A billion dollars sounds like a whole lot of money, BBQMan. But let's put Exxon Mobil's "generous" investment in research and development into some perspective.

Exxon Mobil had 2011 revenues of over $370 billion. They spent slightly over $1 billion for R&D. That's about 2/10 of one percent for R&D. They paid their shareholders more than eight times that amount in dividends. They paid executive bonuses almost as much as they invested in R&D. The gave an outgoing CEO a "golden handshake" retirement deal worth almost half of what they spent on R&D in 2010.

Forgive me, BBQMan if I'm not the least bit impressed. Your statement on how wonderful the results of their R&D spending has been indicates pretty clearly that you've been drinking deeply of the Exxon Mobil Kool-Aid.