean: trying not to make dumb, even dumber...

This is how it’s supposed to work:

A company, Transocean in this case, makes a bonehead move and gives bonuses to its executives for their “exemplary” safety record last year.

Transocean, being an offshore drilling contractor at work on the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded and killed eleven people, is immediately barraged with criticism for awarding these bonuses. Steven Newman, CEO of Transocean, and four other executives who received these bonuses donate them in total to a fund set up by the company for the victims’ families, while Newman goes on record saying it was never their intent to diminish the effect the disaster had on those who lost loved ones in the explosion.

Simple.

A company makes a mistake. They get called on it. They make amends.

Tony Hayward, former CEO of British Petroleum is also up for a bonus of 8 million pounds, and according to the Wall Street Journal, this is actually more than each family who lost a loved one in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon will receive in compensation from his company.

Will he follow Transocean’s lead, or is he still trying to get his life back?

Ken Feinberg, the neutral administrator of the BP escrow fund has been criticized and/or accused of everything from not following through on his promises of transparency to the intentional delay of interim claims in the hopes of getting people to accept final claim offers out of desperation, thus have to waive their right to sue BP. He has lied, repeatedly to people at his meetings, promising them he will look into their claims personally, which is typically the last these people ever hear from him unless they can find a reporter to follow up. The GCCF pays out very little to Gulf Coast residents for a lot of lost time and money, and then Feinberg proceeds to whine when criticized, blaming everybody but himself for the clusterfuck that is his claims process.

Feinberg and his law firm recently received a raise from BP for all his hard work, upping the wage from $850,000 dollars per month to $1.25 million.

Will he follow Transocean’s lead, and do something personally for the people he is screwing over in the Gulf? Or will he just take his money back to New York and try to get the job dispensing compensation from the brand new 9-11 first responders fund, recently authorized by Congress?

Hard to say…but I got a good guess which way he’ll go.

Anybody wanna make a bet?

Have a nice day.

In reality, these are the hands of Dudley, Hayward, Transocean, Anadarko and Nalco

Ah yes, the legalities of our lawyerly society…one of the truly frustrating experiences is watching a case built on common sense disintegrate into the bullshit of corporate attorneys…or, in other words:

You can find an expert to give expert testimony on anything.

Take for example, global warming…despite common sense dictating something is seriously going wrong on our planet, despite the near unanimous consensus that we are in big, freaking trouble unless we do something fast and even then, it might not be enough…well, our corporate brethren and their Republicans (primarily) can still trot out an expert or two…versus thousands, to say that what we all bear witness to is merely a fluctuation in normal temperature and it surely isn’t man-made.

Well, in the Gulf…a big game of what can you prove is beginning, all centered around the short and long term health effects resulting from all that toxic crude and corexit dispersant dumped into the waters.

British Petroleum and Nalco, you can be sure, will have attorneys all over this…trying to demonstrate that in fact, there are no health effects, everything is fine…it’s all just a case of some wicked flu going down in these four states, or once its acknowledged by the government that something’s going wrong (if ever), well then these two companies will hire their own experts to say that yes, people are getting sick, yes, it would appear we got us a four state cancer cluster, yes, it is odd, perhaps even an alarming statistical anomaly, but it is impossible to clearly demonstrate or prove the oil spill caused this…

The stories of sickness in the Gulf continue to come:

A Cry for Help – American Zombie

Gulf Residents Concerned About Health Effects of Oil Spill, but Link Remains Unconfirmed – Dean Praetorius

BP hit by health claims over Gulf of Mexico clean-up – Richard Blackden

Gulf Oil Spill Workers Report Health Problems – Amanda Gardner

Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives – Dahr Jamil

As an example of the attitudes to be expected out of any upcoming court fights, I give you Ken Feinberg, BP paid administrator of the BP claims fund, from an article by Mac McClelland:

“Feinberg, interrupting a person complaining about not being compensated for paralyzing headaches: “You gotta demonstrate that the physical injury is due to the spill. We are paying physical injury claims.”

