If chief executives were brought to Washington merely to be humiliated, investors would not care. But the pressure on BP to suspend dividends to shareholders and put $20bn into an escrow fund for compensation and clean-up before anyone knows what it will cost is ominous.

It has echoes of the 1998 tobacco settlement in which the industry paid $246bn to states following legal action by their attorneys-general. Only 5 per cent of that money was spent on tobacco-related initiatives, with Virginia, for example, investing in higher education, fibreoptic cables and research into energy.

Willie Sutton, the robber, sagely observed that he raided banks because that was where the money was, and US politicians know this lesson well. The voters do not have a lot since they are recovering from a loss of paper wealth in the housing bust and governments around the world (as well as US states) face yawning budget deficits.

Who does have cash? Large, dividend-paying corporations such as BP. They include energy producers and utilities; consumer goods brands; food, drink and drugs companies - all of the mature businesses that cluster in indexes such as the FTSE 100 and the Standard and Poor's 500.

Adam Posen of the Bank of England monetary policy committee has pointed out that UK companies hold financial surpluses equal to 8 per cent of gross domestic product. Industrial companies in the S&P 500 had a record $836bn in cash in March, according to Howard Silverblatt, an S&P index analyst.

Cash matters to investors. The S&P's "Dividend Aristocrats" index of reliable dividend payers in the S&P 500 includes Exxon, McDonald's, PepsiCo and Walmart, and S&P estimates that dividends have made up a third of total shareholder returns since 1926.

These reserves also make corporations what lawyers call "deep pockets" - defendants that are worth suing because they can afford to pay large sums in compensation. The tactics of Congress and Mr Obama against BP are reminiscent of tort lawyers, who are big funders of the Democrats.

David Fuller's view OK, BP made mistakes - plenty of them. In trying to lower costs and maximize profits, reports indicate that BP was cavalier about safety and also its own insurance. It certainly is not the first company to do this and it won't be the last but BP may be the unluckiest.

Who will be the winners as a consequence of BP's misfortune?

The White House, temporarily, because it can rally populist support due to what President Obama has described as the "equivalent of 9/11" and use BP as an ATM; tort lawyers because they know how to turn an environmental tragedy into a pot of gold; the states affected and anyone who can claim that their property or business was damaged, because the government will be generous with other people's money; insurance companies because the cost of safety regulations will rise; countries which export crude oil because this accident and the subsequent moratorium on offshore drilling will lift the floor beneath prices; the alternative energy industries which will receive additional sabsidies.

Who will be the losers, other than BP?

Heading the list are BP's shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, plus investors in equity income funds, most of which would have held BP; businesses insuring against risk, not least in the extraction industry; governments in the UK, USA and anywhere else where BP operates because the company's tax payments have also disappeared for a while; the offshore oil drilling companies; the citizens and companies in countries which import oil because the floor price will rise as a consequence of less offshore drilling; potentially, other companies with large cash reserves which may also be viewed by spendthrift governments and tort lawyers as tempting targets.