Right and Wrong in the BP settlement

http://www.local15tv.com/content/morningshow/story/Judge-to-Hear-BPs-Bid-to-Block-Settlement-Payouts/wB91Pn_XZEapAmqpLdrI0A.cspx
Frivolous payouts and neglected deserving claims are all part and parcel of this unique, brokered settlment.
Those who have valid claims that will never be paid, will have to hope that the trickle down theory applies to their claims.  Likewise those who get a windfall because of the simple mathematics are the beneficiaries of what bp calls and unintended windfall and what is really just a mathematical numbers game where BP now is having second thoughts.
The "trick" that BP played was to focus the attention of the majority of claimants onto the settlement and thereby avoid many of the more legitimate, but excluded claims.  These excluded claims include many who are just as deserving as those injured on the exploding well, but who fall into a classification where they cannot collect merely by filing a claim (see the prior blog on this subject to see what's left to them, if anything).
In this way BP hoped to avoid much of the potential fall out to large claimants while restricting their liability to a very focused time period.
BP made almost half a trillion dollars last year and is "valued at" around 130 billion dollars.  Aside from valid claims for reasonable amounts, the face claims (which may or maynot be reasonable) from states and municipalities which should be "consistent" with the claims of their constituents but since when has a government balanced the needs of the constituents against collecting money (except in rhetoric and certain election years)?  In their defence, these government entities cannot be charged with far reaching planning type intelligence (see China's Weaponized Economy for more on this).  It isn't in their nature and they have to take the advice of their counsel.
The balance is between forcing BP into a chapter 11 vrs getting a balanced return on the vast economic damage which to some extent must be envisioned in these dangerous undertakings.  It must also be balanced against the vast incomes.  If they paid 1/3 of one year's gross income (a reach based on present claims) that might not be out of line considering the personal losses.
The problem is that it is difficult to find balance in this shifting and oily environment.