Also snagging HMV @ 52p was a nice cherry on top. Now to sit back and wait for the ‘long term’.

And to answer my earlier question: Buffett isn’t buying BP

As it is, there’s now money in a slush fund and the dividend suspended for three quarters, which may be a line in the sand. But it is so difficult to tell, especially while the well is still leaking and the relief wells are not yet complete.

Even environmentally the situation isn’t being seen in perspective. It’s a disaster for those regions affected but the US write large causes more environmental damage every day. The various oil execs turning up at the hearings at the White House in SUVs says it all. Hypocrisy run rampant.

So far perhaps 60-100 Olympic swimming pools of oil have been shed into the Gulf of Mexico. 60 too many, but Obama’s comments that it’s the equivalent to 7/11 are beyond the pale.

With crisis plays you always have to expect to potentially wait years for the situation to resolve itself, but here the bad news has kept coming and the political drama is genuinely frightening.

I find it hard to believe buying at 350p wouldn’t make you money, except that the US almost seems prepared to throw out due process here. They are acting like Russian politicians.

The situation has got much riskier here I feel, albeit offset partly by the lower price.

Being old (ahem, mid-30s) and benevolent (er, it’s a lovely Saturday morning), I do understand the emotions of the people on the ground affected, and even of the environmental types who see an opportunity to fight Big Oil. Let them have a shout about it.

What I don’t understand and can’t condone is the rhetoric of the Obama administration. Does he want to shut down America for business? Is the Land of the Free no longer a land of rights, responsibilities, courts and due process?

I don’t recall a company ever stepping up to the plate like BP has over this so immediately and comprehensively, yet Obama has gone bananas. It makes you wonder what he’d be like in a real crisis (e.g. North Korea). I thought he was supposed to be calm and collected.

http://tiny.cc/k91hu

Best,

Len
Len Penzo dot Com
.-= Len Penzo on: My Store-Brand vs. Name-Brand Blind Taste-Test Experiment #3 =-.

I’m heartbroken every time I see pictures on the TV of birds covered in oil etc. I’m absolutely green at heart, and even though I think American citizens seem oblivious to the damage their activities cause elsewhere in the world (I don’t see them banning oil extraction elsewhere, or agreeing en mass to abandon cars, for instance) the people and environment affected still have my sincere sympathy.

I genuinely think BP is in the middle of the greatest cleanup operation the world has seen, but it won’t be sufficient to make much impact due to the volume of oil coming out, alas. Only time can even hope to cure the situation, and goodness knows what is happening underwater and out of sight.

I do agree however that it may take some time to peak again, but it will peak. I just hope my decision which is driven primarily by greed doesn’t bite me in the rear end for waiting for the share price to fall a bit more before I buy in. as far as the morality issue some of you speak of, I dont see a moral issue in the investment of a company that is in some hot water in more ways than one. This type of investment is an example of an old school saying “Make it or Break it”. This situation is one of which has the ability to make Millions, or lose it all. To me that’s what investing is all about. Grabbing the weak “cheap” and then sit back and wait. I plan to dump a Large sum of money into BP stock, I am going to wait until the bottom drops out and then going for broke. Against my financial advisors advice, I plan to pull out 80% of my investments and put it all into BP, once this all blows over I will be laughing my butt off on a beach somewhere, or I will be working till I’m 125 years old. I honestly don’t see that happening.

W.W.