More and more this guy is out of touch with the reality of NYC. Why is this person still in office?

You summed it beautifully. For wealthy and best, the dollar stops anywhere other than at their small table.

Thanks

Anya

Anti Vibration GlovesManufacturer

Somehow, Bloomberg managed to increase his net worth as CEO of Bloomberg, Inc. while handling the job of Mayor of NYC for a couple of terms. This tells me that either being a CEO or being the Mayor of NYC ain't that hard. Either way, STFU, Mayor Pinksweater.

it's not somehow. Bloomberg Inc. still sells market data and custom market analysis to those companies that trade anything. Just because he went into politics, his company didn't stop earning money, and as the CEO and (probably) the largest shareholder of the company his holdings increased in value and dividends even though he is not actively running the place while he is in office.

the problem with Bloomie isn't that he is rich and getting richer. the problem is that he believes that money makes might which makes right. in his mind he is still a stock market trader, a "Master of The Universe" and the rules of society do not apply to him.

This is directly from wikipedia:

"Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is the current Mayor of New York City, and the 8th richest person in the United States with personal wealth of US$18 billion in 2010." ... "In March 2009, Forbes reported Michael Bloomberg's wealth at $16 billion, a gain of $4.5 billion since the previous year"

While most New Yorkers were figuring out how to survive during these hard economic times his wealth grew by $4.5 BILLION in one year! Couldn't his wealth just grow up say 2 billion and the other $2.5 billion go to raises for the thousands of workers his various companies employs? Then again this is the man who was opposed to workers making $10/hr! I don't know how he can call himself a philanthropist, but that's a whole other discussion. This just one example of the rich getting richer while we, the bottom 80% of the country, suffer.

NEW YORK'S WORST MAYOR EVER!!!

Bloomberg's comments are not surprising at all. This man only cares about money, BIG MONEY, and it doesn't matter who or what suffers to get that money. To him the coastline, wildlife, fishermen, etc being affected by this are just collateral damage just like all the people in NY, and the US, that have to suffer so the rich can continue to get richer. How can he have such a nonchalant attitude towards this disaster but then become irate when workers ask to make $10/hr on taxpayer subsidized projects?

The ultra rich in this country protect one another. You don't see any CEO talking about BP or this oil spill because they all look out at for one another. They'll never bad mouth one of their own. Remember the Top 1% of Americans own 42.7% of America's financial wealth, the next 19% own 50.3% and the bottom 80% of Americans only own 7% of America's financial wealth (economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010)). This is staggering! The Top 20% owns 93% and the remaining 7% is being shared by 80% of America! Yet we sit here arguing about welfare recipients, immigration, etc as if this is these are the problems. The real problem is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at unprecedented rates. The problem is the the country's ultra rich are looting this country. The economic divide is getting greater and greater because the ultra rich are squeezing every dollar out of the rest of us. The American Dream is dead, it died when they bankrupted the middle class. That's why it kills me when I see commenters (who are undoubtedly part of the 80%) arguing and defending them, as if they care about them.

I'm as outraged as the rest of you about this oil spill but I'm directing my anger mostly at our government. The politicians who allowed this to happen.

This is for all the pro-business people who say that we should allow companies to self-regulate themselves. Incidents like this and the banking crisis prove that companies are in the business of making money and unless we, through government regulations, establish the rules, they do so without any morals or conscience and a totally disregard for the destruction they cause in order to maintain a profit. I blame BP to a certain extent but this could have happened to any company. Whether it was BP, Exxon, Sunoco or whomever, what does it matter, I squarely place the blame on our government, and not the current administration, but the administration (not sure when it started) that allowed offshore drilling without any contingency plan in place, in case the inevitable happened. This was just a matter of time before one of these accidents happened and to allow these projects without any safety measures in place was our government's fault. Just like our government has checks and balances, business must also have checks and balances and it is our government's job to protect us from their greed, whether we or they like it or not. Time and time again, business has proven that it cannot self-regulate or police itself and this is just more unfortunate proof of that.

I cannot believe that these oil companies did not have a plan in place in case something like this happened, which was just a matter of time. I don't believe that they never imagined that something like this could would never occur. They need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law just to deter other companies from not being prepared to handle a crisis such as this. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, there should have been a structure built around these pipes to handle this in case something like this happened. But then again weren't the oil cowboys from Texas ruling things when they decided to cap off liabilities to the oil companies at $75 million? Can you imagine that? Bush & Cheney sold us out! These oil companies make $75 million in a few hours! The oil companies had no incentive to be cautious or have safety measures in place because even if they caused a disaster like this the absolute most they had to pay would be $75 million. Isn't that a sweet deal? And to make matters worse Cheney decided that a valve that could've helped in a situation like this cost too much ($500k) and was therefore not made mandatory.

