This week’s little news story about Exxon’s retiring chairman, Lee R Raymond having to settle for a mere $398 million retirement package seems to have generated little interest here or elsewhere. Maybe because we are all numbed by that number…
It would take one of us low-life garden variety workers, making a passable income of $24,000, over 16,000 years to make this obscene sum. If we cranked that up and made $288,000 a year – well, it would only take us 1,381 years to make it!
We, Americans, (hell, humanity in general) are being royally screwed from every position by these corporate bastards and we are taking it with a smile on our face…
Why?
Of course there will be those that drag out the tried and untrue liturgy about how he “earned” it… How it is all based on “performance.”
Bullshit.
The people who deserve the bulk of a monetary reward are the ones who slave away, day in and day out who actually MAKE that company run… The people who make SURE that it all runs smoothly. These people, who toil for decades… How does their pension stack up against this?
0.00000037% of what Mr. Raymond takes away.
And yet Americans just shrug. Nothing we can do. We turn away and as Thoreau said, continue to live our lives of quiet desperation… Because we’re foolish enough to believe that the American Dream is still alive.
Not at that percentage…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - SteveS
I'm all for capitalism, but I think it has to have it's limits. I get tired of hearing people talk about things like how undocumented workers are hurting this country. They might be a drain on some resources, but they aren't nearly as damaging to the working class or the foundations of the American economy as someone like Lee R Raymond.
2 - Victor Plenty
I'm always amazed Exxon is still around. I haven't given them a dime since the Valdez oil spill. I don't understand how anyone can.
3 - Alethinos59
Excellent post Steve - and Victor, I don't get it either... Between the two of us not shopping there you'd think we would have bankrupted them by now!
Alethinos
"Aren't thee and I..."
4 - Victor Plenty
There's an email campaign going around for people to boycott Exxon, not because of the oil spill disaster, but as a protest against high gas prices. Apparently we're supposed to show our power as consumers by destroying one of the oil companies, so the survivors will get nervous and stop exploiting our addiction to gasoline.
Somehow I suspect this email approach to bringing down Exxon won't work either.
5 - SteveS
Every time I see a Hummer, I wonder how many soldiers are dying to fuel that thing. People say they need big SUV's to haul their kids around, but next time you are driving down the street, peek into all the SUV's you pass and count how many have only 1 person in them. My average is about 85% of the time I see a big SUV or Hummer, it's just got one person in it.
6 - Victor Plenty
While I can't condone violence or the threat of violence, even against H2 owners, that fuh2 site has some funny comments.
Check out the entry from "Homer Simpson" on page 187.
(What can I say, I read fast.)
7 - Dave Nalle
The $398 retirement package IS the American dream. Not everyone will get it, but it's what they're all shooting for, and that's what drives the economy and leads a lot of people to succeed in life, even if not to quite that ridiculous a level.
Dave
8 - SteveS
It's not my dream. All I need is enough to live out my days comfortably and to provide for my children. Depending on where I chose to live, I would be happy with a million or two tops, I know full well I'll probably never reach that, but still be able to get by. Anything more is depriving other Americans, there's only so much to go around. Absolute greed doesn't drive us all.
9 - Victor Plenty
The American dream is being able to retire comfortably enough to spend some of your time fishing instead of having to spend all of your time as a greeter at Wal-Mart. None of the founders of the American republic would have approved of concentrating so much wealth in so few hands as today's economic oligarchy has done. $400 million is not an ethically acceptable retirement package for anyone. Even if he had helped cure cancer and AIDS and the common cold, instead of helping to rape and murder thousands of people, the guy wouldn't deserve to take home $400 million.
10 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dave, in your post, you forgot a word - million -I'm not being your spell checker, merely making a point. Nobody needs $398 million to retire. That is just plain obscene, and damned selfish. a lot of people could eat on that $398 million, or the 95% of it that this putz doesn't need. $19 million and some change is enough for anybody to retire on, a fact you may not want to admit to, but that you know is true in your heart.
11 - Alethinos59
Dave, I know this will come as a shock, but I have to disagree with you!
I think most Americans couldn't live with themselves - working Americans - walking away from their co-workers with that kind of money... This is probably why these guys live on vast estates far from anyone. Because it would be damn hard to drive down a street and look people in the eye after taking that boat load of cash away...
This is the kind of thing that literally SAPS the spirit out of Americans. It adds to their anger, frustration and dispair.
Alethinos
12 - Dave Nalle
I'm shocked, Alethinos, shocked!
