Sep 14, 2013
Fewer cars, fewer roads
By Kishore Mahbubani, For The Straits Times BY INVITATION
A FEW weeks ago, on Aug 28, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the famous speech given by Martin Luther King Jr entitled "I have a dream". He said: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."
The goal of his speech was to open the roads to advancement for his fellow black citizens. I too have a dream for my fellow Singaporeans. However, while the goal of his speech was to open the roads to advancement, my goal is to close the roads to advancement for my fellow citizens. The only difference between him and me is that while he was speaking metaphorically, I am speaking literally. We do not need many more physical roads or much more physical road space in Singapore.
One undeniable hard truth of Singapore is that we live in one of the smallest countries in the world. This is also why we have one of the most expensive land costs in the entire world. Apart from Monaco, no other United Nations member state has land as expensive as Singapore has per square foot. Hence, we should value every square foot. Every square foot we give up to road space is a square foot taken away from other valuable uses: pedestrian walkways, bike paths, green parks and so on.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Community, nationhood, security most important to Singaporeans: OSC survey
In contrast, Singaporeans place less importance on accumulating wealth, the survey found. Values related to an entrepreneurial spirit. such as risk-taking and enterprise, also took a backseat.
The wide-ranging study, conducted as part of the Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) project, interviewed a representative survey of 4,000 Singaporeans from December last year to January.
In examining the values and attributes citizens felt were important, respondents rated 26 values on a scale of one to five — one being not very important, and five being very important. The relative importance of each value was then plotted on a “heat map”. The warmer a colour, such as dark red, the more important the value is. Conversely, the cooler a colour, such as dark blue, the less important a value is.
When comparing across the age groups, there was a consensus among respondents on values they felt were important, such as honesty, politeness and graciousness. But among the less important values, there was a bigger difference in views across the age groups.
“Singaporean youth seem to place greater emphasis on perseverance and self-reliance, compared to their older Singaporeans. The young also had a greater appetite for risk-taking, enjoying life to the fullest and being more entrepreneurial,” the survey found.
IPS research fellow Dr Leong Chan Hoong, one of the researchers involved in the study, noted that the “differences are actually not that stark and there’s actually quite a lot of shared agreement on some of the attributes”.
“I think that bodes well because at least there’s a common platform that everybody can sit on and to agree on what are the different actions to be taken for Singapore,” he said.
RESPONDENTS’ VIEWS ON GAY LIFESTYLES, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
When it comes to social values, the survey found that "society in general does not accept gay lifestyles", although the younger and more educated segments of the population were relatively more accepting. Overall, 47 per cent of respondents rejected gay lifestyles, while 26 per cent said they accepted gay lifestyles, The remaining 27 per cent did not have a preference.
“Society was even less supportive of same-sex marriage. The majority of respondents across almost all educational profiles rejected same-sex marriage,” the survey found. Overall, 55 per cent rejected same-sex marriage, compared to 21 per cent who accepted it. Twenty-four per cent were neutral.
There was, however, a split in the views on the issue of freedom of expression and censorship. No clear consensus could be reached on what is the right balance between complete freedom of expression versus preventing social tension.
Some 40 per cent of respondents supported limiting individual freedom of expression to prevent social tensions, while 37 per cent of respondents supported complete freedom of expression at the risk of social tensions. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents supported censoring media content to protect public interest, while 36 per cent did not support censorship at all.
Yet, older Singaporeans did seem to place more value in censorship as a means of protecting public interest, the survey found.
Faculty Associate at IPS Tan Ern Ser, another researcher involved in the study, said: “So under this kind of situation (where there’s diversity in views) I think there’s a need for a lot more dialogue, a lot more communication.” This, he said, could help reach “a consensus despite the diversity and potential polarisation”.
Respondents also had diverse views on the right balance between the Government providing for the people, and citizens providing for themselves. The majority of respondents above 50 and those who earned less than S$1,000 tended to favour the Government taking more responsibility.
While more Singaporeans preferred to keep taxes low, the more affluent Singaporeans (those living in private property or earning above S$7,000 a month) seemed more willing to pay higher taxes to support the needy. Support dipped slightly, however, for those earning S$10,000 or more a month.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT KEY CONCERN FOR LOW, MIDDLE INCOME GROUPS
Earlier in the month, a portion of the IPS survey findings were released in the OSC committee’s report, Reflections. The findings showed that public housing is the top concern for Singaporeans earning less than S$5,000 a month while the country’s healthcare infrastructure is what worries the higher income groups most.
