The Dead Zone (or, BP and the Oil Well That Keeps on Giving)

[Kadagar_AV]

One compelling reason might be that the catastrophe is going to cost BP more money than the investment for the safety measures would have been.
Avoiding to lose ~30 billion EUR in market cap. over a couple of weeks might be another good reason.

Haven't studied economics much, have you?

Imagine you are a company for a second or two, you have two options:

1. 1% chance of something bad happening costing you 50% profit.
2. Not care about that and save 5 billion that could have prevented it.

From a economic perspective, you would be crazy to go with option A. After all, 99 times out of 100 you would go 5 billion more plus.This is very much the American way of thinking. And yes, economy is better of for it!

However, as a Comnadian, I would argue that economic value might not be the only factor. As if you have a 50 companies, you have a 50% chance of a disaster.