Yep, just try proving your headache came from exposure to oil and dispersants, despite the fact you never had headaches of any frequency or strength before the spill, try to prove it came as a result…especially when BP will have ten expert witnesses for their defense being questioned by ten well paid attorneys to prove otherwise.

If/when this happens, you may be able to call it law, but you sure won’t call it justice…

So yeah, this is why I worry…

Have a nice day.

We could never forget about you, Bob...

Yeah, Feinberg and the GCCF are doing a number on the Gulf Coast residents right now, but lest we forget…he and his shenanigans would hardly be necessary if British Petroleum’s explosion of the Deepwater Horizon hadn’t occurred in the first place, killing eleven men and trashing an eco-system.

The Department of Justice is currently deciding whether to press manslaughter charges against various British Petroleum personnel.

In an excellent article by Tom Schroder at the Daily Beast, he lays out the case for why BP could be so charged:

“On Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that federal prosecutors are considering filing manslaughter charges against BP managers in the April 20, 2010, deaths of 11 crewmembers of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. BP, which has already paid billions of dollars to help clean up the largest accidental oil spill in history and compensate those who suffered economic losses, has been under the threat of criminal indictments since June. To date, the blame for the well blowout has been widely distributed, with BP deflecting much, if not most, of the responsibility for the disaster to the companies the oil company had hired to drill and manage their well. An indictment of BP managers for manslaughter would be a dramatic refutation of that position. To meet the legal definition of manslaughter, those responsible for the safe drilling of the well would have to be found to have acted with negligence, “without due caution and circumspection.”"

Read the article at the Daily Beast:

Is BP Guilty of Manslaughter?

Have a nice day.

LSU Law, Special Victims Unit

When it comes to Gulf Coast claims larger than $250,000 dollars, appeals will be heard by a special group of judges and Feinberg named Jack Weiss, chancellor of the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center in Baton Rouge, to be the person to select who those judges will be.

About his selection, Feinberg said, “I canvassed the Gulf region in an attempt to find an individual who would bring unquestioned credibility, integrity and sound judgment to the process of selecting the appeals judges…I have found that person in Jack Weiss. He brings decades of experience to this assignment, both as a nationally recognized law professor and administrator. I am confident that I have chosen the right person for the job.”

Okay, a couple of things:

Endorsements, especially such glowing ones by Ken Feinberg should make anyone nervous these days.

That aside, I will not attempt to impugn Jack Weiss’s ethics or his impartiality here. This is not for me to say and it is my hope he will do a fine job, choose judges who will be of the highest ethical order and unwilling to be swayed by the large financial reach of British Petroleum.

But that very reach is what might give cause for concern.

Institutional pressures work in small, subtle ways and you better believe British Petroleum and Ken Feinberg know this.

They also know that LSU, the university where Jack Weiss is a respected leader in law, has received millions upon millions of dollars from British Petroleum. Now, I wouldn’t insinuate a direct quid-pro-quo is in effect, but the idea that those amounts of money don’t linger somewhere in the back of Mr. Weiss’s mind as he selects these judges is not so easy to dismiss. Especially these days, as Bobby Jindal is turning the destruction of Louisiana’s higher education into an art form, cutting millions of dollars to universities already financially hurting.

Whereas I don’t doubt Mr. Weiss’s experience and qualifications, I do have a harder time believing his employment at LSU and the money BP has given to that university didn’t factor into BP/Feinberg’s selection. Really, for them it is a win-win. Weiss is local and if no institutional pressures are applied, well no harm, no foul, can’t blame a corporation for trying. But if somehow such pressures are applied, leading to friendlier judges?

Then they win the bonus round. 

Jack Weiss, in accepting this appointment said, “I am deeply honored to be entrusted with this important public service assignment. My goal is simple: to select impartial, highly competent judges to decide GCCF appeals fairly, expeditiously, and in keeping with the law.”

Assuming that all goes ethically well, the judges he appoints may be the first to do such things…so, here’s hoping.

Read the article:

LSU law chancellor Jack Weiss chosen for Gulf of Mexico oil spill claims appeals job

Have a nice day.

Yeah, I know...but just between you and me, isn't conflict of interest really open to interpretation?

