The U.S. government is outraged at BP because their screw up is going to cost billions and is causing them to lose face. The British are now outraged at the U.S.'s outrage because that's going to cost them billions because of lost market share.
It's all misplaced outrage... the outrage should be because of the devastation caused in terms of loss of life, environmental and individual livelihood loss - not this crap.
“When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP, it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves,” Mr. Johnson told BBC radio’s Today program.
BP is the third largest oil company in the world, after ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, with 80,000 employees worldwide as of last December, sales of $239 billion in 2009 and a market value — even after the recent losses — of more than $100 billion. At a time when Britain is desperate to reduce its deficit, BP is a huge contributor to British tax revenue, paying nearly $1.4 billion in taxes on its profits last year.
www.nytimes.com
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