Unless we hold our politicians accountable to us, and not the lobbyists or these corporations, there will be more disasters like this whether it's another oil spill or a another banking crisis or whatever other disaster is coming. I think the buck stops with our politicians, they need to be moral gatekeepers to these corporations. I will not shed a tear for BP or Goldman Sachs but demonizing them will not prevent the next company from creating another disaster, the only ones that could've prevented these, and future disasters, is our elected officials.

Forget throwing brown paint at BP's signs, let's throw it at Congress, the Senate, the White House, etc. and let them we blame them and they suppose to work for us. I'd like to throw one right at Bush's and Cheney's front doors for selling us out!

I doubt most laypeople are sufficiently informed about the entire clean up process to justifiably blame BP with the vehemence that has been heaped upon them since the spill started. I'm no expert so beyond just throwing a tantrum I don't see the vilification of BP to be much more than that.

I don't believe BP is a villain. I believe BP is criminally negligent. The way to avert the problems they are currently experiencing is well known, but it is expensive. For whatever reason(s) BP chose to not follow proper proceedures in deeling with high pressure systems. This was a managerial decision therefore the managers are criminally liable for the injury to the planet. Put them in prison.

I don't want the CEO of BP to step down: that would be too easy. I want him in a non-white collar prison, in the general population, with a mandatory minimum sentence to run concurrently with the cleanup operations. When the oil concentrations in the environment and wildlife are returned to their pre-BP levels, then he becomes eligible for parole.

Corporations are not afraid of fines because they pass them on to their customers. Give them something that will be a deterrent to future negligent managerial decisions: jail!

I agree with everything you said but what do we do about the politicians that allowed them to be legally be lax in their safety measures? What's the deterrent for politicians who knowingly sell us out to the lobbyists and corporations? Aside from voting them out and replacing them with the next corporate stooges? I mean when they capped the oil companies' liability at $75 million, which they make in a few hours, then who's interest are they protecting? Who are our politicians working for? When they decide that a $500 thousand dollar valve is too expensive for the highest profitting companies in the world, who's money are they protecting?

We need to channel some of this anger at our politicians. And not so much this current administration but the ones that put these laws in place that allowed this to happen. I know "who's ass to kick" if Obama really wants to kick some ass and BP is just one of them.

As upset as I am with BP, and I do think they are criminally negligent and the should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, I also understand that by law they are only obligated to pay for $75 million dollars of the clean up and that's not their fault. I would like to see the politicians that accepted these terms to feel our wrath too.

I really don't think you need an engineering or lay degree to realize that BP fucked up.

+1 to everything gawkthis said. This isn't surprising, analogous to the how this admin deals with drivers killing pedestrians, and all the NYPD blunders, they are "accidental." I guarantee he wouldn't be so sympathetic to a poor person leaving a baby unattended with a pit bull. Don't all the violations amount to a foreseeable disaster?

Billionaires shouldn't never pay taxes nor held accountable. We must all thank our lucky stars that they are in our city/country and not do anything or say anything that might make them leave us. This has been said in many forms repeatedly By bloomberg. With that attitude, I am not surprised that he pays the people no mind in this city. He actually thinks we are indebted to him for being our Mayor. He doesn't serve us but dictates us.

You summed it beautifully.

oops "You summed it up beautifully"

who cares what BLOOMBUM the billionaire says

Uhh, so yeAH Boomblerg, BP didn't MEAN to not be sure the safety factors were well in place and FUNCTIONAL, they didnt MEAN to be slipshod and pennypinching when it came to going an extra nine yards to ensure and test their blowout valves or whatever the hell you call it, because they ARE the experts arent they??? and they sure are doing a fecking bang up job stopping this end of the world oil spill. Yes, they ARE to blame. every single one of them.

So the guy that publically fired the staffer playing video games thinks we should lay off the guy who oversees the largest British owned corporation with one if the worst environmental and human rights records.

Right.

How we re~elected him is beyond me.

BP was negligent. They shouldn't have drilled that deep without numerous failsafes in place.

The entire Interior/Minerals Management relationship with the government is corrupt.

Bloomberg is speaking from a position of money. Money first. That's what's gotten us into this mess. All financials are intertwined, with oil companies dead center.

This should be a watershed moment, is corporate media can manage to report it correctly. Nobody wakes up wanting to use oil. We have no other viable alternatives given to us. We have no clean energy policy.

Bloomberg's

Pal

Given the silly fay little corporate fascist will have spent 3 terms destroying neighborhoods, throwing families out of their apartments, doubling the homeless population, and making the city virtually unlivable for nearly everyone not located on Park Ave, I'm not surprised by the comment. But his beard is kinda cute.