In examining Singaporeans’ hopes and priorities, public transport also emerged as a key priority for those earning less than S$3,000 a month, while a holistic education was a greater priority fo those earning above S$7,000 a month.
Singaporeans valued good governance, with those earning less than S$7,000 placing greater emphasis on a caring Government, while those earning more prioritised having an honest Government.
When asked more specifically about different facets of governance, the IPS survey found that a “sizeable majority indicated that the Government was forward-looking and managing the country well”.
“There were relatively lower levels of agreement on whether the Government understands the concerns of the people or did a good job explaining policies,” the survey found.
Assoc Prof Tan said: “We hope that the survey, understood as a component of the OSC process, has given us a better appreciation of the range of views held by Singaporeans, including our own, and thereby work towards making Singapore an even better home, nation, and economy.”
The full report can be downloaded at https://www.oursgconversation.sg/survey/
Reading the data charts:
Percentages on the left (dark and light orange) represent strong and mild support for preferences indicated on the left; percentages on the right (dark and light blue) represent support for preferences indicated on the right. Dotted sections in the middle represent respondents who did not lean towards either preference.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The rising challenge of our fragile food security
Barry Desker
Todayonline
22 August 2013
The world is being haunted again by the spectre of a global food shortage.
Demand for food over the next decade is expected to increase by 1.1 per cent annually. But global food productivity gains have declined from 2 per cent in 1970-2000, to 1.1 per cent today — and are continuing to decline.
A 2011 study reported that the world consumed more than it had produced for seven out of the past eight years. These concerns will lead to growing attention paid to the nexus between food, water and energy resources, especially as climate change is expected to have an increasing impact globally.
Nineteenth-century economists struggled with the Malthusian dilemma: As populations rose, it was assumed that a forced return to subsistence agriculture would act as a check on population growth. The reality was that the opening of new agricultural land, technological innovation and higher-yielding crops resulted in a capacity to feed an ever-growing population.
Todayonline
22 August 2013
The world is being haunted again by the spectre of a global food shortage.
Demand for food over the next decade is expected to increase by 1.1 per cent annually. But global food productivity gains have declined from 2 per cent in 1970-2000, to 1.1 per cent today — and are continuing to decline.
A 2011 study reported that the world consumed more than it had produced for seven out of the past eight years. These concerns will lead to growing attention paid to the nexus between food, water and energy resources, especially as climate change is expected to have an increasing impact globally.
Nineteenth-century economists struggled with the Malthusian dilemma: As populations rose, it was assumed that a forced return to subsistence agriculture would act as a check on population growth. The reality was that the opening of new agricultural land, technological innovation and higher-yielding crops resulted in a capacity to feed an ever-growing population.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Prayer addiction - the highs and lows
Aug 05, 2013
By T.m. Luhrmann
AS EVIDENCE accumulates about the many health benefits of religious practice, prayer is looking better and better. Some atheists have gone public with their own prayer-for- health's-sake practice.
Take Mr Sigfried Gold, the subject of a recent article in The Washington Post. A thoughtful, articulate man, he lives in Maryland, and just turned 50. He is passionate about philosophy and long ago decided there was no stuff in the universe that was not physical - no supernatural, no divine.
By T.m. Luhrmann
AS EVIDENCE accumulates about the many health benefits of religious practice, prayer is looking better and better. Some atheists have gone public with their own prayer-for- health's-sake practice.
Take Mr Sigfried Gold, the subject of a recent article in The Washington Post. A thoughtful, articulate man, he lives in Maryland, and just turned 50. He is passionate about philosophy and long ago decided there was no stuff in the universe that was not physical - no supernatural, no divine.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Party political battle or question of integrity?
From the Gallery
Minister Vivian Balakrishnan used the phrase "honourable man" twice in the House yesterday to describe not a People's Action Party (PAP) colleague but Workers' Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang.
He had far harsher words for WP chairman Sylvia Lim and her fellow Aljunied GRC MP Pritam Singh, who are also chairman and vice-chairman of Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council Council (AHPETC) respectively.
The Environment and Water Resources Minister criticised their conduct in a long drawn-out dispute among AHPETC, hawkers and the National Environment Agency (NEA), over the cleaning of food centres in Bedok North.
