Quote Originally Posted by Ser Clegane View Post
I actually believe that cutting the dividend is not meant as "punishment" for BP (this would indeed be silly), but as a means to pay for the damage. Instead of distributing profits among shareholders these profits should be used to pay for the damage - sounds fair to me.
This is certainly not about BP cutting the dividend instead of paying for the damage - this would not make any sense (and I am not sure what makes you think that this would be an option)
Most of the cutting dividend talk was simply that, to cut it. Which is obviously stupid and only hurts the taxpayers and investment into projects such as pensions.

Now, redistributing the dividend is another thing.