I know we've all watched in horror the footage of the disaster in the Gulf. We've seen the dead wildlife, we've seen the clouds of oil, we've seen the pictures of empty docks and restaurants as the Gulf coast residents try to figure out 'what next'. 

But, as we get deeper into the disaster, we're discovering a pretty dark underbelly. You see, all the companies in any way involved in the spill are quickly setting it up legally so that they will not be held accountable when the time comes. 

Halliburton & Co. have been making sure that they can get off the hook when the time comes. And one shocking element is that few of the companies involved had anywhere near enough insurance to begin to cover the clean up and damages. 

Which makes me realize that those companies may well have actually believed a catastrophe like this couldn't happen. I'm sure they were playing a wicked numbers came, running cost benefit analysis and such, but good God, how could they not suspect something like this would happen?