Friday, September 02, 2005

Pump Chumps


Folks are coming together and doing their part to raise money for relief. People on Soulstrut are auctioning some amazing records, with all profits going to hurricane victims. They've raised over $7000 already. Emil is donating any and all money raised last night TONIGHT (Philly area people better represent!) at his DJ gig. Schools around the country are doing "shoebox drives." The Red Cross has raised almost $20 million. People are opening their homes. Celebrities are donating millions out of their pockets. Home Depot is matching in-store donations up to $1 million. Shit, even evil corporate behomoth Walmart donated $17 mil.

What about Big Oil? Exxon alone banked over a $7.6 billion profit in the last fiscal quarter. So how much did Exxon pledge so far? A whopping $2 million. Two. Million. That's the same amount as the combined gifts of Diddy and Jay Z, individuals, who--despite considerable success (and some posturing) as rap artists and executives--have never seen close to $7 billion between the two of them. Chevron donated a comparatively large $5 million, which (assuming their quarterly profits are also in the $7 billion dollar range) is about 1/15th of what these guys are profiting in a single day.

But they've got to repair their refineries and rigs which took extensive damage! You cry, fictional Big Oil apologist reader. It's all insured, and with the profits these companies are bringing in with the current oil and gas prices, they'll have plenty of loot (if perhaps not quite enough actual oil) to burn.

Step the fuck up Big Oil! Hell, America is fighting a war or two around the world in order to insure your continued profitability (thus depleting the precautions, manpower and resources we have here at home in order to alleviate this disaster,) the least you could do is give more than a (pretty sorry) token back.

Update: Exxon has generously offered to up their donation to $7 million, which my rudimentary math figures to be about 1/12th of the amount of profits they'll take in TODAY (and that's not taking into account that profits have undoubtedly gone up since the hurricane. Misers.

Random Katrina Related Thoughts:

Comments:
WORD! My party/benefit is tonight though. Last night was just my weekly gig. Tonight is the behemoth. Philly folks come through and support!

-e
 
Tonight! Damn. Do the thing, man. I wish I could be there.
 
Looting for survival is finding and I am cool with that. Tell me how that flat screen TV is gonna feed somebody and why the HELL would someone try to evacute with it. There is a difference between survival and greed. THAT said - people who were bad seeds before the storm were bads seeds after. The difference is they no longer had to give an eye toward consequences of their actions.
 
I don't get taking a TV either, but I also don't care. That's property (and it's probably going to be destroyed anyway,) once we've saved al the lives we can, and rebuilt the city in some sort of livable way, maybe then I'll give a shit if some asshole ripped off a Best Buy or not.
 
btw, leave your name please.
 
Best regards from NY! »
 
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