Sarah Palin and BP

So Sarah Palin thinks that Americans should not trust BP because it it foreign!

Fortunately, Sarah Palin is below the coverage threshold here - most people don't know who she is - but I stumbled upon coverage of this item on the web and if it did get coverage here it would irritate people mightily. There are plenty of people in Britain that don't like the fact that Americans own huge swathes of the British economy - far greater as a proportion than is the case the other way around. As a matter of fact, I don't like it. Any suggestion that Americans were intolerant of the few inroads we have made back the other way might produce a serious backlash.

I was surprised to read that BP is actually the largest exploration company in America looking for oil and gas. It is certainly the largest contributor, through dividends, to British pension funds. If the suggestion of a couple of American senators were to be taken up - that BP should suspend payment of dividends until the mess is sorted out - the losers would be British pensioners. I wonder if Union Carbide suspended dividends until it stopped killing Indians?

This is undoubtedly a catastrophe. But it was an accident and could have happened to any oil company. Creating an international incident over it would not be helpful.