View audio slideshow at FT.com.The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico means that hopes of an economic recovery anytime soon are going up in smoke. Sure, the banksters shuffling monopoly money on Wall Street are getting their own little recovery in quarantine. But for the rest of us dealing with the real world of tangible goods and dwindling resources, life just got tougher. Energy costs must rise to pay for clean-ups, collateral damage, escalating insurance premia, regulatory compliance, and ultimately the migration to a greener fuel mix.
These costs will be a drag on new business investment in the near term, as companies cannot reduce energy consumption as easily as they can, say, headcount. Add to the energy surtax the fiscal drag of over-extended local, state, and federal governments, and you have a recipe for protracted downtime in the U.S. economy.
There is one entity, according to Minyanville's Jeff Macke, that welcomes the spillage:
Exxon, though largely finished with a two-decade legal process, won’t be off the hook for the worst oil spill in history until BP’s spill takes the title sometime in the next few weeks. Somewhere in Exxon offices they’ve got a Gallons Spilled tote board that they are watching the way Jerry Lewis used to watch the donation total board during his telethons. Balloons will drop from Exxon’s corporate ceilings when someone else is officially responsible for the Worst Oil Spill in History.
P.S.--One of the rig workers pulled to safety, Jarod Oldham of Peru, played hoops for me at GRCC during his early grade-school years. Now a strapping 6'6", he was easy to find.
These costs will be a drag on new business investment in the near term, as companies cannot reduce energy consumption as easily as they can, say, headcount. Add to the energy surtax the fiscal drag of over-extended local, state, and federal governments, and you have a recipe for protracted downtime in the U.S. economy.
There is one entity, according to Minyanville's Jeff Macke, that welcomes the spillage:
Exxon, though largely finished with a two-decade legal process, won’t be off the hook for the worst oil spill in history until BP’s spill takes the title sometime in the next few weeks. Somewhere in Exxon offices they’ve got a Gallons Spilled tote board that they are watching the way Jerry Lewis used to watch the donation total board during his telethons. Balloons will drop from Exxon’s corporate ceilings when someone else is officially responsible for the Worst Oil Spill in History.
P.S.--One of the rig workers pulled to safety, Jarod Oldham of Peru, played hoops for me at GRCC during his early grade-school years. Now a strapping 6'6", he was easy to find.
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