re: #50 sagehen

It is entirely fair of you to raise the question of “visceral sense” . And it is not unfair that it should be focussed on BP.

But it was entirely wrong of Obama to keep using the tag “British”. At least that is what people here have felt - and that is what I was reporting. Quite correctly, a lot of people have said that however large the Gulf disaster, the economic damage is less significant than the worldwide damage caused by the US prime mortgage market. A market that the politicians interfered in, distorted.

The US has an insatiable demand for oil. People have strongly resisted notions of taxing oil consumption to any degree approximating to other countries. Yet the US has forced the oil industry to rely either on unstable regimes overseas - or to drill at unprecedented depths if in the Gulf. Again - the direct result of political decisions in the US. If BP had not taken that zone - another oil company would have taken it. They have no option left but to drill to crazy depths. And those depths have made dealing with the disaster far far worse.

Yes - BP’s culpability looks huge. But there is political and social culpability too, the oil industry has been denied drilling rights in more sensible zones.