Guess who’s getting more money in the Gulf?

If you guessed claimants, you don’t read this blog too often, but if you guessed Feinberg…you win! And what do you win?

Your very own gift-wrapped box of anger and frustration.

Just announced, Feinberg and his law firm had their rate of pay increased from $850,000 dollars a month to $1.25 million dollars. Obviously because of the good job he is doing…you know, for British Petroleum.

For claimants? Um, not so much…so says Orange Beach Mayor Anthony Kennon, “He has performed poorly, and I’m being polite, and yet they are giving him a raise…the real question is, how does BP view his performance? They are giving him a raise, so they must think it’s good. That speaks for itself.”

Well, I’ve got another number that speaks for itself.

Three, as in three days.

Feinberg loves to crow about the $3.6 billion dollars already paid out by the GCCF in the Gulf, but the average final payment accepted by Gulf Coast residents is a mere $12,000 dollars, an amount meant to cover all present and future damages. And now, $12,000 dollars is also the amount British Petroleum will pay every three days to Ken Feinberg and his law firm for all their outstanding service.

So why the $400,000 dollar per month raise?

In what would seem an attempt to give himself cover, Feinberg requested that US Attorney General Michael Mukasey explain the increased compensation, and the AG stated it is his belief that the extra money is warranted because Feinberg’s duties have grown.

Maybe…but I’ve got other possible explanations:

Feinberg has said that he figures only half of the $20 billion dollar escrow account set up by BP to pay claims in the Gulf Coast will be necessary, which of course means the other $10 billion dollars will be given back to British Petroleum. He denied 310,000 EAP claims outright and with the final and interim claims, he continues his demands for more and more documentation while also inferring claimants are being fraudulent.

Also, Feinberg set up a quick pay scheme that not only takes advantage of financial desperation, like the final claims, it requires claimants to waive their right to sue British Petroleum. This, while the claims process crawls along so slowly it has lead many to believe it’s a concerted effort to increase said desperation so claimants will accept whatever offer the GCCF makes, even if it is not nearly enough. Finally, Feinberg was able to find a scientist who believes that the Gulf will be recovered by next year, despite much evidence to the contrary, and he then proceeded to base his calculations upon this 2012 estimate, an estimate suggested as inconclusive and subject to change by the very scientist who wrote it.

Is all that worth a $400,000 dollar raise?

Not for me to say, but it would appear British Petroleum thinks so.

Hell, one might even say they are banking on it.

Read the article:

BP increases monthly fee for claims czar Kenneth Feinberg’s law firm to $1.25 million

Have a nice day.

Methinks Kenneth dost protest too much...

So, as I commented two days ago, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange fired off an angry letter to Ken Feinberg, the BP paid administrator of BP’s compensation fund outlining several objections he had with the process, chief among them being the snail’s pace and meager size of the payments, the lack of transparency in the process, and the stress this is causing to the citizens of his state. Mr. Strange demanded that Ken Feinberg “stop dragging his feet.”

This apparently didn’t sit too well with Mr. Feinberg who promptly wrote a letter of his own, to rebut the charges made by Strange…

Let’s review, shall we?

When it comes to the Quick Pay, Attorney General Strange asserts the reason so many are accepting the quick payments is that claimants are sick of dealing with the GCCF. Feinberg disputes this by writing that claimants take the quick payment because the ”claimant cannot prove any further damage.” Maybe, maybe not…many are curious to see if Feinberg is correct in this assumption but its awfully hard tell with so little transparency in the process. Besides, how are we to know if people cannot prove any more damage? Claimants who have accepted quick payments are no longer trying to do so which brings us back to Strange’s assertion, that people choose quick payments out of frustration. One need look only so far as some of the comments being posted by claimants to this website, or the GCCF’s own methodology comments page:

From a business/individual on February 16th, “This methodology is so unfair it now looks good to individuals and business to take the quick pay, you hold all the money and the cards.”

From a business owner on Feb 15th, “Your formula is definitely shaking-down people and businesses that are in a weakened position and are under duress.”

