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.
Here's where you are wrong (to a degree) it is Big Oil that helped (supported) many of the regulations (over the past 30 years) on gas stations & petroleum operations that helped force out the independents.
Margins at the pump today are the best the gasoline industry has seen in decades (this with record high gas prices) - If the independents hadn't been forced out to the degree they have been.....they'd keep the pump price more honest.
You never saw such large and continuous fluctuations in the street price of gasoline like we've come to see in the past 3-5 years - That is because there aren't the Indy's out there to keep the price honest. The big guys are always immediately passing that price right to the consumer....they didn't have that luxury when their were more indy's.
And again, it was regulations to a large degree that forced the Indy's out of the business.
I'm not mad at this Exxon guys retirement package. Not in the sense that it is wrong or the Gov't belongs involved in stopping it (though it is curious that Gov't regulations certainly help reduce competition on many of the big boy industries???).
The problem is though CEO are more and more simply worried about the short term (make stock-holders happy for the next dividend ....and aren't always looking ahead far enough). The late 90's bust was due in some way to this type of thinking / management.
You would know if this was a DUmmy site because we'd be blaming Bush and Karl Rove 100% for this and comparing it the Holocaust.
He just flew in from paris, and boy are his ears tired!
Holy hairlip Batman!!!
Geez! I never noticed the hairlip! Must'a got caught within his ten chins!!
Bingo.
Overall, I pay less by paying more. I go to the cheapest gas station that takes credit cards. My credit card gives me 5% cash back and since I always pay off the balance every month, it is worth it. Before I got this credit card, I went to Arco and just paid cash. I average $10 a month cash back.
To give you an example. Right now the Shell station that I go to is $2.899 a gallon. The Arco is $2.859 a gallon. After 5% cash back, the Shell gas cost $2.754 a gallon which is cheaper than Arco's price.
I wholeheartedly agree that is ludicrous to attribute the rise in crude to companies that pump, transport, refine and market products. Their ownership is not significant enough to run the market up and clearly they benefit from lower raw material costs as any business would.
Largely unacknowledged in the discussion about oil prices are the shennanigans of the second, sometimes first largest exporter of crude oil on the globe, Russia. Much further down the totem pole, but adding some froth to the brew of late is its satellite, Venezuela.
Some have said that Russia and/or communism has attempted or is setting up to attempt to corner the energy market.
Now, when we think of who really benefits from higher crude prices, who really has an incentive to destabilize Western civilization....
So is this guy even a business genius? Did he graduate Harvard at 8? I would just like to know what special skills he has for his job so maybe I could hopefully duplicate it.
wouldn't know. peace be upon you.
Unless you are Karl Marx and believe that an hour of work as a truck driver is worth the same amount as an hour of work as a CEO, I fail to see how that is relevant to this discussion.
That's one of several things that hit at the same time...including people getting out and driving for pleasure more.
China has begun sucking up a ton (mixed metaphore alert!) of oil since its economy took off.
And your sin of Invidia is running rampart on the gas threads. Trade your econobox in for a bike this time.
Why should they?
Nowhere in economic theory is it written that companies are required to compete for your business on your terms.
You've noticed how they continue on, making acceptable profits as measured by a cold hearted rational marketplace, without having to give out coupons? That's because they don't have to send out any coupons.
If I was an investor (I only invest in energy companies with higher margins and faster growth rates) and I found out they were needlessly giving hundreds of millions of coupons, I'd take my investment money elsewhere.
This guy earned his money the old fashioned way, by giving his employeer much more than they gave him.
That is NOT the definition of price fixing.
Price fixing means the company owners meet privately and AGREE TO A PRICE which they know is higher than one would pay if they were competing with each other. They are conspiring to not compete.
The additive thing was in response to the change in price over the last few weeks. The India and China thing was in response to the change over years.
Nationalize the gas companies?? Are you insane??
Naw, it's more like 20.5 mb/day. Worlds output is
82.5 mb/day and we use 25%.
This might trigger a recession.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.