As Gasoline Prices Rise - Time to bash Oil Companies

They have started -- the emails about boycotting the bad and greedy oil companies by not purchasing gasoline on a certain day or through other boycott ideas.

There has never been much love between the general population and Big Oil - and it certainly heats up anytime the price at the pump escalates.

The fact is that the U.S. needs a comprehensive Energy Plan that addresses all forms of Energy including fossil fuels (which will be the dominant form of Energy for many years) and alternative Energy sources.

Today, the U.S. consumes roughly 21 million barrel of oil today out of the 85MM barrels that are produced around the world daily. That is 25% of the World daily oil production by 4% of the World population - Houston we have a problem!

Since the U.S. produces roughly 9 million barrels of oil today - to meet our demand we must import 12 million barrels a day.... and we wonder why problems in the Middle East cause our gasoline prices to rise.

T. Boone Pickens has been outspoken about the U.S. need to develop an Energy Plan. You can learn more about his idea at Pickens Plan.

Egypt, Wisconsin and the Dodd Frank Bill...

What do these three events have in common? To some degree they are all protesting the gap between rich and "poor". In Egypt and many other countries in the Middle East and Africa, wealth is concentrated at the top while others suffer through unemployment and high cost (especially the recent food inflation). Wisconsin budget issues has resulted in a crackdown on the high cost of union negotiated health care benefits. Protesters are concerned about their union rights (that is topic for another blog post) and what they believe is an example of the continuing chasm between the upper echelon and the common worker in the U.S.

Finally, one of the key features of the Dodd Frank bill is the requirement to show a CEO/Worker ratio of pay. It requires disclosure of “the median of the annual total compensation of all employees of the issuer,” except the CEO, the CEO’s annual total compensation, and the ratio of the two amounts.

This will put a tremendous amount of effort on the Company's part to calculate all the components of pay for all workers. Previously, the Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A) section of the Proxy required detailed calculation for generally the top five paid employees.

It will be interesting to see what kind of gap exists in U.S. Company pay. As always, we can help you navigate the new requirements.