The hawkers involved said AHPETC property manager Tai Vie Shun demanded extra payment for the cleaning of the food centres' high areas, even though the NEA requires town councils to carry out and pay for such cleaning.
Ms Lim and Mr Singh's public denials of town council wrongdoing were "false and untruthful", Dr Balakrishnan charged yesterday, adding that the real issue was one of "integrity".
The exchange between the minister, Ms Lim and Mr Low took place during Question Time, thanks to a question filed by Ms Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon GRC).
It lasted just over half an hour, during which Mr Singh said not a word.
The exchange was significant in two ways.
First, it was a display of the PAP going on the attack. That was also in evidence on Monday when Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim took aim at "prominent bloggers" for contributing to confusion during the recent haze crisis.
Yesterday was also not the first time the WP came up against a PAP offensive in Parliament.
Back in May, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan came down hard on AHPETC's ties to its managing agent and the fees it paid.
Yet the WP seemed decidedly unprepared yesterday, while the PAP side came all set for a robust exchange.
Dr Balakrishnan not only marshalled arguments but also produced a dossier of documentary evidence against AHPETC.
The Prime Minister, two Deputy Prime Ministers and the Law and Foreign Minister were also present, listening intently to the exchange.
Throughout, the WP remained on the defensive, lacking fresh arguments to rebut the PAP charges.
Ms Lim and Mr Low's main defence was that it was all a misunderstanding between the town council, hawkers and NEA over quarterly spring cleaning versus annual cleaning.
Town councils are required to clean food centres' high areas only during the latter.
Ms Lim stuck to her guns, saying "it is still the consistent position of our town council that Mr Tai at no time said that the hawkers had to pay extra to fulfil the town council's annual obligation to clean the high areas.
"At no time was this said, I don't think these documents show it either," she said, of the Government's dossier.
The minister, though, would have none of that. Whatever the case, the crux of the issue was that the WP's official had sought higher payments from hawkers, contrary to what the two MPs had asserted, he insisted.
Yesterday's exchange was also significant for the way Dr Balakrishnan attempted to divide and conquer - by casting Mr Low as an honourable politician who does right by those he represents, including hawkers; and contrasting that with the approach of Ms Lim and Mr Singh, whose integrity he called into question repeatedly.
He pressed his point, with some no-holds-barred rhetoric: "Politics is a contest for power. But you know, the key principle when you have power is - don't take advantage of people under your charge, and always be honest and upfront with your people... When a mistake is made, just come clean and say so. But don't cover up. That's why I have not let this go. Because it is not about cleanliness of the ceiling, it is about clean politics."
Turning to Mr Low, he added: "I appeal to you, because I know you to be an honourable man, I appeal to you, go back, do a thorough investigation of what's gone on and what's gone wrong in your town council and put it right."
Whether Mr Low takes up his suggestion remains to be seen. There was no word from him on this last night. But given the WP's internal discipline, its leaders may well close ranks under fire from the PAP, which could also win it some sympathy. Personal attacks on opposition politicians have rarely gone down well with the Singaporean public.
How the public responds will also depend on whether they buy the minister's argument that at the crux of the whole sorry episode is a question of "clean politics" and integrity.
.
[This "battle" solves nothing.
Those who are pro-WP, will see this as WP-bashing on the part of PAP to score political points.
Those who are pro-PAP will be glad to see the PAP on the offensive, and wonder how the WP supporters can be so blind.
The true "battle" is for the minds of the swing voters - those who in the last two elections (GE and BE) gave enough votes to the WP for them to win.
But it is not clear that WP has suffered a knock-out punch. The case against them is... subject to interpretation. There is no incontrovertible "smoking gun", however much PAP may wish to point to smoke, and the loud explosion heard, and bullet holes. The gun has not been placed in WP's hands, so to speak.
The PAP should have held back. But that's just my opinion. ]
.
Egypt casts long shadow on global security
Jul 10, 2013
BY INVITATION
With their leader's toppling, how the members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood will react over time is an open question. Just as salient is how other Islamist movements, from Morocco to Indonesia, will respond.
By Farish A. Noor, For The Straits Times
THE tumultuous developments in Egypt continue, but their impact will extend well beyond the country itself, for what happens in Cairo does not necessarily remain in Cairo. With the fall of President Mohamed Mursi and his Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Islamist parties and movements the world over have begun to ask an obvious question.