From an individual on Feb 14th, “The thing that really grinds my gears is that you are sitting on 16 billion! You only paid out 3.5 billion to 168,000 claimants…now 1/2 of those are gone because they were desperate and took the quick pay.”

I could continue in this vein, but you get the idea.

Feinberg also combats Strange’s accusation that the GCCF is paying people to go away, that the GCCF is working diligently to protect BP and secure releases for their liability. Feinberg writes how nothing could be further from the truth, that these release are designed to “bring closure to the prospect of endless litigation which is not beneficial either to claimants or the public interest.”

He neglects to mention litigation is also not beneficial to BP.

Nobody likes to go to court Ken, it is a long, drawn out process, but the idea that you are attempting to keep people out of court to give them closure would assume they have otherwise been “made whole.” Seeing how this is far from the case, your suggestion is condescending on two levels: the first being Gulf Coast residents can’t decide for themselves what constitutes closure and the second being people would be so stupid as to not see the waivers as ultimately saving British Petroleum a whole hell of a lot of money.

Next, Strange accused Feinberg of making meager payouts on final claims. Feinberg defends this by once again throwing out large numbers that don’t hold up to some simple math. He says the GCCF has paid $688 million dollars to 28,000 Alabamans. Okay, but this averages out to under $24,000 dollars per claim, a sum Feinberg calls “not an insignificant amount.” I would argue, like Strange, that it is quite insignificant as a large percentage of those claims are not individual claims, but business claims which receive much higher payouts and drive that average up. The future of the Gulf is unknown and the simple idea that these amounts, these averages will compensate for all present and future losses when twenty years after the Exxon Valdez, some industries have yet to rebound is again, laughable.

Feinberg points out that anyone can turn down his offer or appeal it to the Coast Guard. 467 people have tried this and 467 people have been denied, something Feinberg believes shows his process to be fair. Perhaps, or it might also show the Coast Guard is equally stingy and working with the same flawed recovery statistics as the GCCF, recovery statistics that claim the Gulf’s environment will be made whole inside of two years. This is doubtful, as a multitude of independent scientists suggest, and honestly, the Coast Guard has not been a shiny beacon of legitimacy throughout the past year…from Thad Allen’s sweeping pronouncement that they weren’t banning the reporters they were banning, to the way they stated Corexit was no longer being used when it was, to the way they accepted BP’s vastly flawed flow-rates before the well was capped, flow-rates that slowed down the spill response. In fact, I’d be curious to see any example where the Coast Guard didn’t give in to British Petroleum on pretty much anything over the past year, so why would the appeals process be any different? And this doesn’t even touch on the false hope involved in telling claimants if they don’t like the GCCF offer, they can appeal to a different body, a Coast Guard commission that has never ruled in any claimant’s favor.

Ken, isn’t that just kind of rubbing their faces in it?

Next, Strange expressed dismay about Feinberg’s continued inference of fraud being evident in claims made to the GCCF. Feinberg rebuts this by writing the GCCF has sent 1,035 claimants suspected of fraud to the Justice Department, “not an insignificant number.” Actually Ken, it is. Numerous studies have shown that after any major disaster, on average, 10% of claims in any claims process can be considered fraudulent. There have been over 480,000 claims made to the GCCF in total which would make the percentage of suspected fraudulent claims you forwarded to the DOJ ring in at far less than 1%.

Fraud is not a problem in the Gulf Coast claims process, regardless of suggestion by Feinberg, it merely serves as cover to the GCCF’s flaws.

Strange also wonders why Ken Feinberg now omits from his press releases the fact that 310,000 people were denied during the EAP process; the Attorney General further calls this omission another example of the GCCF not being “completely forthcoming.” Well okay, I’ll give that one to Feinberg. He pretty much states these numbers are common knowledge, and they are, so why would he have reason to hide them? The only thing I might consider is that when it comes to framing narratives, and Feinberg is indeed trying to promote the narrative that the GCCF is fair, he probably doesn’t want to start his recitation of final and interim claim numbers by reminding everyone just how many EAP’s the GCCF turned down. 310,000 denials with little to no transparency can cast a long shadow over a conversation on fairness.

