I'm glad the fishermen are getting paid, but it is to much. Heres a quote I pulled from a letter I'm writing to senators that want to force BP to create a $20 billion escrow fund.
" I am on this marina everyday and I know most of the fishermen, the fisherman are thrilled with the pay from BP. A small boat of 20ft gets $1000 dollars day, This is $250,000 a year for a 5 day work week. Fuel and supplies are paid by BP. The larger the boat the higher the pay, $3000 a day is the highest I have heard. That's $750,000 a year, and the expenses are paid. Deckhands are getting $200 dollars a day, that is $50,000 a year. Most of these deckhands never saw $20,000 a year in there life.
The pay is so high that the shrimpers are stopping shrimping and going to work for BP, on oil patrol. The same is happening in Appalachicola Fl, (about 100 miles SE of me) the oyster capitol of this area. Our local oyster bar had to find a new source for oysters, his oystermen went to work for BP.
So this means that BP will need to recoup it's losses in the future... Does this mean higher gas prices? If not then why were they so high in the first place(gouging?)? Or does this mean that Obama and BP are in bed together with some scheme going on to attempt to get the "green energy" revolution started? (I'm sure BP wouldn't mind parting with all that money if they knew they were going to be the ones benefiting in the end)
Who was it that said "Never let a crisis go to waste"? And if you don't have a crisis at the key moment you need one you manufacture one, right?
Whats the best way to turn the american public against oil? (Really, whats the best way to gather up as much power as you can?)
It just never ceases to amaze me that some of the public doesn't believe business will charge what the market will pay. The whole idea of business is to maximize profit. You are welcome to start an oil business and charge as little as you want. Please don't come back and say it takes a lot of money and it could be risky, that's why you maximize profit when you can. And I guess you have noticed gas prices are go down, With this poor economy demand is down. Yes, I do think Obama is and will use the oil spill crises to help turn the public opinion positive on Cap and Trade.
I'm sure many have heard that senators want to create a $20 billion escrow fund with BP money, I'm firmly agains that. I trust BP more than I trust government. BP knows how to earn money and distribute it efficiently. Government takes money and distributes it inefficiently and uses it to buy votes.
Here's a first draft of a letter I intend to send to those proposing the escrow fund with BP profits.
Dear Senator,
My wife and I have a small store where we have been selling shrimp from for
11 years. Our store is actually a boat in St. Andrews Marina. Everyday fishermen hired by BP are going out in search of oil. I see 30 to 50 boats leave every morning. Many (it should be most*) of these are fishermen that have lost there means of making a living. BP has hired them and is paying them well. At this time we have no oil in Panama City.
MY FIRST POINT, don't do anything that will affect the financial viability of BP. You should encourage purchase of BP fuel, you need to keep BP healthy so the stock price can rise, this makes BP stronger so it can continue to pay cleanup crews and claims.
I am on this marina everyday and I know most of the fishermen, the fisherman are thrilled with the pay from BP.
A small boat of 20ft gets $1000 dollars day, This is $250,000 a year for a 5 day work week. Fuel and supplies are paid by BP. The larger the boat the higher the pay, $3000 a day is the highest I have heard. That's $750,000 a year, and the expenses are paid. Deckhands are getting $200 dollars a day, that is $50,000 a year. Most of these deckhands never saw $20,000 a year in there life.
The pay is so high that the shrimpers are stopping shrimping and going to work for BP, on oil patrol. The same is happening in Appalachicola Fl, (about 100 miles SE of me) the oyster capitol of this area. Our local oyster bar had to find a new source for oysters, his oystermen went to work for BP.
A quote from our local newspaper,
?APALACHICOLA ? With compensation checks easily available, oystering has slowed to a crawl on Apalachicola Bay. ...Seafood houses across the county say they are able to obtain barely 10 percent of their normal allotment of oysters. There are plenty of oysters.
Same with Appalachicola shrimpers, There is no oil and plenty of shrimp.
Panama City Beach is a tourist area, when the oil gets here the thousands of hotel rooms will not have tourists, the housekeepers won't have work, the restaurants won't have customers and waitresses tips will dwindle. All business will be affected. Real estate is already greatly affected, people don't want to buy with oil coming and some know prices will be lower in 3 or
4 months.
Now back to my situation, for the last 7 years we have been open 10 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 363 days a year.
We will continue working until we can't. The plan was 7 to 10 more years, now I don't know if it will be one more month or one more year. At this point I am confident BP will pay for any losses that I may have in the future, but they need to continue to be financially strong.
I'm sure you're aware that the BP stock price is down 44% since the spill started. This means they have lost 73 billion in market capitalization. It is time to help the company recover rather than do anything that could affect the price further.
Many retirees around the world rely on BP dividends for retirement income. If you push the idea to create an escrow fund and cause the dividend to be unpaid, this will lower the stock price, further weakening the company. Without those dividends they find other stocks to get there income**.
This could cause BP to fail.
Please stay focused on the unintended consequences of creating an escrow fund.
Sincerely,
Mike Knowlton
Recreational fisherman are jumping on this gravy train, it should have been commercial
fishermen first. Retirees are supplementing their retirement with their recreational fishing boat.
At this point there is no oil here and the shrimpers are not improving the oil spill situation. They will be contibuting to the cleanup if/when the oil gets here. Now all they are doing is going out to their designated area, look for oil and return. A few fishing boats could make that round trip and be done. The shrimpboats could still catch be catching shrimp, and best of all, I could continue to sell shrimp and earn a living. :-) Mike
I'm well aware they are paying claims for losses (many non existent) I will continue to work as long as I can, also being honest I will not make a claim until I have losses. I will not know if I have losses until Jan 2011 when I do my taxes. ( funny thing, now many of the fishermen wish they had claimed all their income. When they show their last two or three years of IRS records to substantiate losses, their losses don't look so big.) At this time I have plenty of shrimp to sell, if /when I can't get shrimp, then I have 0 income, until then I can't tell. One month I can have large inventory purchases and show a big loss for the month and the next month I have great sales and no purchases so it looks like a great month. Mike
Yea,we have a wholesaler doing that, I only have freezer space for about 8,000 lbs. We don't need to freeze it though, we have boats that freeze it, they bag the shrimp and put it in a brine tank at about -4* F. It freezes them, but they don't freeze in a block. It's called IQF, Individually Quick Frozen.
I got some new info today. BP started laying off, in this case a fisherman whose income was directly from the water. The reason? The deckhands have figured out they can buy a $20,000 boat and raise their income from $50,000 to $250,000 per year. So now BP* is rotating the contracted boats because there are so many. Also there seems to be a shortage of deckhands now. Mike I'll try to get more info tomorrow, as this was only one fisherman we know personally.
BP has contractors to hire the boats for the vessels of opportunity program.
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