Why should Islamist parties even bother to enter the democratic arena and take the trouble to contest elections if they can ultimately be deposed by other non-political actors?
In the immediate aftermath of Mr Mursi's fall, this was the question raised by some of the more radical Islamist groups across Asia, including the Hizbut Tahrir, which has always maintained the line that democracy is a sham and that it can never lead to real changes in society.
Feeling vindicated by the events in Egypt, movements such as these have repeated their call to boycott the democratic process further. Some have gone further by arguing that they can come to power only by force rather than via the ballot box.
That such a position can be assumed by some of the more radical groups in the Muslim world today is disheartening to say the least, but it does raise serious questions about the rationale and justification behind Mr Mursi's toppling. By the 1990s, other Islamist leaders and intellectuals such as Mr Rachid Ghannouchi had already argued that political Islam has to be adapted to a legitimate and constitutional process, and that Islamist parties have to accept and play by the rules of the democratic game.
Ballot box: Mixed results
TO THAT end, he argued that Islamists should abandon the path of radical confrontational politics and accept their being voted out of power should they fail in their task as elected representatives. In countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and Tunisia, we have seen how Islamist parties have attempted to capture the state not by the gun but by the ballot box - with mixed results.
Political Islam's engagement with the democratic process has been seen as generally positive by most analysts; it was argued that this was the best and perhaps only way to ensure that such religious communitarian movements would be brought within the ambit of established socio-political norms.
The scholar Olivier Roy was among the ones who insisted that by contesting elections and playing the democratic game, Islamist movements would gradually moderate and reform themselves as they would have to appeal to a wider electorate that may also include non-Muslims and Muslims who did not agree with their Islamist ambitions.
By and large, Professor Roy argued, the democratic process was a positive one that would eventually normalise religiously inspired politics and open the way for the emergence of a more conciliatory, accommodating and pragmatic form of political Islam.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mr Mursi belongs, was among the Islamist movements that eventually created their own political party and took the opportunity to offer themselves at the polls.
A huge step forward
THEIR victory, marginal though it was, suggested to some that the Islamists of Egypt were at least able to make the necessary concessions in order to become part of the public political domain. This was, it has to be remembered, a huge step forward from the days when Egypt was confronted by more violent Islamist groups, such as the Takfir Wa'l-Hijrah and the Tanzim al-Jihad, that opposed all forms of democratic politics in toto.
Though many among Egypt's cosmopolitan and liberal circles were not too pleased to see the Muslim Brotherhood contest at the elections (and even more alarmed by its subsequent victory), it could be argued that this was a better alternative to radical militant groups setting off bombs in public places and threatening to wage war against the state.
But Mr Mursi's fall has cast these developments in a negative light, and Islamist parties the world over now feel that they may share the same fate if they were to come to power some day.
For some of the leaders of Malaysia's Islamist party Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), for instance, the toppling of Mr Mursi has caused them to doubt the validity of the democratic process as a whole.
In the words of one senior PAS leader: "Islamists are now in a bind. Though they were a little late in adopting democracy as a means to come to power, they eventually took it up wholeheartedly. But now they have been punished in a way that leaves many of them disillusioned."
The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is therefore something that will inevitably have consequences well beyond North Africa and the Arab world.
Notwithstanding the failure of Mr Mursi's own administration and the accusations against his own heavy-handed approach to leadership, it cannot be denied that the Muslim Brotherhood also happens to be one of the biggest mass movements of the country and that it remains well organised and united in its ambition.
How the Brotherhood's mass following will react in the weeks and months to come is an open question, but related to this is the question of how other Islamist movements - from Morocco to Indonesia - will respond as well. Islamists have to understand that in any democratic system, any party can be removed if it has clearly failed to live up to its mandate. But the Brotherhood insists that it was not given the time to prove itself and that the toppling of Mr Mursi was problematic too.
The larger concern, however, is that if the Islamists of Egypt and elsewhere no longer feel that the democratic process can ever be fair to them, which path will they take in the future?
The choice they make will determine not only the long-term security of Egypt, which has been in a state of crisis for three years now, but also the rest of the world by extension.
The writer is associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
By Invitation features expert views from opinion leaders in the region and Singapore.
.
BY INVITATION
With their leader's toppling, how the members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood will react over time is an open question. Just as salient is how other Islamist movements, from Morocco to Indonesia, will respond.
