Archive for Compensation
Article on BP Compensation Fund
Over on Slate, I have an article today on the BP compensation fund, administered by Ken Feinberg (he of 9/11 Compensation Fund and Executive Compensation overseer fame). I explore how the law that Feinberg says he’ll rely on actually isn’t good for most claimants, but that I expect him to compensate most of them anyway. [...]
Five Questions About the BP Compensation Fund
Under withering pressure from the White House and an enraged public, BP has agreed to establish a compensation fund for those affected by the oil spill. (We need a new name for this disaster. “Oil spill” doesn’t quite capture the magnitude of what happened.) For now, BP has committed to a cool $20 billion for [...]
9/11, Katrina, and the BP Oil Spill: The Inconsistency of Compensation
The by-now predictable, tedious, and irresponsible Republican bulwark against raising or eliminating the criminally low liability cap that would leave claimant against BP out in the cold really has me frosted. And it’s gotten me thinking about how we compensate people for loss in front-page cases: September 11; Katrina; and this BP oil “spill.”
Let’s talk [...]
BP and the Undercompensation Follies
I was appalled but not shocked to read today that legislation passed in 1990 (that created the “Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund”) limits the liability of BP in connection with this incident to $75 million. That’s right: a tiny fraction of the total amount of damages this disaster, which may prove to be unprecedented, will ultimately [...]
U.S. Government: Compensate Katrina Victims
The recent news that a federal judge has ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and by extension, the U.S. Government, liable for at least some of the preventable disasters associated with Hurricane Katrina should lead the government to do what it should have done long ago: Provide generous, long-tail assistance to help the residents [...]
America Betrayed
Hurricane Katrina was a bit player in the disaster that befell New Orleans; a Category 1 hurricane (there, although stronger elsewhere), it was able to swamp the city only because of an egregious, decades-long failure on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that the levee system protecting New Orleans was sound.
This [...]
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
Probably too much was made of the Oof! of Office misadministered by Chief Justice John Roberts to finally-President Barack Obama last week. We might learn something from the Justice’s error, though.
The likely cause of the mistake was identified, and properly pilloried, by the Harvard psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker in an op-ed piece that ran [...]
First Post
Here’s the problem with starting a blog: Since most of us who consider doing so are blog readers ourselves, we’re acutely aware that the challenge is daunting. There are more blogs out there than you can shake a cyber-stick at, and reading too many in any sufficiently short period of time leaves the indelible impression [...]