Finally, Strange demands more transparency.

He wants Feinberg to release the amount of damages people are claiming versus the amount of damages the GCCF has offered to pay. In response Feinberg writes, “the release of such data would be a useless exercise; indeed it would be counterproductive.”

Useless and counterproductive to who? The GCCF? BP?

He goes on to cite a couple of examples where people have filed ridiculous claims, one person requesting the full $20 billion dollars while another claimant filed damages for $11 billion. Agreed Ken, those claims are ridiculous, but seeing as I can figure that out I’m pretty sure you can trust everybody else to see it as well. You write that people typically file for more damages than they can prove. and this is also true, but what Strange would appear to be looking for is a pattern of low-balling claims, and when your amounts offered are indeed meager, wanting to see this information in order to accurately evaluate your process seems entirely justified.

As I have written before, when it comes to the GCCF, full transparency is warranted. Transparency demonstrates a commitment to justice, to confidence, to credibility, but your credibility has been shown time and time again to be lacking, especially when Judge Barbier ruled you are not “independent” of BP as you so loudly trumpeted for months to anyone within ear shot of the Gulf Coast.

In fact, Barbier ruled you to be a “hybrid entity” of BP, and your claims to transparency are also a hybrid of the real thing, kind of…but not really. 

The time where you could be taken at face value, where you could decide what is in the “public interest,” or how the release of information would be nothing more than a “useless exercise” are over. In fact, one could argue, as Strange does in a roundabout way, the only “useless exercise” going on in the Gulf is when you base any pro-GCCF arguments on your word. 

Again, from the GCCF comments section come these words from an e-mail sent to you on Feb 14th, “I believe you should revert to the old BP calculations, they seemed fair and well thought out.” Now that is an impressive feat. Ken, once you were a self proclaimed savior to the Gulf Coast, but your Gulf Coast Claims Facility is so backwards, one claimant actually feels BP was the fair one, all along…

Methinks Strange is correct in his words.

Your’s are just one more empty harangue intended to deflect the reponsibility of failing the Gulf Coast. 

Have a nice day.

You meant narcissist in the good way, right?

The Attorney General of Alabama, Luther Strange wrote a letter to Ken Feinberg about his concerns with the GCCF and the payment of claims, highlighting many of the problems with the process that have been highlighted here and on several other websites.

Among his concerns:

1. Of all the claims reportedly paid, 98.9 % are the quick pay claims, claims that require no processing and of course require all recipients to waive their and their families rights to sue British Petroleum and a hundred other companies.

2. The average final payment accepted by claimants in Alabama is $12,000 dollars. With all the uncertainty in the Gulf’s recovery, the idea that $12,000 dollars will cover any and all damages is laughable at best.

3. Though Feinberg continually speaks of fraud and lack of documentation, in Alabama only 14.6% of claims required further documentation. The rest were turned down for other reasons, reasons that are not often revealed.

4. Why is it the GCCF now omits from its news releases the number of EAP claims which were turned down? This omission is only one of many example showing transparency continues to be an issue.

5. Although the GCCF seems to enjoy trumpeting the amount of money paid, $3.5 billion dollars, why is they refuse to release the total damage amounts people have claimed, surely billions more than has been paid. The GCCF will not give the complete picture, negating any attempt for people to properly evaluate the success or failure of the GCCF and its process.

Strange goes on to discuss how the GCCF’s botching of the claims process is having a detrimental effect on the mental health of Alabama’s citizens…their mental welfare being strained by frustration and uncertainty with the claims process, the demoralization of being reduced to begging Feinberg for money, the frustration that comes with claims being continually rejected and the realization that this ugly reality created by Feinberg and the GCCF will not be solved in the foreseeable future.

All, while so many lives are slipping into financial ruin, caused by no fault of their own.

Meanwhile, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood recently announced he will be touring the Coast later this month to hear comments from claimants in the BP oil catastraphuk. The gatherings will be held in conjunction with the Mississippi Center for Justice, the Mississippi Center for Legal Services, and the Mississippi Volunteer Lawyer’s Project.