By Farish A. Noor, For The Straits Times
THE tumultuous developments in Egypt continue, but their impact will extend well beyond the country itself, for what happens in Cairo does not necessarily remain in Cairo. With the fall of President Mohamed Mursi and his Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Islamist parties and movements the world over have begun to ask an obvious question.
Why should Islamist parties even bother to enter the democratic arena and take the trouble to contest elections if they can ultimately be deposed by other non-political actors?
In the immediate aftermath of Mr Mursi's fall, this was the question raised by some of the more radical Islamist groups across Asia, including the Hizbut Tahrir, which has always maintained the line that democracy is a sham and that it can never lead to real changes in society.
Feeling vindicated by the events in Egypt, movements such as these have repeated their call to boycott the democratic process further. Some have gone further by arguing that they can come to power only by force rather than via the ballot box.
That such a position can be assumed by some of the more radical groups in the Muslim world today is disheartening to say the least, but it does raise serious questions about the rationale and justification behind Mr Mursi's toppling. By the 1990s, other Islamist leaders and intellectuals such as Mr Rachid Ghannouchi had already argued that political Islam has to be adapted to a legitimate and constitutional process, and that Islamist parties have to accept and play by the rules of the democratic game.
Ballot box: Mixed results
TO THAT end, he argued that Islamists should abandon the path of radical confrontational politics and accept their being voted out of power should they fail in their task as elected representatives. In countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and Tunisia, we have seen how Islamist parties have attempted to capture the state not by the gun but by the ballot box - with mixed results.
Political Islam's engagement with the democratic process has been seen as generally positive by most analysts; it was argued that this was the best and perhaps only way to ensure that such religious communitarian movements would be brought within the ambit of established socio-political norms.
The scholar Olivier Roy was among the ones who insisted that by contesting elections and playing the democratic game, Islamist movements would gradually moderate and reform themselves as they would have to appeal to a wider electorate that may also include non-Muslims and Muslims who did not agree with their Islamist ambitions.
By and large, Professor Roy argued, the democratic process was a positive one that would eventually normalise religiously inspired politics and open the way for the emergence of a more conciliatory, accommodating and pragmatic form of political Islam.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mr Mursi belongs, was among the Islamist movements that eventually created their own political party and took the opportunity to offer themselves at the polls.
A huge step forward
THEIR victory, marginal though it was, suggested to some that the Islamists of Egypt were at least able to make the necessary concessions in order to become part of the public political domain. This was, it has to be remembered, a huge step forward from the days when Egypt was confronted by more violent Islamist groups, such as the Takfir Wa'l-Hijrah and the Tanzim al-Jihad, that opposed all forms of democratic politics in toto.
Though many among Egypt's cosmopolitan and liberal circles were not too pleased to see the Muslim Brotherhood contest at the elections (and even more alarmed by its subsequent victory), it could be argued that this was a better alternative to radical militant groups setting off bombs in public places and threatening to wage war against the state.
But Mr Mursi's fall has cast these developments in a negative light, and Islamist parties the world over now feel that they may share the same fate if they were to come to power some day.
For some of the leaders of Malaysia's Islamist party Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), for instance, the toppling of Mr Mursi has caused them to doubt the validity of the democratic process as a whole.
In the words of one senior PAS leader: "Islamists are now in a bind. Though they were a little late in adopting democracy as a means to come to power, they eventually took it up wholeheartedly. But now they have been punished in a way that leaves many of them disillusioned."
The fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is therefore something that will inevitably have consequences well beyond North Africa and the Arab world.
Notwithstanding the failure of Mr Mursi's own administration and the accusations against his own heavy-handed approach to leadership, it cannot be denied that the Muslim Brotherhood also happens to be one of the biggest mass movements of the country and that it remains well organised and united in its ambition.
How the Brotherhood's mass following will react in the weeks and months to come is an open question, but related to this is the question of how other Islamist movements - from Morocco to Indonesia - will respond as well. Islamists have to understand that in any democratic system, any party can be removed if it has clearly failed to live up to its mandate. But the Brotherhood insists that it was not given the time to prove itself and that the toppling of Mr Mursi was problematic too.
The larger concern, however, is that if the Islamists of Egypt and elsewhere no longer feel that the democratic process can ever be fair to them, which path will they take in the future?
