“We are now reading about shortcuts to save money,”
You hit the nail on the head. They had two choices;
1) Try to save a few bucks.
2) Reliable safeguards.
They chose to try to save some money and said the hell with safeguards.
IMHO, it will be found (though not widely publicized) that BP took the shortcuts not to save money, but because they were being pressured to get UNHOOKED and let the OIL PRODUCER (can anyone name the company?) take over and start PRODUCTION. The responsible agencies in the government, at OBAMA's direction, allowed certain 'waivers' and less 'plugs' (one instead of three), to help 'facilitate' getting the well going, so it could be used by this administration to prove they 'solved' something.
The head of the agency responsible for allowing these 'waivers' just (resigned/was fired).
What does that tell you?