Tony Hayward to Quit BP - The Guardian

photo credit The Guardian via Reuters & Suzanne Plunkett

I don't usually like to get into the politics of businesses, since it's not really related to the marine biology aspect I'm sticking to, but this is worth a blurb.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward is being forced to step down after his poor handling of the Deepwater Horizon incident. Obviously he'll get a multi-million dollar/pound severance, which is disgusting by itself. Honestly, why do these people need these huge amounts of money? Not even Hayward specifically, just...why? What the fuck are you buying?

Anyway. BP sees this as the only option to restore their suffering reputation. Yeah, I agree, and until just now I was all for it. But then I realized...This isn't going to un-do the damage that's been done. This isn't going to give back people's livelihoods, bring back the dead animals, restore the disrupted ecosystems. This isn't going to fix anything - we're just out for blood. Yeah, Hayward has been kind of a douche, but basically we're just biting his head off at this point. It's sad. Furthermore, now we're just playing the blame game:

"[BP], which has been the subject of takeover and liquidation speculation, was hoping to keep Hayward for as long as possible in an attempt to ensure one man took all the flak should a spate of investigations into the accident find BP seriously to blame."

Alright, I don't like the guy, but that's kinda lame. Isn't the company at whole to blame?

"Hayward, who riled Barack Obama by saying the amount of crude tipped into the Gulf of Mexico since the 20 April explosion was relatively "tiny" and that he "wanted his life back", even though 11 people died in the explosion, will be replaced by Bob Dudley, a BP veteran who is currently overseeing the clean-up of the oil spill."

I have a little more faith in Bo. He seems a bit more honest and reliable. Maybe it's just because he's an American and this is largely an American issue...but who knows. Businessmen are sharks. And not in the good way.

Full article here (The Guardian)