Update: This is NOT snark.
Transocean Ltd. gave its top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history" — despite the explosion of its oil rig that killed 11 people, including nine of its own employees, and spilled 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
At this point, I thought I couldn't be shocked by the plutocrats and their sociopathic greed, but they got me, again, with this move. I'm in full stomach-roiling, stunned disbelief. How could anyone ever take such a bonus, let alone have a group of other people agree that they should recieve them?
Didn't anyone at least ask, "How will this look to the widow's and orphans?" If only, from a PR perspective?
And, they have Tea Party mobs howling for the sacrificial death of teachers' and firefighters' modest pensions, calling them greedy?
If you think your stomach and blood pressure can take it, follow over the bump for the $ details.
It seems that the company's leadership got 2/3's of their bonuses. [Which begs the question of exactly how many employees would have had to die and how much of the planet laid waste before they would have lost their entire safety bonus?]
Transocean noted "the tragic loss of life" in the Gulf when the rig operated by BP PLC exploded last April. But it said the company still had an "exemplary" safety record because it met or exceeded certain internal safety targets concerning the frequency and severity of its accidents ...
[my emphasis]
They "noted the tragic loss of life" ... judged themselves to be "exemplary?" I. have. no. words. This statement left me breathless. And, presumably this crew belongs to the political group who is howling for teachers to be held accountable for an impossibly high set bar (100% of ALL children proficient) in a situation that they do not entirely control?
And this made me see red:
According to calculations by The Associated Press, the total value the company assigned to Newman's compensation package was $5.8 million.
That figure includes an $850,000 base salary — a 34 percent increase from the prior year; perquisites of $622,057, which includes housing and vacation allowances, among other things; and the $374,062 bonus. Also included in the figure are stock options valued at $1.9 million and deferred shares valued at $2 million when those awards were granted in March 2010.
And, the political lackeys that they (and their other plutocratic buddies) funded into power attacking our firefighters, our teachers, and the rest of our public service employees who work hard everyday to make our lives safer and better for being GREEDY parasites? He got a 34% RAISE! and he, and his ilk are buying elections to take food out of childrens' mouths by slashing Food Stamps and manipulating the clueless into howling for teachers to lose their pensions.
Excuse me? What were the oil industry's profits last year and what are they charging us at the pump, this week? How much corporate welfare did they grab out of our pockets in the form of subsidies and what didn't they pay in taxes?
But, lest you think they didn't at least care a little about the dead mens' families:
[The 3 families who settled received] a long-term plan for the deceased rig worker's dependents as well as a charitable fund that distributed $130,000 to all the families in July.
The workers made $55,000-$125,000 per year. At this point, I am seriously wondering if the bastards felt themselves ill used for even coughing up this pittance.
But hey, I guess we shouldn't be upset about their safety bonuses, or their shocking hypocrisy on issues of accountability, how stunningly low their performance bars must be or their heartless lack of largesse toward the widows and orphans they created.
Because, afterall, they did honor the 11 workers who died:
In a show of respect to the 11 men, 11 stars were imprinted on the well's final cap.
Eleven fucking stars on top of a broken piece of equipment, at the bottom of the ocean.
wow. THAT makes it all okay. Excuse me while I go throw up.