The choice they make will determine not only the long-term security of Egypt, which has been in a state of crisis for three years now, but also the rest of the world by extension.
The writer is associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
By Invitation features expert views from opinion leaders in the region and Singapore.
.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
The feeding frenzy on BP oil spill
Jul 10, 2013
By Joe Nocera
YOU can actually pinpoint the moment when the oil company BP began to get hosed in Louisiana: March 2012.
By then, BP had paid out around US$6.3 billion (S$8 billion) to some 220,000 people and businesses in the Gulf Coast region for damages suffered as a result of the 2010 oil spill. The money was distributed by Mr Kenneth Feinberg, who had parcelled out the Sept 11 fund, and subsequently managed other victim compensation schemes.
But in return for the payouts, Mr Feinberg had insisted that the victims sign documents agreeing not to sue BP - a main goal for the company, which was hoping to avoid the kind of drawn-out litigation in the wake of the 1989 Exxon-Valdez spill.
He had also insisted that the claims be for real, documented harm. Mr Feinberg spent almost as much time turning down bogus claims as he did approving payments to victims.
It almost goes without saying that the Louisiana plaintiffs' bar found such a scheme offensive. No litigation, after all, meant no lawyers' fees. Plus, the idea that you could have this giant company, so ripe for the plucking... and then not pluck? So a group of lawyers - known as the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee - persuaded their clients to skip the Feinberg process and sue BP. In March last year, BP settled with those lawyers. As a condition for settling, the plaintiffs' lawyers insisted that Mr Feinberg be replaced by Mr Patrick Juneau, a good-ol'-boy plaintiffs' lawyer himself.
BP also agreed to expand the potential universe of claimants, knowing full well this would likely mean that people whose economic losses had no connection to the spill would receive "compensation". It estimated that the settlement would cost it an additional US$7.8 billion.
On Monday, however, before a federal appeals court in New Orleans, BP finally said "enough". The company had come to realise that Mr Juneau's interpretation of such concepts as "revenue" and "earnings" was, er, unique. So unique, in fact, that businesses that not only weren't affected by the BP disaster but hadn't even suffered losses were getting millions of dollars. Some had seen increased profits during the oil spill - and still got money. Lawyers started trolling for new clients, trumpeting the fact that claims didn't have to have any connection to the disaster. Suddenly, BP was facing the prospect of paying tens of billions of additional dollars to people who had no justifiable claim on the money.
When BP, which is based in London, complained to Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing all of the BP litigation in New Orleans, it got nowhere. Do I need to mention that Mr Barbier is himself a former Louisiana plaintiffs' lawyer? In fact, he was once the president of Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association. How cosy is that? I realise that many people don't much care that a multinational corporation responsible for a huge oil spill is being fleeced in Louisiana. But they should, for two reasons.
First, although BP's negligence was unquestionably a significant reason for the spill, its response has been the opposite of the unfeeling corporation. It waived the US$75 million liability cap that federal law allows. It has spent, so far, US$14 billion cleaning up the Gulf and a further US$11 billion settling claims of various sorts.
It has taken its medicine willingly. Yet its efforts to do right by the Gulf region have only emboldened those who view it as a cash machine.
The next time a big company has an industrial accident, its board of directors is likely to question whether it really makes sense to "do the right thing" the way BP has tried to.
Any board comparing BP's response to the Gulf oil spill with Exxon-Mobil's response to the Exxon- Valdez spill is going to come to the obvious conclusion: Exxon-Mobil's litigation-to-the-death strategy - which ultimately cost it US$4 billion rather than the potential US$40 billion liability BP is now facing - was the right one.
Is that really what Americans want as a country? There is one other point. I've written a number of columns about the importance of rule of law, especially in Russia, where it is so lacking, and where that lack is so detrimental to the Russian economy.
A real rule of law gives businesses the confidence they need to make investments. If gives both parties faith that disputes will be settled fairly. It creates certainty.
We like to talk in the United States about our belief in the rule of law, but the truth is that what is going in Louisiana today is not all that different than when a corrupt Russian official creates a fake tax liability to line his pockets at the expense of some hapless company operating in Russia.
"This is Louisiana, after all," a local plaintiffs' lawyer told Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently. "A big foreign company with deep pockets, and you're surprised there's a feeding frenzy? Come on, man."
President Vladimir Putin of Russia couldn't have put it better himself.