“It is important to me to hear directly from the claimants what they have been experiencing in this process,” Hood said when announcing the meetings. The Attorney General has filed briefs in the oil spill litigation, asking for court-appointed monitors to move the $20 billion BP claims process along with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which is handling victim claims.

It is a positive that these two men are speaking out, and listening. This situation in the Gulf continues to be untenable.

It’s been almost a year since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, and seven months since Feinberg took over the claims process from British Petroleum and it is unconscionable that people continue to wait for payments…not hand-outs, but compensation from the company who spilled this oil across their lives. Feinberg does his interviews and issues his press releases, yet gives only part of the story, the side of the numbers that sound okay, while burying the rest behind a wall of secrecy. This, while he continues to promise transparency yet time after time delivers little to nothing.

Meanwhile, at the White House, Barack Obama still says nothing…proving that he is just one more president who came down to the Gulf Coast and after giving his speech, took his generators home, leaving the coast in the darkness created by unknowns.

At least Strange and Hood are willing to speak up, make some noise about the travesty that is the GCCF and the ego run wild that is Ken Feinberg…

In the words of Strange, from his letter:

“Rest assured, I will do everything I can to help our victims survive this catastrophe, including holding the GCCF’s feet to the fire. Quit dragging your feet and stalling the large majority of claims to a point where victims are so desperate that they settle for anything. remember, your job is to compensate the victims – not magnify their problems by playing games with BP’s money (to BP’s benefit).”

Here here…

Have a nice day.

P.S. I might only add, where the hell is James D. “Buddy” Caldwell?

Cancer Bats – Hail Destroyer

The hidden subtext?

Obviously…

British Petroleum? Feinberg?

They want you to go away.

They want you to accept whatever pittance they choose to give you, and say thanks for the pocket change while your homes, your businesses are foreclosed upon. Their mistakes pissed on what you knew as normal, your lives and your families. Washington DC, and many of your local politicians expressed empathy, and then cut funding to the social services keeping you afloat. The environmental protections meant to keep you safe were gutted and underfunded, and now that they have collapsed, immersed in a bath of oil and chemicals…they ignore your demands to keep your lives within the shadow of the American Dream, that same dream being lived by the politicians who sold you out while they shook your hand…and expected your vote.

Let’s call it what it is and confront the demons the corruption of our country has wrought…

Have a nice day…

- Drake

I can remember the days when my parents were invincible...

An old fashioned clock, a family heirloom holding its place on a worn fireplace mantle, chimes the ten o’clock hour. The silence the strikes disrupt is loud, louder than the churning waves of the gulf, of the boat motor that once went out into the waters, of the wall-phone ringing…

Probably just another creditor.

The couple sitting at the table don’t even look up. Answering it is out of the question.

The man’s baseball hat is pulled low. She can’t see his eyes as he reads from the letter and she isn’t sure she even wants too. Between them, sunlight comes in through dusty windows, stabs of light that once seemed warm, heating up the surface of their kitchen tables in the long Alabama mornings are now just a reminder of everything happening outside the walls of their home, of their closed restaurant. The prices of oysters got so high, and in time it didn’t even matter if they could afford them. Nobody wanted to eat the seafood anymore.

She watches as he reaches across the table for his cigarettes and lights one up. Their eyes meet briefly, but both look away fast, singed.

The chiming of the clock stops.

The kids will be home tomorrow.

She desperately wants to ask about the paper, almost as badly as she would rather remain in the dark.

She isn’t even angry anymore, those feelings were long ago replaced with resentment, only to be substituted again by a smothering resignation, more oppressive than the hottest summer she can remember, back when she was a young girl, back in the days when her parents were invincible and the worst thing she could imagine was to be embarrassed in front of a boy she kinda liked, maybe, but wouldn’t admit to liking, no way…

She and her husband have been married for nineteen years and it’s never been this bad before, not even during the aftermath of Katrina.

They had to repair the restaurant then, but unlike the hurricane, the oil spill kept coming and it closed them down.

“Well,” he says, something…finally.

She looks at him, but he’s still hiding below the brim of his hat.

“It’s an offer.”

She allows herself to hope, just briefly, but she knows it’s a lie. He still won’t look at her.

“It won’t bring back the restaurant, but it might save the house, for a little while.”

She doesn’t respond to this, not right away…She doesn’t know what to say.

The sun is so warm, unseasonably so.

And we’ll get through this, she thinks, she doesn’t know how, but some way. They’re strong, they’ve had to be many times in their marriage and they’ll have to be even stronger now.

“You okay?” he asks.

She looks back at him where their eyes meet again. Neither turn away this time and she’s struck by how much older he looks, aging fast over the past year, ever since the oil started drifting their way…

“Yes,” she lies, and then quickly corrects herself, “No, no, but I want to be, I will be.”

“Me too,” he says, unsmiling.

The phone rings again.

And this time she flinches, “We’re going to have to get a lawyer, it’s the only way.”

He sighs, nodding, and exhales smoke through the dirty rays of the sun…

This ain’t exactly the way it happened of course, of how a family, or of how many families decided they had to sue British Petroleum to have any chance the company would actually make things right…

But the point of such naratives are to remind anyone who forgets that the people on the Gulf Coast are not statistics on a GCCF website.

They’re people and they’re families.

If only Feinberg would realize this, instead of just saying the words…

Read the article:

BP oil spill lawsuits: Area restaurants among state businesses seeking damages

Have a nice day.

They finally get something right...

Hey all,

Just wanted to send a quick note of congratulations to G, and her husband. They got in touch with me sometime ago about their claims, expressing their frustrations with investigations by the GCCF, disgust with the length of time it was taking…79 days to get a quick payment? And an overall disappointment with BP and Feinberg for the damages, the stalling, the runaround and the lies.

Well, they got paid today, so I just wanted to say congratulations to them and a continuing best of luck to everybody who’s still waiting. Like G. and her husband, may all eventually have the good fortune to finally be done with the GCCF and their miserly ways…

- Drake

What's that you say?

From the Walton Sun:

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) announced Monday that more than half of the claims submitted to the organization for losses associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill have been processed. Ken Feinberg, GCCF administrator, reported more than 54 percent of the roughly 256,000 claims submitted since the end of the emergency payment period in November have been processed.

“We are determined to continue to accelerate the processing of all individual and business claims submitted to the GCCF. I remain concerned about the number of claims which lack proof and remain unsubstantiated,” Feinberg said in a statement.

Wow, sounds pretty good on the surface of things…course, once one digs a little deeper the problems begin to rear their oily heads…

In Florida, where 38% of the 260, 739 claims filed were paid, though the total paid out was more about $1.25 billion, this means the average final payment comes to about $12,600 dollars. Twelve thousand dollars for total loss of wages, present and future, in an un-recovered Gulf. When you take into account that these average numbers are helped by larger payments to businesses, how much are individuals really getting?

Certainly not enough to make things right.

Also, out of the 62,204 applications submitted for interim payments, you know, those pesky claims where people don’t have to waive their right to sue British Petroleum, the GCCF’s percentage of claimants paid, that 50% number drops significantly. In fact, it drops to 4%. Of the interim payments filed, less than 2500 claims have been paid.

So, if Feinberg and the GCCF have paid half of the final payment claims, claims where people must waive their right to sue while only paying 4% of the claims where people do not, what do you think might be happening out there?

Yeah, that’s right, it would appear that people are being funneled by frustration with the interim payment process into making final payment claims.

And who would benefit the most from that development?

British Petroleum, the same company that pays Feinberg.

Have a nice day.

The Hit-Makers...the British New Wave and that Texas Sound...

Remember these old hits?

Tony Hayward says he “wants his life back?”

Or how about that now infamous slogan of British Petroleum’s concerning all things oil spill, that pledge to”make things right.”

Well, as someone who blogs about these subjects, these two statements gave me a lot of mileage. They were tailor-made, a way to give a verbal “screw-you” to the whole damn company every time they inevitably did anything but make things right, or when I mentioned how Gulf Coast residents are far more entitled to get their life back, way more than some narcissist with an inability to shut up like Mr. Hayward.

