The 400 million dollar man.
Posted on 04/14/2006 1:20:10 PM PDT by aShepard
April 14, 2006— Soaring gas prices are squeezing most Americans at the pump, but at least one man isn't complaining.
Last year, Exxon made the biggest profit of any company ever, $36 billion, and its retiring chairman appears to be reaping the benefits.
Exxon is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes.
Last November, when he was still chairman of Exxon, Raymond told Congress that gas prices were high because of global supply and demand.
"We're all in this together, everywhere in the world," he testified.
Raymond, however, was confronted with caustic complaints about his compensation.
"In 2004, Mr. Raymond, your bonus was over $3.6 million," Sen. Barbara Boxer said.
That was before new corporate documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that revealed Raymond's retirement deal and his $51.1 million paycheck in 2005. That's equivalent to $141,000 a day, nearly $6,000 an hour. It's almost more than five times what the CEO of Chevron made.
"I think it will spark a lot of outrage," said Sarah Anderson, a fellow in the global economy program at the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent think tank. "Clearly much of his high-level pay is due to the high price of gas."
Exxon defends Raymond's compensation, pointing out that during the 12 years he ran the company, Exxon became the largest oil company in the world and that the stock price went up 500 percent.
A company spokesman said the compensation package reflected "a very long and distinguished career."
Some Exxon shareholders are now trying to pass resolutions criticizing the company's executive pay policies. The company is urging other shareholders to vote against those resolutions.
Well, you run away. No answers. Yet, you ask questions. I told you plenty. I even said I worked at the 35LN Mobil center near Downtown.
You? Any truth, or are you going to be a coward? Deny or claim your place in this company.
To think that because those two companies merged--caused the price to oil to drop to $10/barrel is unbelievably naive,,,,,well,,,,I was going to use a much stronger word than that--but I always try to be nice...:)
"The big problem in the U.S. oil industry is the lack of competition. With all the recent mergers (Exxon-Mobil, Conoco-Philips and Chevron-Texaco), there's little competition"
By blocking the oil companies drilling anywhere there might be large new deposits, mergers were the only affordable way to increase reserves. Our politicians have hamstrung domestic oil production
Nah, this is America. Let's just pass a law that says you get taxed at a 95% rate on any income over $1 million.
It would accomplish the same thing, and I don't think it's ever been tried before in this country - has it?
A CEO should get a salary, and perhaps a bonus based on performance.
The shareholders should get the lion's share of profit.
This is a very bad thing for anyone who has a need to purchase Exxon products. Obviously the shareholders will want more.....
Guess who pays?
The CEO of Exxon is valuable to society? How so? I didn't realize that it was difficult to sell gasoline to the American consumer. Exxon's brilliant plan to make money is this: donate huge sums of money to both political parties; move jobs overseas to cut production costs; jack up the price of your product in a way that is disproportionate to the actual increases in the price of crude oil; gouge the American consumer during natural disasters and pretend that the increases are just a way of trying to break even with increased production costs, all while you are making record profits; have a bunch clueless peasants make excuses for you while your rape them because they think it makes them look like bigshot captains of industry. Unless someone is making millions of dollars off Exxon, they are a fool for defending them.
Uh, the prices were down BEFORE all the merges!
Good for him!
Gee, even a person with my expensive tastes could retire on that! :-)
Let's see...We can't have an Arab owned company running a terminal facility....We can't have illegals INVADING our country....and We can't have CEOs getting great compensation packages from multinational corporations. Is a trend developing here on FR?
Oh wait, they don't! At least some of the fuel taxes are supposed to go toward transportation needs. Unfortunately it often gets sucked into "public transit" projects which are ultimately underutilized and overly expensive.
Fuel costs are not uniform (even if you discount taxes) and that's not entirely explained by costs. San Diego, for example, is known as a "get well market" which means fuel prices are artificially higher to compensate for other regions which won't bear such pricing. Like so many taxes that flow out of CA (we only get 70% back), we're subsidizing lifestyles in other areas of the country.
Not all aspects of the retirement package are outrageous. Certainly the stock-based portion is not but overall (as a dollar amount) it's an obscenity for what his actual contributions were to the health/success of the corporation. This is not what I would consider just compensation.
Damn right there a lot more going on than OPEC. We have people like this reaping profit by raping Americans pockets
I know , I Know I am stupid and they have right to screw us as badly as they like , its the American way .
Well: When the economy is in the toilet and people have to make a choice between gas and bread on the table you can alays say it happened because its the capitalist American way.
....And OPEC only controls the SUPPLY of oil, they do not set the PRICE....
Ummmm,
when the demand is constant - to increasing; and the supply is choked back, what happens to price???
(You are allowed to consult your Economics 101 textbook!)
Thanks for making my point--I didn't even think of that...lol
No, actually you have no source for your ridiculous claim because you made it up. The amount of time I've been a member here is irrelevant. It is a red herring because you can't answer my question because you make up information.
I told you earlier that your assumptions are off base and unwarranted. Calling names, now isn't that special. Thank you and have a nice day.
Good for him.
And one other point,,,how come OPEC didn't stop oil from going to $10 in 99? Ooops,,,,I guess that they aren't in the oligarcy...lol
Just as an aside: How does one "rape" a pocket? :-)
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