Why should you have insurance if you can pay off accidents in their entirety? A lot of people believe this accident won't bankrupt them. Assuming they did have insurance, would the insurance company be able to pay up? If BP is expected to have a problem paying, a much smaller insurance company certainly will.
While it is certainly less than ideal, it does not appear to be significantly astray of the industry norm, which was 0.87 in 2006. http://www.bizstats.com/reports/corp.asp?profType=ratios&coding=21.1.110 The 2007 industry numbers are not much different: http://www.primeindustryreports.com/ireport.aspx?tr=12124 Further, Exxon's quick ratio as at FYE 2009 was 0.74, while ConocoPhillips's was 0.58. I arrived at those calculations from the financials available at Yahoo Finance. I don't pretend to know the sector and I haven't conducted any analysis of either BP's or the industry's financial performance, but I don't think you can draw many conclusions from a single ratio in isolation of either industry norms or trend.
I agree it's just a small piece of the picture. But for those looking at BP as an investment now because it's "on sale", it's an important part of the picture. I've found, in my very limited time as an active market participant, that when company-specific bad news drags down all the stocks in a sector, the real bargains are obtained by investing the strongest companies in the sector, not in the company that's in big trouble just because it's fallen the most. It's human nature to want the best deal, but you do get what you pay for. CVX has strong fundamentals and a nearly 4% dividend. That's why after the 2008 crash it recovered more robustly than its peers. Or look at BPT, a royalty trust that pays a 9% dividend and recently approached its pre-crash highs (we've owned BPT for many years).
Okay, and I'm not making a case either for or against an investment in BP because that's beyond the scope of the single point I wanted to make. I just take issue with placing too much importance on any single ratio without determining the underlying and the industry comparative. For example, an argument can be made that a comparatively rich quick ratio is suggestive of inefficient use of capital. It can also reflect a problem with receiveables collection, depending on its composition and turnover. These are just hypotheticals presented for the sake of argument. Just that I had worked in corporate banking several years ago, and industrial finance and leasing before that, and I learned not to treat any single ratio like a silver bullet. Sorry if I'm belaboring the point. Carry on.
Let me put this as politely as possible. You don't know what you're talking about. How could BP not be subject to jurisdiction in the US when it is drilling under a license awarded by the US government and it caused tort damages in the US? The issue of negligence or gross negligence, with all its possible ramifications, is an issue that will be decided by juries in the affected areas. Considering that we already have testimony that BP's manager on the rig overruled heated objections from Transocean and ordereds them to pull the mud from the hole, causing the blowout, I am relatively confident how they will rule. BP does not have the ability to pull out of the US and somehow escape liability. They have assets that can be attached. Judgments can be enforced in UK courts. They also have a huge business with the Defense Department to consider. BP is an enormous company and may have the wherewithall to pay all claims, but the matter is not clear from doubt. The fact they haven't capped the well yet and that the flow is now more than four times their original estimates are not encouraging.
While I agree with a lot of what you say, I can assure you that for big firm lawyers working fulltime on a big case, logging 2500+ hours a year is not only doable but pretty much expected. I also think you're way underestimating how many lawyers would be involved. I would say hundreds. Don't forget there will be multiple cases involving four or five state governments, federal government enforcement actions, a number of very large class actions for property damage, lost wages, business damage, etc, plus cross claims among the companies involved. The Exxon Valdez cases took 20 years to resolve. That's a lot of lawyers billing frantically for a lot of years, even if they don't take quite that long.