Exec's Excellent Expensive Exxon Exit: In two more or less simultaneous announcements, ExxonMobil revealed that it would be paying outgoing chairman Lee Raymond an impressive $400 million in retirement benefits and that it was donating $30 million to educational institutions.

I’m not going to comment on the obvious contradiction of a company that denies global warming funding science education—it’s like a Holocaust denies sponsoring a World War II museum—but I do wonder what would have happened had the two sums been reversed: I can’t imagine that Mr. Raymond’s post-Exxon life would have been appreciably less comfortable with a $30 million retirement, but I’m pretty sure $400 million could make a massive difference to schools in poorer communities across the United States.

I can’t help thinking that taken together, these two stories tell you everything you need to know about the value system of corporate America. (Steve Cody is equally unimpressed.)