Rumour: BP To Cut Its Dividend Next Week, and Yet Another Goldman Sachs Stock Scandal

This is making the rounds as a rumour, but it has some credibility, and I have been expecting it as they need to set aside serious reserves for litigation and for the clean up of damages caused.

The company is in deep trouble, and the CEO is making all the classic errors we learned not to do in the crisis management courses in business school. Its shocking really at how badly he has performed.

The rumour is so widespread that I am sure it will make the wires in some form, if only a denial, and I will look for it. I do not expect BP to declare bankruptcy as this other story suggests, although it would be an interestingly foul gambit to try and avoid its liabilities.

British Petroleum had been at the heart of darkness many years ago, as in the example of the Iranian coup d'etat of 1953 and imprisonment of Iran's democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh, followed by over twenty years of tyranny and torture. Some think this is what had inspired Eisenhower's parting words about the Anglo-American military-industrial complex.

Although through aggressive use of public relations had improved their image, BP have long been noted by investigative reporters and environmentalists as a bad boy among the corporate multinationals, preferring to spend money on PR, politicians, and regulators rather than planning and safety. BP: Slick Operator and BP's Other Spill by Greg Palast for example, and those radicals at the Seattle Times: BP's Trail of Accidents and Scandals Lead to Alaska. When Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska winks and says "I'm your gal," she just might not be winking at you, chump change.

And let us not forget the BP Texas City Refinery Explosion of 2005 and the urgent calls for more oversight and attention to safety.

I thought it was interesting that BP bought the search term "oil spill" from Google to better direct the flow of information from the public.

And then of course there is the issue of insider selling that occurred prior to the more complete release of the extent of the Gulf oil leak disaster involving BP executives and former executives, and of course Goldman Sachs. Gulf Oil Spill to Drag Goldman Sachs into Trading Scandal?

This is not to say that all corporations are corrupt all the time, not at all. But neither are they naturally good, all the time. It underscores the need for regulation, and investigations into the type of corruption which was apparently widespread in the agencies that regulated the banks, the oil drilling industry, and the stock markets. Maintaining a system of justice, the rule of law, is not something you do once and then sit back and then trust to the natural goodness of men and women to limit their profits and do the right thing when no one is watching. Especially when you permit corruption to create enormous temptations and opportunities in the spirit of 'greed is good.'

"How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of their warfare perished." Slowly but surely.

And I see that the utterly discredited econo-propagandist Art Laffer is now on Bloomberg television being prompted with softballs from the corporatist spokesmodels Matt Miller and Carol Massar.

"O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy."

William Blake, Songs of Experience

Postscript: In case you are interested here is a brief, simple, but decent analysis of Blake's poem, The Sick Rose. The first twenty or so analyses that Google recommended would set my old teachers turning in their graves.

Alcoa Slashes Dividend from .17 to .03 Per Share

Alcoa is also planning new offerings of common and preferred stock to raise capital.

Too bad they are not a bank.

GE Slashes Dividend For the First Time Since 1938 to Preserve Capital

GE cut their dividend by a whoppoing 68% to preserve capital in 'uncertain markets.' The company also said that there are no plans to raise additional capital and dilute common shareholders, with the same confidence which they had in January when Jeff Immelt said that they would not cut the dividend in 2009.

Here is a February 5, 2009 video interview with Jeff Immelt:

Immelt Says Important for GE Not to Cut Divident in 2009

The Wall Street Journal interviewer provides an example of an interview from the prior March in which Jeff Immelt was optimistic about earnings and then shortly thereafter "BAM! A big miss. Does this mean you and your guys don't know what's going on?"

Well, BAM again.

Reuters
GE cuts quarterly dividend to protect liquidity
Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:50pm EST

BOSTON (Reuters) - General Electric Co plans to cut its quarterly dividend to 10 cents a share starting in the second half of 2009, a move that it said would provide it with more "flexibility" in the face of a recession.

The U.S. conglomerate said it had no plans to raise additional equity, and that reducing its dividend from 31 cents a share would save it about $9 billion a year.

The news had been widely expected on Wall Street even prior to GE's statement earlier this month that its board would re-evaluate the payout....

"We have determined that reducing the dividend ... is a prudent measure to further enhance our balance sheet and provide us with additional flexibility," said Chief Executive Jeff Immelt in a statement.

As recently as January, Immelt had defended the dividend. In November, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said it planned to pay the 31-cent quarterly dividend through 2009.

Still, troubles at its GE Capital finance unit had led some investors to wonder whether keeping the dividend was a good idea....

SP 500 Still Overvalued by 46% as Dividends Plummet at Record Pace

We have not reached a sustainable bottom yet in US equity prices despite the infomercials and chief strategist's exhortations to buy them while they are cheap on the financial news channels.

Stocks are valued based on their returns, and those returns are based on real cash flow and profits paid out to shareholders as dividends or stock buybacks to boost share prices.

For too many years US companies have essentially robbed Peter to pay Paul, servicing short term profits by offshoring US jobs, manipulating their balance sheets, and appropriating the savings of the world through the US reserve currency mechanism.

We've just about run out of track on that line, and are heading for a hard stop at a much lower level. At some point the market will perceive that the economy is improving and that the outlook for corporate profits is positive. Stocks will reflect this about six months in advance.

But there will be no recovery until the banking system is reformed and restructured, and the median wage begins to increase enough to support both savings and increased consumption.

Making additional debt available first as a cure is nonsensical, because the debt we have cannot be serviced and must be written off. To do so is Ponzi economics, which is what Greenspan was practicing, and why the decline has been so precipitous.

The longer we avoid making the necessary changes, the more we risk an involuntary default.


Bloomberg
Dividends Falling Most Since ’55 Means S&P 500 Still Expensive
By Michael Tsang

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The fastest reduction in U.S. dividends since 1955 is depriving investors of the only thing that gave stocks an advantage over government bonds in the last century.

U.S. equities returned 6 percent a year on average since 1900, inflation-adjusted data compiled by the London Business School and Credit Suisse Group AG show. Take away dividends and the annual gain drops to 1.7 percent, compared with 2.1 percent for long-term Treasury bonds, according to the data. (And don't bother factoring in anything for that old-fashioned concept called 'risk' - Jesse)

A total of 288 companies cut or suspended payouts last quarter, the most since Standard & Poor’s records began 54 years ago, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. While the S&P 500 is trading at the lowest price relative to earnings since 1985 and all 10 Wall Street strategists tracked by Bloomberg forecast a rally this year, predictions based on dividends show shares are overvalued by as much as 46 percent.

“It’s a greater fool theory if we always buy stocks based on earnings and we never get a penny out of it, hoping for someone to buy that stock at a higher price,” said James Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management in Boston, which oversees $134 billion. “Dividends have been a cushion in bad times. If they go to zero it’s a disaster.” (The real disaster is that the US is running out of greater fools. - Jesse)

Twenty-five companies in the S&P 500 saved almost $17 billion by cutting or suspending outlays this year, more than all the reductions from 2003 to 2007, when the index returned 83 percent. On a per-share basis, S&P 500 companies may trim payouts 13 percent this year, the biggest drop since 1942 ...