Investors Should Assume BP Bankruptcy Will Happen
The reason why the BP Gulf oil spill occurred was that nobody thought it would occur. Nobody asked the “What if . . . ” question.
Investors should not make the same mistake. With estimates of BP’s financial liability rising by the minute, at the very least investors should expect BP to suspend dividend payments. More than that, investors should be prepared for BP’s lawyers to walk into a friendly Texas courtroom sometime this summer and get a judge to grant them court protection against legal claims. Technically it will be a bankruptcy filing, although Americans will gnash their teeth at how BP continues to operate normally.
When the filing occurs, the whole market likely will take a tumble. A lot of other “What if . . . ” questions may be asked that destabilize markets for several months. I’ll try to ask a few of those “What if . . .” questions in my next few postings.
Paul Minett wrote a very cogent response in response to my post about the 
Frank Eggers writes in:
In response to my piece about the EV adoption curve in New York City, Josh Levin writes:
Occasionally I like to write a short piece that offers my viewpoints on political philosophy as it applies to sustainability, examining the nature of our moral obligations to our fellow human beings. To what degree do our ethical sensibilities call upon us to behave in ways that respect the welfare of other people – both those currently inhabiting the Earth, and those as yet unborn?
