Recent studies continue to point to the devastating economic effects of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf region.

University of Central Florida professor Sean Snaith has carried out detailed study of the immediate and long-term economic impact of the blowout, which dumped more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico between April 20 and mid-July.

According to Snaith’s latest data, the disaster will delay any economic recovery in Florida by at least one year. The nation’s fourth-most populous state, Florida has already been hammered by the collapse in the real estate market and is experiencing a severe jobs crisis, with an official unemployment rate of 11.6 percent in June.

The first impact will be in the tourism industry, Snaith says, but this will soon “ripple out into other areas of the economy.” Employment in Pensacola, Florida, might contract by as much as 10 percent, according to Snaith, who notes that losses in businesses not directly connected to tourism “won’t ever see a dime” from the $20 billion escrow fund overseen by White House “claims czar” Kenneth Feinberg.

Another survey by the Tampa Bay Business Journal has found that a large proportion of Florida business owners will lay off workers as a result.

In another indication that BP will seize on its reported success in finally stopping the Gulf oil blowout to protect its revenues, new CEO Bob Dudley on Friday said that the company will start to wind down its cleanup operations.

Efforts to completely shut down the Macondo well have not yet been completed, however. On Monday or Tuesday BP plans to launch a “static” kill, a procedure that involves pumping cement and mud beneath the new cap placed over the blown-out well earlier this month. This step would precede the completion of relief wells, long presented as the only definitive means of finally controlling the Macondo, which dumped upwards of 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico between April 20 and mid-July.

“You will see the evidence of a pullback because we have boom across the shores all the way from Florida to Louisiana. Those only last for a certain number of tide cycles,” Dudley said in Biloxi, Mississippi. “And where there is no oil on the beaches you probably don’t need people walking up and down in Hazmat suits. So you’ll probably see that kind of a pullback.”

President Obama’s four-hour visit to Detroit Friday brought him to the center of the economic catastrophe created by the profit system. The “Motor City” was once a byword for decent-paying jobs in the world’s biggest industry. But Detroit is now synonymous with poverty, urban decay, mass unemployment and the virtual breakdown of a functioning society.

In his first visit to Detroit as president, Obama landed at Detroit/Wayne County Metropolitan Airport and his motorcade drove to the Chrysler Jefferson North assembly plant on the city’s east side, then to the General Motors assembly plant two miles to the north and west.

A columnist for the Detroit News noted that the route between the two factories traverses one of the city’s most blighted neighborhoods, past abandoned auto factories, shuttered storefronts, the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, resale shops, vegetable gardens in vacant lots tended by homeless men, and children playing amid urban debris.

The area is one of those targeted by Mayor David Bing for possible transformation into urban park or farm land—with the remaining residents forced to leave their homes by the cutoff of city services like fire protection, garbage collection, water and street lighting.

In another indication that BP will seize on its reported success in finally stopping the Gulf oil blowout to protect its revenues, new CEO Bob Dudley on Friday said that the company will start to wind down its cleanup operations.

Efforts to completely shut down the Macondo well have not yet been completed, however. On Monday or Tuesday BP plans to launch a “static” kill, a procedure that involves pumping cement and mud beneath the new cap placed over the blown-out well earlier this month. This step would precede the completion of relief wells, long presented as the only definitive means of finally controlling the Macondo, which dumped upwards of 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico between April 20 and mid-July.

“You will see the evidence of a pullback because we have boom across the shores all the way from Florida to Louisiana. Those only last for a certain number of tide cycles,” Dudley said in Biloxi, Mississippi. “And where there is no oil on the beaches you probably don’t need people walking up and down in Hazmat suits. So you’ll probably see that kind of a pullback.”

This article is the fourth of a series on the history, economy, social and environmental conditions in the Appalachian region of the United States. Part 1 was published on July 22, part 2 on July 24, and part 3 on July 27. World Socialist Web Site reporters recently visited the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia and interviewed residents on their conditions of life. Accompanying interviews are posted in four parts here: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4.

The population of the coalfields region of eastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia has hemorrhaged with the collapse of wages and jobs in the coal industry since the 1980s. At its peak in the mid-1970s, coinciding with a coal boom and an upsurge in militant strikes, the coalfields region experienced a population increase of 21 percent, more than double the national average growth rate, to more than 2.3 million residents.

