Readers' Comments

It may not be passed on to consumers - bottom line is ti depends on how competive the oil market is. If shell and co want to keep current prices or raise alittle well then prices may change alittle, but not heaps. Persenaly I am all for a greater oil tax in the states will bring down the world cost .... as the usa uses less oil.

Any analytical chemist who works with food will be able to explain why salt is so popular with food companies. It is an inexpensive ingredient that has the ability to make addicts of huge swathes of the population. It is as simple as that and analogous to newspapers with the word "Sun" in them using scantily-clad women throughout their publications to maintain "readership". Just as "sex sells", so does salt. We humans have as basic a reaction to the taste of salt as we do to water and warmth. The over-use of it by food companies strikes me as no different than the effort of pornographers to tap into the sexual urges of males to keep dropping quarters in peep booths or signing up for "memberships" on-line to fill their urges. I would like to see CMD expose the sources of disinformation that regularly send out statements to the effect that salt has not been proven to cause high blood pressure, only that it "might" exacerbate it: meaning that no one who doesn't already have a problem with hypertension has ever had a health issue with salt. However, feed dollops of salt (or sugar) to mice and they die. As well as being a needed ingredient in our bodies that humans have a hard time detecting an over-abundance of (as any alcoholic has a hard time acknowledging when he has had too much to drink), salt also masks the nasty off-flavours of processed food. Are we so duped that we can't see through the efforts of these companies? Perhaps if there are still those who smoke despite 40 years of effort by governments to expose the health risks, it will take some time before people appreciate the damage being caused by a food industry that doesn't care about your health but only about your appetite for the lowest common denominator of foodstuffs that they can possibly concoct to sustain revenues, whether you die from that concoction or not.

I'll be watching. Thanks

I can understand bad PR but if you are transparent in your efforts to clean up the mess I think that goes a long way as well. I mean BP should really be spending big $ to get it all cleaned up FAST ... cause this press will live with them forever no matter what.

So would you rather have your name associated with worse oil spill ever + media blockage and slow moving cleanup efforts ... or worse oil spill ever with the best efforts to clean up and resolve the issue. There really is one choice here.

Perhaps a company name change is in order ...

the damage is beyond what money can restored but restoration must still happen and its gonna take heaps and heaps of money! BP's environmental record has never been good to begin...poor mother earth and the sea creatures...and of course folks around the area.

I find this ad really cool! It's scary for those who are not paying their taxes but for those who are paying then I believe this commercial gave them one hell of a good laugh!

They are really flogging a dead horse here. The show was a success, movies are lame and not relevant anymore. Stop watching it and stop buying this crap and they will stop making them!

First, it was the Exxon Valdez disaster and here we have another devastating environmental disaster. I feel people are being harsh with Obama as all these oil rigs were built before the start of his term.

All the money we spend on oil exploration etc. really needs to be invested in developing clean energy production technology. What's the point of blabbering about saving the environment if no one is willing to do so because of greed?

The dumbest, most racist, most polluting and women hating the movie year.
I have no doubt about reports that the film be enjoyed by it's fans for many reasons.

Personally, giving a lession about Global Warming to kids would be very necessary today. Because it could build better understanding of how we damage and consume our nature environment and scarce energy resource, also why we need to protect and conserve the environment to avoid such natural pollutions and disasters.

That's funny that they would hire Dick Cheney. Must have been the idea of the "Elites" to take the heat off their new puppet "Obama" by reminding people how bad their last puppet was "Bush and Chaney". LOL! They are all crooks working for the same Puppet masters. This oil spill is was nothing but an orchestrated scam to jump start the floundering environmental movement. Make me laugh. People are so gullible.

"Congress should give the Federal Reserve funds the same level of scrutiny that HAMP has received and consider attaching some strings to these funds to force banks to do more to assist American households."

While I agree with the larger premise of this statement, what is not mentioned is the utter failure of HAMP to follow through with oversight on the banks which have been using and ABUSING the program - and surprise, surprise, to their advantage. ProPublica had an excellent piece recently exposing the the mortgage company that has the worst track record in this regard, Saxon:
"No Penalties for Mortgage Company with Worst Loan Mod Backlog"
I would put a link to it here, but it's preventing me from posting this comment (the auto-spam filter).

Essentially it's about how banks utilizing the modification program are leaving their homeowners in limbo, often doubling and even tripling the required trial-payment period (3mo.) before making an offer of properly adjusted rates, and then foreclosing on them (some without notice and even while telling them they are approved) despite the homeowners making the MUCH higher trial-payments for far longer than they should have been required to do so. Consumer advocacy groups say many of the homeowners which went into foreclosure in the HAMP program are worse off than they would have been had they NOT entered the program too.

One thing that the ProPublica article doesn't address, and I believe is what's encouraging banks to foreclose and resell out from under owners is banks cashing in on foreclosure insurance! To me, the question is simple; why else would banks go through the trouble of foreclosing and selling to somebody else? Especially when banks sell these homes for a price much lower than the original mortgage, and that price is also what the original owners are often willing to pay anyway too. So I believe the banks are covering their losses (depreciation) this way; extending the higher trial-payments (well beyond the known means of the homeowners), foreclosing on the homes, cashing-in on the foreclosure insurance, and then reselling the home.