For a long time conservative like me, this is a tough issue to blog on. I lean left on the Gulf oil spill mess. So, call me a flaming liberal; no pun intended.

For over a month or two, Obama watched the oil spill spread over the Gulf of Mexico with the same powerless shock as other Americans. Regarding this, the right wing pundits got a big time pay back for Bush slander on Katrina. Yep, Bush should have stopped the hurricane & Obama could plug the leak.

Lampooned by his contingency & ‘my people’ for his impotence, Obama was spurred into action. He attacked the only available party—BP—and, to underline the stress with which he takes this problem, he gave his first Oval Office address on the subject. Lawsuits! That is what the professional/motivational speaker/professor said. Where is “mission-accomplished-bush” when you need him!

Obama’s address got poor reviews; his attack on BP better ones. Last week the firm bowed to pressure, and announced that it was, in effect, handing over $20 billion to the government to pay for compensation and clean-up, as well as cancelling the payment of any dividends this year and setting up a fund—of a mere $100m—to compensate unemployed oil workers.

This may do Obama some good. Whether it will benefit our friends in the Gulf is more doubtful. Businessmen are already blue, shot-down by the economy and nervous of their president’s attitude towards free markets.

I lean very left on this one. Where are those ‘onerous-left-wing-regulations” when you need them? Anyone who says the ‘free market’ can solve this mess needs history lessons.

Go get ‘em Obama! Sue everyone later, but fix the problem first.

May God richly bless our friends in the Gulf as this drags on.

Make sure to call Bill Miller @ 480-948-3095, a 22 year Arizona litigation and trial lawyer with any questions about Arizona law or Maricopa County courts.

Arizona Trial & Business Law

William A. Miller, Esq.

William A. Miller, PLLC

8170 North 86th Place, Suite 208
Scottsdale, Arizona 85258

In 1988, one of my first legal projects was to get a bank from Colorado off the back of a local developer who had built a shopping center. It turns out the bank was fearful that Arizona was about to enter a bad season in commercial real estate, the only problem was the developer was really not in default. The judge slammed the bank & by the time we cut a settlement deal with them, the market had really corrected. They should have waited and played fair. Declaring bogus defaults hurt them.

Now, the next shoe is about to drop because of commercial loan resets. Commercial landlords continue to lose office & retail tenants at an accelerating pace, indicating that the industry’s troubles are worsening.

The amount of occupied space in U.S. shopping centers and malls declined a net 8.7 million square feet in the first quarter of 2009, according to real-estate-research company Reis Inc. The amount of occupied space lost in that one quarter was more than the total amount of space retailers gave back to landlords in all of 2008 and any other year in recent history, according to Reis. It makes 1988 look like a cake walk. If you need help dealing with the ever changing real estate market give the Scottsdale law firm of William A. Miller a call at 602-319-6899.

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