BP and the Gulf Coast disaster. Let the jackals eat

The government announced a criminal settlement with BP, worth $4.5 billion in fines and a few criminal charges thrown in to “satisfy” the public. My interest is specifically what happens to the money?

I understand that its going to be split 50/50 with the affected states. Let the squabbling begin. The states will start jockeying for position as to who gets the largest piece of the pie, while the Feds will take $2.25 billion off the top and promptly lose it. By lose it, I mean that it will almost certainly not be allocated for disaster related events, but will vanish into the general fund.

The shame of this is that after the news reported that BP will pay $4.5 billion, the public will lose all interest in following the money trail and both the states will be jackals fighting each other for the largest piece of BP carcass, all while the Feds negotiate quiet deals as they are the ones controlling the fresh meat being fought over.

Was this a Federal, Department of Justice BP shake down, so they would only go after the low-end employees and not touch the executives? I think so.

After all, the money will come from the public, either the saps who own the stock, the ones that buy the gasoline or from sale of assets with the BP executive continuing to collect huge salaries and bonuses. Sad.