Here's to you, Barack Obama!

The other night at dinner, I was discussing the BP oil spill with my family and the arguably passive stance the US Government had taken towards seeing the spill cleaned up in a timely fashion. My father argued that, thanks to Reaganomics and lax regulatory standards in the US, it was very difficult to hold a corporation accountable for its actions in modern America.

I disagreed. I argued that the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, should be able to call in the Chairman of a company like BP, a company that is responsible for the largest oil spill in US history, and say "you're going to fix this, and you're going to pay for it all, and you're going to do it now!" and the CEO should have to do it. The President should be able to get things done. The man has the nuclear codes! He should surely be able to hasten the recovery of a natural disaster with little more than a few stern words.

Well, today, President Barack Obama did exactly that. He marched the Chairman of BP, Carl-Henric Svanberg, into the White House at 10AM, not through the private underground entrance, but through the public, front row West Wing entrance (where all the cameras are) and sat him and other BP executives down for a little talk. When they emerged four hours later, the President announced, in place of BP's $10 BILLION shareholder dividend payout, the establishment of a new $20 BILLION fund for victims of the oil spill (to be managed by a third party) to help recover economic losses sustained as a result. He also ordered BP to "mobilize additional technology and equipment" to clean up the spill.

Svanberg even went so far as to offer what many had been waiting for, an apology. He said "I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the America people. Through our actions and commitments, we hope that over the long term we will regain the trust that you have in us. We made it clear to the president that words are not enough. We understand that we will, and we should, be judged by our actions."

So here's to you, President Obama, for showing some teeth, for getting results, and for putting that flashy title of yours to use.