"Meanwhile, pundits such as John Tamny of RealClearMarkets.com and Charles Ortel of Newport Value Partners are seeing "eerie" similarities to the 1930s (if not current day Venezuela) in the U.S. government's assault on BP as the Deepwater Horizon disaster flows on. "The process playing out is most harmful to confidence that foreign investors used to have in the relative reliability and fairness of our legal process," Ortel writes" is this one unusual occurrence or has a pattern been established? please feel free to provide additional examples.
"The process playing out is most harmful to confidence that foreign investors used to have in the relative reliability and fairness of our legal process," ----------------- This is a good question. Personally I think the saga is playiing out with the financials. AIG, and others. I suspect countries are okay if you throw the book at an oil spill but are looking for contractual obligations to be maintained in finance.
1) 0-0-2-2 2) If the "spill" had occured in 1999 or 2006, it would be different. 3) People tend to be hateful, vindictive and punitive during bear markets.
From my experience, people tend to be hateful, vindictive and punitive during any market. Not all, but way too many.