LIVity

This article gave me a headache, but please read it if you get the chance:

Two years after BP oil spill, executive compensation still flowing

I've been harping about the injustice of oil prices for years now. At first my gripe was simply that as a full-time graduate student working as a waitress, I could barely afford to commute to school and work. As a working adult, gas prices are still putting a strain on me (mainly because the price of everything has drastically increased and it's blamed on the price of fuel), but it's so much bigger than that. Now, to add to the fact that I'm pissed off about being robbed blind, I'm also pissed that my intelligence is being insulted.

Just last week I read an article promoting the idea that fuel prices are rising because of what's going on in the Middle East. This reasoning is nothing new and frankly I'm tired of hearing it. Especially when every year I have to read articles about how large the oil companies' margin of profit is. And now, how BP's CEO Bob Dudley's pay package of $6.8 million in salary, annual bonus awards, stock grants and options is small in comparison to the packages other oil companies' CEOs receive. And how Tony Hayward, BP's CEO in 2010 during the infamous Gulf Coast Oil Spill, was paid out $1.1 million last month and $194,973 the year after the spill.

And the only thing BP has to say when questioned why these guys are still making the big bucks after exhibiting poor performance is, they're trying to offer competitive pay??

“We recognize a concern by government, and society at large, of excess in this area, but cannot ignore the reality of a global competitive market for top executive talent,” Antony Burgmans, a BP director and chairman of the remuneration committee, wrote in the company’s annual report. “We respect investors’ expectation for pay to be strongly tied to performance while also wanting to ensure that executives receive fair reward for their achievements.”

If BP wants its executives to be fairly compensated based on their achievements, it should really be collecting money from them. The Gulf Coast Oil Spill was a major, somebody give me a word for "opposite of achievement," and everybody seems like they've forgotten about the smaller, spills BP has had since then - more anti-achievements.

I'm sorry, but if members of middle-class America demonstrated this level of performance, they probably wouldn't keep their jobs. They certainly wouldn't be paid more just to ensure everybody's salary is competetive. But not only is the middle class living by a different set of standards, it is also being hit left and right for money to fatten the pockets of just about everybody who runs with the oil clique. And on top of it all, it's constantly being lied to.

Okay, I have to get off this soapbox and go take something for my head...