mess that it got the country into in the first place. kind of like the banks at the same time. which puts the president politically in a tricky position, don t you think? because he can t destroy this company. because he needs it to fix this mess. but at the same time, the public the polls say he s got to be firm and maybe some say he hasn t even been hard enough on that s the reasons polling suggest, yeah. quite a position to be in. of christine, good to see you, as always. good to talk to you, thanks. yep. and the president, as you know, is speaking tonight from the oval office. and cnn will have complete coverage of the president s speech. it s set to begin at 8:00 person eastern time. it will begin on time. you can rest assured of that. after you ve heard from the president and what he has to say, drop us a line or give us a call and tell us what you think. log on to cnn.com/tony, that s my blog page or call 1-877-742-5760. back in a moment. i was told ton my aspirin regi
does this end and the future look like? ali, can t wait for your show top of the hour. we ll see you, buddy. we are focusing today on real people trying to help in this gulf coast crisis. the tampa bay brewing company is serving up beers for the cause. the company donating $2 to the florida aquarium for each pint of draft purchased by a customer. the money will help experts at the aquarium care for marine life affected by the oil. this is my home, just like everyone else here. i just want to see it remain the same so my kids can see what i ve seen. and turning now to your money, cnn money.com s poppy harlow is at the help desk with answers to your mortgage and credit questions. time now for the help desk, where we get answers to your financial questions. joining me to do that, donnarisota, a senior writer. thanks for being here. appreciate it. good to be here. first question for you, rod,
the economies you re familiar with, that s how much this company has lost in value? yes. you know what s interesting, christine? how big and powerful it is. huge. let me ask you this. you mentioned a moment ago about punishing, to what lengths will the u.s. government go in terms of punishing bp. you know, if you listen closely, you re starting to hear people particularly from overseas suggesting that, you know, that the president has been too harsh on bp. yeah. in his rhetoric. so you wonder if that is playing a role at all in how the message against bp is being disseminated and being parsed by this administration and others. and here s another point, tony. in the parallel between the banks i find interesting. two different situations all together. but too big powerful areas that both have hurt america, right? the president angry about it. the president holding people accountelab accountelable. but at the same time, you need bp to be a profitable company so that it can pay
the big questions here right now is how far will the u.s. go to punish this company. what is the future of its contracts with the government, with its leases in the gulf of mexico, with the future of offshore drilling, which is something that s important for this company. can bp pay? well, many analysts, tony say, yes, it can pay. it s a cash machine, literally a cash machine. all these oil companies are. you know, it has $7 billion in the bank at the end of the first quarter. it was making $66 million a day the in the first quarter. lawmakers want bp to put $20 billion aside in an escrow account and that s what s got that s what feeds into this uncertainty about the financial flexibility of this company. its cash flow is immense. we have said it repeatedly. so so the pressure from washington and so is the uncertainty about the final costs. we don t even know years down the road what the potential litigation could be. so that s why you ve got a stock like this cut in half. isn t that