Not only did Exxon generate a $36 BILLION PROFIT last year, but now its CEO, Lee Raymond, is set to receive one of the largest retirement packages in history:
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.
We’re all in this together? Well, I guess some of us are more in than others. Not only is Raymond getting this multi-million dollar award for past service, but he also banked a salary last year of $51.1 million, or $141,000 per day. Our family doesn’t make $140,000 in a year, much less a single day.
Of course, we don’t head up a multinational oil company that contributed over $1,000,000 to Republican candidates alone in the 2000 election year cycle, and received generous favors in return:
ExxonMobil’s investments have paid off well. Over the last decade, ExxonMobil has benefited from more than $5 billion of support from taxpayer backed institutions including:
* $651 million for the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project from the World Bank and the US Export-Import Bank;
* $1.17 billion for oil field development in Western Siberia from the World Bank and the US Export-Import Bank;
* $116 million for oil field development on Russia’s Sakhalin Island from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.Our tax dollars should not be used to subsidize environmentally and socially destructive projects by one of the world’s largest corporations.
ExxonMobil has spent more than any other oil company on lobbying because it wants to see our government enact legislation and adopt positions that are favorable to the corporation. The issues on which it has lobbied recently include rejecting the Kyoto Protocol (which the Bush/Cheney administration did), drafting a National Energy Strategy that increased US reliance on oil (which the Bush/Cheney administration did), and getting rid of the head of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (which the Bush/Cheney administration helped to do).
I don’t have to remind anyone that when you pay for lobbyists these days, thanks to the K Street Project that is the equivalent of additional donations to the GOP. And what a good return Exxon and Mr. Raymond have received for their political donations. Pay a few million dollars to get back a few billion dollars. It’s the equivalent of winning the lottery but with the element of chance removed from the equation.
So, why be surprised when the Big Oil’s executives start cashing in their chips from all their investments in Republicans. After all, Exxon shareholders shouldn’t be the only ones who benefit from the company’s shrewd political investments.
And it’s a great deal for Republican politicians, too. Why Bush himself received $1,724,579 in campaign contributions from from the oil industry from 1998 through 2004.
Of course, you and I know who ends up paying for all of this in the end. But keep it quiet. Wouldn’t want to spoil Lee Raymond’s retirement party, now would we?
I want to rain all over Raymond’s retirement party. Thunderstorms — maybe even tornados!
Aaargh!
Oh, you liberal party poopers are all alike!
<snark>
Also posted in Orange.
I finally reset my password over at DKos so I can recommend diaries again. This is a great place, I want to help draw more people over, though I don’t want this site to change character in the process.
BooMan sets the tone here.
Interesting about all the security. I guess these guys know what they’d want to do about the taking classes if they were not members.
OTOH at least Exxon did make some bucks by fair means or foul. In constrast to Billy or Bucky or Buffy Ford who just got a 40 or 50 million present for guiding his company to the edge of bankruptcy despite all the special goodies it gets from the government.
My god you’re right. Poor Lee Raymond by that standard is grossly underpaid! Maybe we should take up a collection for him?
Or at least petition Exxon’s board not to be so cheap?
the kind of news that makes me want to gouge my eyes out
Isn’t there some point where the gap between the rich and everybody else gets so large that society ceases to function? Are we there yet?
There used to be a standard way back when. Something like in a company the big boss used to not make more than 15x the lowest wage worker or something. My inernal brain calculator doesn’t go high enough on a Friday to do the math for a $400,000,000 calculation.
We should be in the middle of a massive class war, if middle and lower-class people weren’t being snowed under so much propaganda that they don’t realize what has been happening for 30 years. Instead, it’s more like a mass long-term poisoning. The whole nation is dying and people like Raymond don’t give a damn because they benefit from the death-throes.
There is no more middle class to rise up and engage in a class war. The rich are so rich, the gap is so large, there are now really only the haves and the have-nots.
We have-not access to Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz… They do.
We live in an age of abundance, the tools of class warfare are available to even the poorest of the have-nots if they recognize the need to fight. I haven’t lost hope yet, all economic signs indicate we are headed towards a huge upheaval that could motivate millions.
Very much agreed that we, the have-nots, can still rise up and fight in a serious class war to normalize this country somehow. I meant to say that the middle class couldn’t do it because it doesn’t exist, not that a class was was impossible.
The middle class is shrinking rapidly but it will never be gone completely, there will always be a need for middle management. And I didn’t mention violence specifically because I am a strong believer in non-violence. By tools I meant that I live on under $500 a month, half of it spent on cat food, and I have access to television, telephone, internet, U.S. mail, and transportation. There are very few people in this country who don’t.