NerfHerder Anonymous

I'm sure I'll catch heck for this one, but here goes...

Forgive me for looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, but I think the people at Exxon should be shot for what works out to a beyond paltry donation. Let's do some math here:

Exxon's reported profit for 2007 - that's PROFIT people, i.e. the money they made AFTER expenses - was a whopping $44 billion. For ONE YEAR. That alone is entirely disgusting, but alas, I digress...

$10 million of that works out to 1/44th of 1% of said profit. That's what they're donating so nobly to the cause. They could, in fact, afford to buy everyone in Africa a mosquito net 5 times over and not even dent their previous years' profits... instead, they opt to pitch in 1/44th of 1% of what they soaked from the public in 2007.

To emphasize how pathetic this is, I ask you to take the financials of a middle class American - me - and work out a donation accordingly. After my expenses (which, ironically, include the skyrocketing prices of gas and heating oil) are taken out of what I made, you'd have my "profit" (except us consumers call it "expendable income"). If I got really, really liberal with that amount, then took 1/44th of 1% it, the producers at American Idol would get this from me:

A check for $2.73.

Now, we all know that I can afford to send "Idol Gives Back" more than $2.73. With a little scraping, I'm sure that ust about anybody in America, rich or poor, could find a way to scrape together this amount and donate it to a worthy cause. The point is that for ME to do so would be just a little bit insulting, no?

Yeh, $10 million is a lot more than $2.73. Or is it?

The truth is that I sent "Idol" $25. So let's reverse the math... if I can afford to send $25 - and I certainly can - then logic dictates that Exxon could afford to do the same percentage-wise, and donate $91,575,091. They didn't.

I'm sure they'll argue that they make other charitable donations. Well, so do I. But I still found a way to afford that $25. Oh, and PS: I didn't $%#! over the American public to do it.

5 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )