terrorists come in all shapes and sizes. some of them strap bombs to their chests while others hi-jack planes and fly them into buildings.... then there are the less obvious ones - they wear suits and ties and sit on executive boards.

f-king crooks

A few more thoughts:

The majority of the windfall came during increasing oil prices, we're being led to believe that is the result of good business decisions. A good amount of that money comes from stock options exercised while the stock price was going up, why was the price going up, because we were paying higher fuel prices.

Raymond is not the only benefactor, many other executives have similar benefits although not as lucrative but still worth millions. And it's not restricted to the oil companies only. Multiply this by 400 - 500 and you have the kind of benefit packages that are prevalent in most public corporations. Not all being delivered on an annual basis but the potential is there for the payout in any given year.

I find it difficult to understand how it is ethical to pay somone more money than they might spend in 50 lifetimes and think that this is rational thinking.

Corporations will justify this as necessary to get and retain quality executives, that is simply the party line in the "old boys club". if you read any company proxy statements you will see that all these folks are scratching each others backs when they put together these packages. Shareholders will challenge these pay scales but the corporate boards most always vote them down for the above reason.

The sad thing is that it gets increasingly worse every year.

I agree with on ramp, it is a form of terrroism and we have no defense against this enemy.

They don't pay any more for a barrel of crude than we do. They just tax it more. If enough people there didn't like it, they'd do something about it, but they don't. Their distances are smaller and they try to look for alternative means of transportation. Hmmm...

ianc

That's why I drive a diesel
*ducks*
$36 to fill up, I drove ~700km on that partial tank.... ~$30/week in fuel costs, and I do quite a bit of driving.

Then again, in the 951 I get 11-12mpg... well over $100/week when I have to use it as my primary car.

Somewhere along the line diesel fuel became stupid expensive in the US. It's not uncommon to see diesel much HIGHER than premium gas. Back in it's automotive hayday diesel was touted as the cheaper bottom of the barrel fuel because it less refined.

Exactly. Thanks for making this point. Comparing USA fuel prices with the prices of other countries is meaningless. Their gas taxes fund all sorts of social programs while our are "supposed" to go to road building & maintenance.

And that's EXACTLY why I sold my Diesel.....stoopid expensive to fix even IF you could find someone to work on it besides the dealer and the price of fuel/lack thereof.

--Bingo. + increasing demand=$$

...to put it simply.