In the wake of the temporary capping of the Deepwater Horizon well, the American media has begin to shift its focus from the catastrophe in the Gulf, while a number of significant commentaries have begun to downplay its impact and scope, essentially raising the question: what was all the fuss about?

These articles are part of a concerted effort by BP, the Obama administration, and the corporate media to minimize the effects of the spill, purge the event from the consciousness of the American people, and return to business as usual.

On April 20, an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers. Significant evidence has come forth that the lives of the workers on board and the safety of the rig equipment were disregarded by BP for the sake of maximizing profits. Subsequent to the explosion on April 20, over 200 million gallons of oil gushed out of the broken well one mile below the surface of the water. The oil has spread throughout the Gulf, affecting the physical and economic wellbeing of workers in at least six states. By all accounts, this was the most devastating environmental disaster in American history.

These are the facts that recent efforts by the corporate media wish to minimize.

Situated in the steep mountains of Mingo County, West Virginia, the town of Matewan has a total area of no more than half a square mile. This small town, which has earned a place in history for the struggles of the coal miners who called it home in the first part of the twentieth century, consists of little more than two roads and two rows of buildings. On one side of town, a floodwall offers protection from the rising waters of the Tug Fork river; on the other side, the Norfolk Southern railroad brings an endless string of coal cars through town, covering everything in a film of dust.

Just 475 people currently live in Matewan, according to the most recent estimates from the US Census Bureau. Of this small group, 31.9 percent of individuals and 16.8 percent of families live below the poverty line. Nearly 43 percent are classified as disabled. The median household income, according to the 2000 Census, stands at a staggeringly low $13,529.

The town is dominated on one end by a large United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) building. Considered alongside the conditions that surround it and the stories of the people who live there, one might say the UMWA building stands as a monument to that organization’s betrayals of the workers in the region.

The first 100 days of the BP Gulf oil catastrophe have provided an object lesson in the destructiveness and irrationality of capitalism, which subordinates every consideration to the profit drive of the giant corporations and banks.

The April 20 blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon was, in the fullest sense of the phrase, a disaster waiting to happen. There had been no systematic regulatory enforcement on the Deepwater Horizon or any other Gulf of Mexico oil rig under either president Obama or his predecessor, George W. Bush.

As for existing legal safety requirements, the order of the day was, and remains, “self-reporting.” This was in keeping with the decades-long promotion of deregulation, backed by both parties. Industry itself, the politicians proclaimed, was the only legitimate arbiter of what is safe and beneficial to workers, the environment, and the population.

The disastrous results of deregulation, which surfaced first in the collapse of the global financial markets in 2008, are obvious in the Gulf disaster. There is overwhelming evidence that the blowout was caused by the criminal negligence of BP, aided and abetted by bought-and-paid-for federal “regulators” who did little more than run interference for the oil industry.

The Detroit Public Schools, headed by its financial czar, Robert Bobb, is poised to implement a sweeping reorganization of the school district that will trample on the working conditions and democratic rights of teachers. In carrying out its policy, the district enjoys the complete support of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

At a recent DFT executive board meeting, it was announced that as many as 41 schools will be designated as “Priority Schools” for the 2010-2011 school year. An additional 10 schools will be affixed with this label the next year. The scheme is aimed at eliminating hard-won gains of teachers like job security and seniority rights, and is the first step toward transforming dozens of public schools into privately run charter schools, which will exclude children requiring the most attention and resources.

BP announced that CEO Tony Hayward, who has become a potent symbol of corporate arrogance and greed, will step down on October 1. Hayward, who is British, will be replaced by American Robert Dudley. Dudley is overseeing the company’s response to the Gulf oil disaster, one of the worst ecological catastrophes in history.

The move by BP is aimed at allowing the company, and the oil industry as a whole, to continue on with business as usual in the face of immense popular outrage over the oil spill. With the capping of the well, the Obama administration and the corporate and political establishment are seeking to put the disaster behind them and resume lucrative offshore oil drilling.

While most Gulf residents will not see a dime in compensation for the massive economic dislocation and public health crisis caused by the spill, Hayward stands to make off with millions.

Hayward will receive an undisclosed severance package of at least $1.6 million, a $600,000 per year pension that he can collect beginning at age 55—in two years’ time—and a lucrative new position with TNK-BP, a BP “joint venture with a group of Russian billionaires,” according to the Wall Street Journal.