[As I was halfway through the article, I wondered, is the writer paid by BP? I googled Joe Nocera. He's legit. Which makes this article important.]
By Joe Nocera
YOU can actually pinpoint the moment when the oil company BP began to get hosed in Louisiana: March 2012.
By then, BP had paid out around US$6.3 billion (S$8 billion) to some 220,000 people and businesses in the Gulf Coast region for damages suffered as a result of the 2010 oil spill. The money was distributed by Mr Kenneth Feinberg, who had parcelled out the Sept 11 fund, and subsequently managed other victim compensation schemes.
But in return for the payouts, Mr Feinberg had insisted that the victims sign documents agreeing not to sue BP - a main goal for the company, which was hoping to avoid the kind of drawn-out litigation in the wake of the 1989 Exxon-Valdez spill.
He had also insisted that the claims be for real, documented harm. Mr Feinberg spent almost as much time turning down bogus claims as he did approving payments to victims.
It almost goes without saying that the Louisiana plaintiffs' bar found such a scheme offensive. No litigation, after all, meant no lawyers' fees. Plus, the idea that you could have this giant company, so ripe for the plucking... and then not pluck? So a group of lawyers - known as the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee - persuaded their clients to skip the Feinberg process and sue BP. In March last year, BP settled with those lawyers. As a condition for settling, the plaintiffs' lawyers insisted that Mr Feinberg be replaced by Mr Patrick Juneau, a good-ol'-boy plaintiffs' lawyer himself.
BP also agreed to expand the potential universe of claimants, knowing full well this would likely mean that people whose economic losses had no connection to the spill would receive "compensation". It estimated that the settlement would cost it an additional US$7.8 billion.
On Monday, however, before a federal appeals court in New Orleans, BP finally said "enough". The company had come to realise that Mr Juneau's interpretation of such concepts as "revenue" and "earnings" was, er, unique. So unique, in fact, that businesses that not only weren't affected by the BP disaster but hadn't even suffered losses were getting millions of dollars. Some had seen increased profits during the oil spill - and still got money. Lawyers started trolling for new clients, trumpeting the fact that claims didn't have to have any connection to the disaster. Suddenly, BP was facing the prospect of paying tens of billions of additional dollars to people who had no justifiable claim on the money.
When BP, which is based in London, complained to Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing all of the BP litigation in New Orleans, it got nowhere. Do I need to mention that Mr Barbier is himself a former Louisiana plaintiffs' lawyer? In fact, he was once the president of Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association. How cosy is that? I realise that many people don't much care that a multinational corporation responsible for a huge oil spill is being fleeced in Louisiana. But they should, for two reasons.
First, although BP's negligence was unquestionably a significant reason for the spill, its response has been the opposite of the unfeeling corporation. It waived the US$75 million liability cap that federal law allows. It has spent, so far, US$14 billion cleaning up the Gulf and a further US$11 billion settling claims of various sorts.
It has taken its medicine willingly. Yet its efforts to do right by the Gulf region have only emboldened those who view it as a cash machine.
The next time a big company has an industrial accident, its board of directors is likely to question whether it really makes sense to "do the right thing" the way BP has tried to.
Any board comparing BP's response to the Gulf oil spill with Exxon-Mobil's response to the Exxon- Valdez spill is going to come to the obvious conclusion: Exxon-Mobil's litigation-to-the-death strategy - which ultimately cost it US$4 billion rather than the potential US$40 billion liability BP is now facing - was the right one.
Is that really what Americans want as a country? There is one other point. I've written a number of columns about the importance of rule of law, especially in Russia, where it is so lacking, and where that lack is so detrimental to the Russian economy.
A real rule of law gives businesses the confidence they need to make investments. If gives both parties faith that disputes will be settled fairly. It creates certainty.
We like to talk in the United States about our belief in the rule of law, but the truth is that what is going in Louisiana today is not all that different than when a corrupt Russian official creates a fake tax liability to line his pockets at the expense of some hapless company operating in Russia.
"This is Louisiana, after all," a local plaintiffs' lawyer told Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently. "A big foreign company with deep pockets, and you're surprised there's a feeding frenzy? Come on, man."
President Vladimir Putin of Russia couldn't have put it better himself.
[As I was halfway through the article, I wondered, is the writer paid by BP? I googled Joe Nocera. He's legit. Which makes this article important.]
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