Ebbie, I discussed that in the other thread and added a link to John Hofmeister-Pozzi comments.

Simmons is a banker.

Pozzi has had engineering experience with Saudi Aramco and his company is active in service to several oil companies, hence is worth listening to. John Hofmeister is ex-president of Shell.

Songbob, BP cut corners and expenses- it now looks like they used thinner pipe then called for. These decisions were made in the Houston office (all, or nearly all, Americans) and by the onboard supervisors (Again, salaried employees).
Should the CEO and others in the head office have known about this? They probably did, but deferred to the managers on the spot.

Tony Hayward, the BP CEO, is a 'boy wonder', who shot up the ladder like a rocket. His skills are in management, not in science or engineering. He is a delegator as far as local operations of BP are concerned. Perhaps he should have a better knowledge of exploration procedures, and exercise more control; I don't know. He is not coming across as a thinker in his comments on TV and to the press; he trys the minimize the effects of the disaster.

Salary- $1 million pounds, bonus each year about $1 million pounds- I noted this in the thread with a less controversial title.