Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees makes 50$ a minute. I remember when a popular sports radio show broke down A-Rod's salary and then opened up the phone lines to hear screaming fans, angry at how overpaid this athlete was. Most people feel that athletes are overpaid, and use their extreme wealth as a reason to hate them, or a justification to hold them to sometimes unreasonable standards. I certainly agree that athletes are rich, but if A-rod making 50$ a day upsets you, consider this, Exxon-Mobil makes 1400$ a second. 24 hours a day, everyday.
Exxon-Mobil was responsible for an oil spill in Mayflower Arkansas back in March, which forced 22 families to evacuate their homes. A neighborhood destroyed, people suffering from serious lung conditions due to the crude, Exxon-Mobil was forced to pay a 500,000$ fine. Remember, they make 1400$ a second, 83,000$ a minute. Exxon-Mobil is the most profitable company in the history of the planet earth. It is the reason the electric car hasn't taken off in America. It is the reason our energy policy here is so mother fucking frustrating. It is also the company that rejected the Arkansas Attorney General request that Exxon Mobil pay $4 million to help with clean-up and investigating the cause. They won't pay. Remember $1400 a second? That's 5 million dollars an hour. What the Attorney General requested they pay to help investigate their own fuck up is the amount of money that Exxon-Mobil makes every 48 minutes. That's in profit, not sales.
I always keep information like this in the back of my head whenever I hear an athlete getting torn apart for smoking pot, or when republicans with no empathy start telling me that the reason we are in a financial crisis is because black people are on welfare. Think about how much money Exxon Mobil makes. Think about how many people are in prison for non-violent crimes. Think about how much money cigarette companies make and how much money a legal marijuana industry could make. Whenever a a conversation ever involves money, try your best to have some fiscal perspective.
Oh yeah, *whisper whisper*. Guess who wrote a budget plan that included $40 billion in taxpayer money to be given to Exxon Mobil annually? Paul Ryan. And before you right wingers start drooling out some glorious speech about capitalism, it turns out that Exxon isn't going to help pay for housing for the families that they shit their eco-killing-oil on top of.
