The Oil Spill: More than one Leak?
The more I learn about this, the more it’s clear that this is an unmitigated disaster both ecologically and economically. The fishing and tourism industries in the gulf and possibly all the way to Florida and the Caribbean may be virtually wiped out for years. I’ve been consistently reading over the past few weeks that the amount of oil that was leaking daily was far greater than the administration and BP admitted to and neither has a lot of credibility at this point as it now comes out that far more oil was leaking than just the original estimates.
Of course, it’s not Obama’s fault that BP screwed up, but it appears that he’s been a bit late in coming out and communicating about the government’s efforts and what exactly is being done to manage this thing. Now it appears that BP doesn’t know what it’s doing and all of this doesn’t leave anyone with a warm and cozy feeling about the outcome. The guys in the video below are saying that this is really a military operation right now and the leaking well head needs to have a bomb stuck in it to stop the leak.
This is really messed up and is just another thing that reinforces the idea that there’s always a need for sensible regulation of business, particularly when neglect and greed result in the rest of us paying the bill. We saw this in how Wall Street ran amuck in the absence of regulation and now we see how this works out in this quickly unfolding ecological disaster.
How Obama manages this will likely make or break his presidency. The reason I say this is that this ecological crisis combined with the still unfolding economic crisis surrounds his presidency in a malaise of sorts. Again, neither are actually his fault, but the impact of both of these on the psyche of the populace and his presidency will come down to how he actually manages through this. One disturbing tendency he has is what I call the “finger in air” syndrome. He tends not to act until he sees which way the wind is blowing. Sometimes, as a leader, you’ve got to shape the “wind” and point it in a direction rather allowing it to buffet you and carry you along.
Check out the video. These two guys appear to know what they’re talking about.
The African-American Clarion Call 