But, you know…those slogans were getting a little old, a little tired, kind of hard to keep using them in different ways oh-so-many months later, and just when I was starting to get really nervous about what I was going to do as a blogger…well, Bob Dudley goes to the CERA conference and in his apology to his fellow oil and gas industry executives, he spoke of having to regain not only their trust, but the trust of the politicians and the Gulf Coast residents themselves.

And then, Bob uttered the newest catchphrase…saying that British Petroleum gets it, and in order to regain the trust of all, this will require: “Actions, not words.”

Thank you.

Actions, not words…

I couldn’t agree more.

So okay…Bob…if British Petroleum is about actions to regain trust of the Gulf Coast and not just words, then why is British Petroleum reneging on yet another promise?

From the Alabama Press-register: Time for BP to ‘take responsibility’ for VOO damages

Turns out that all those boats Bob’s company hired to help cleanup the oil as part of the “Vessels of Opportunity” program are not getting the promised repairs. BP initially told everyone if there were any damages, they’d pay to fix things up, but just like hundreds of thousands of people who have been denied by Feinberg’s GCCF, captains in the Orange Beach area of Alabama are now getting their repair claims denied by BP.

Way to regain trust, moron.

“These boat captains — experts on local waters — were willing and ready to work for BP during the worst days of the oil spill, deploying boom, skimming oil and patrolling for oil sheens and slicks. Despite complaints that local people weren’t always getting first chance at the jobs, the idea of employing the people who were kept from their business of fishing and tourism was sound…(Now) the busiest time of the year for boat owners and captains is again approaching. They need to be out on the water…They made agreements with BP to do a job, and part of those agreements included reimbursements for damages. Instead of living up to its end of the deal, BP seems willing to risk more bad publicity and the possibility that frustrated captains will hire attorneys and file lawsuits.”

“Actions, not words…”

Damn Bob, it’s like when you guys at BP speak, you’re living in this strange self-created reality where you are good, kind, responsible people who care, where the Gulf of Mexico is fine. I understand that in your boardrooms and bedrooms, people automatically take your words as the gospel truth,or at least tell you they do…but out here in the real world, things are a little different. Out here, Bob, most people recognize you for the shameless shyster you are, at the helm of a company who reneges on deals, destroys the environment and is at minimum, partly culpable in the deaths of eleven people in the Gulf.

But, it would seem to you that’s neither here nor there.

“Actions, not words…”

So, I mean, thanks for the new catchphrase…I like it, I think it might be you’re biggest hit yet and I’ll probably hang onto it for awhile…but really Bob, don’t think people don’t realize your slogans are as hollow as your apologies, your integrity and your promises.

People simply aren’t that stupid.

Have a nice day.

It's okay everybody...in a mere ten months he'll finally realize the error of his ways and send small, disabled children to stores on every corner everywhere to buy Gulf Coast families the biggest goose they can find for their Christmas dinner, all the while leaning out his office window shouting "Merry Christmas!" over and over again like some sort of deranged lunatic.

In the words of Jeff O’Bryant, a restaurant manager from Miramar Beach Florida, “I received $14,000 in emergency payments and have been offered a measly $7,500 as a final payout. That is supposed to cover losses through 2013? Our losses have cut deep and will be felt for a long time. The $7,500 will cover taxes and a mortgage payment. This won’t nearly be enough to avoid foreclosure.”

A scant three days ago, the average amount of an accepted final payment from Feinberg’s GCCF was at $11,000 dollars, but now, as of March 7th, the average has dropped to $6,800 dollars. By Feinberg’s own estimation there is roughly $15 billion dollars available in BP’s escrow fund, yet so far he has offered up only $64 million dollars in final payment money.

Makes a guy wonder how the negotiations are going between Feinberg and British Petroleum, you know, to determine how much his law firm will be paid for the next three months to administer the fund.

And even though the average on final payments will doubtless fluctuate over the coming months and probably begin to climb at some point, I’m guessing that the claimant, or the business that gets paid more than Feinberg for administering this mess will be the rare, rare exception and certainly not the rule…

Have a nice day.