Ships unrelated to BP are taking advantage of the disaster to flush out their tanks into the ocean where normally they'd have to pay large sums to do it in port.
I don't think this should surprise anyone. Given how oil little regulation oil companies are subject to, I'm sure they're happy to take a slap on the wrist penalty to save a few bucks. After all, it's a big ocean, right?
I assume that you don't have a pension plan or any other investments then? They're already talking about making BP use the dividends to pay for this but if they follow your scorched earth policy then investors will be completely screwed.
Equity holders have no God-given right to recoup their investment. Buying a stock involves risk, and when you buy the stock of a company that royally screws something up, you deserve to get burned more than I do.
I don't think we need to board and plunder BP, but I do think taking their US operations into receivership needs to be seriously considered. The idiots in charge of BP right now aren't listening to government officials, so it's time they were relieved of their decision-making responsibilities and forced to work in the interests of the country they're ruining with their catastrophic fuckup.