You may be right that most Americans would think $398 mil was excessive. Doesn't mean they wouldn't try to get up there or as close as they could. The good people would then spend a large portion of it on charity as Michael Dell and Bill Gates and many others do. Or reinvest it in new businesses which create more jobs and opportunities.
Dave
13 - Alethinos59
Dave, good pull on the CASABLANCA reference...
And in that vane:
Capt. Renault: "I'm shutting you down Ricky!"
Rick: "On what grounds?!"
Capt. Renault: "I'm shocked, SHOCKED to discover gambling is going on in here!"
Emil: Here's your $398 million sir!"
Capt. Renault: "Rightfully so! After all, I played a LOT of golf on company time!"
Alethinos
14 - Dave Nalle
Keep in mind that in many cases these large bonuses are paid just so that they can get some half-competent and irritating CEO to go away.
Dave
15 - SteveS
well that makes it all better. Drain the economy and pull a lot of money that could give over 300 people enough to live off of for a lifetime and put it in the hands of someone half-competent.
What's next, giving the Presidency of the world's superpower to someone half-competent?
Nevermind.
16 - Nancy
In that case, as a stockholder I say they can fucking well find a better more cost effective way to do it - like using a pink slip. This is inexcusable.
17 - 64dodger
Yet GM has over 17,000 employees who make between $100,000 and $130,000 for not working.
That is right, GM is paying between $1.7 billion and $2.21 billion annually to employess that don't do a lick of work.
Where is your outrage?
18 - Alethinos59
My outrage is that GM was stupid enough to sign that agreement first off. Second - if you knew the history of GM managements thought process you'd be amazed. The big three thought, continue to think, that Americans would just keep buying the poorly built US products and that they - GM - could work its way out of such a ludicrous union agreement...
And, had labor laws and factory owners been descent human beings to begin with there never would have been a NEED for unions.
So where's YOUR outrage at that??
Becacuse there are plenty of historical examples where owners of major businesses that employed hundred if not THOUSANDS did their PEOPLE RIGHT and consequently no union could make headway into that business...
There is a long history of the unions - esp., in Detroit. The unions, initially, were a good idea but then they were taken over by very bad men who were just as greedy as the bastards owning the factories.
THERE is plenty of outrage to go around.
Alethinos
19 - Nancy
I personally was very sorry when GM got their corporate claws into employee-owned Saturn. As soon as GM touched it, Saturn product turned to trash, just because of the way GM thinks & operates and insisted that Saturn do the same. I have a 97 SL-1, best car ever made, 40 mpg. I dread the day I can't keep it working any more, but I won't be buying Saturn again, because now they're just another GM loser product. The Big 3 spent years abusing the public with the planned obsolescence of their vehicles, vehicles actually designed to be required to be replaced every few years - and they're still in shock that Americans would refuse to buy when better stuff from abroad is available. And even as they're sinking from their own inability to shift from the 1950s-1960s culture they dominated, they're still paying out obscene, undeserved amounts to their executives. They'd do better to throw the CEOs & execs overboard & reinstate some workers. At least the workers are productive; I have yet to see a CEO do anything that couldn't be done by his secretary much more efficiently & better, with less pomp & fanfare.
20 - Alethinos59
Excellent post Nancy...
Alethinos
21 - Dave Nalle
I personally was very sorry when GM got their corporate claws into employee-owned Saturn.
Nancy, GM created Saturn. It was only partially employee owned and always a creation of GM in an attempt to sidestep their negative image with consumers.
Dave
22 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Nancy, I agree with you. Excellent comment. The only new car I ever owned was a Saturn SW2. It was a great vehicle. For an automatic, it got great mileage. After 8 years, it finally broke down, but we were ready to leave America then, so it didn't matter.
And even if Saturn was a GM creation, that was partially employee owned, it was far better than any corporate trash the Yanks could put out. The day GM took it over entirely, it was dead.
23 - Dave Nalle
It was certainly the only thing GM ever had anything to do with that didn't suck totally. I'll give you that.
I still can't get over their retarded pickup trucks which use the hybrid engine to increase horsepower to a ridiculous level with no gain in gas mileage at all. So stupid. So typical of GM.
Dave
24 - Nancy
It's possible that what the REAL problem is with GM & the other US automakers, is that the management is SO overpaid, they don't live in the real world anymore; so they listen to these equally-living-in-outer-space designers & marketers, who have some idiotic macho shithead notions of what Americans want in vehicles (but who would never bother to actually TALK to some to find out) & who have developed equally idiotic macho shithead designs, and they all think this sounds good, so we'll just TELL the public what it wants. Telling the public what it wants has been the hallmark of the Big 3 since the inception; unfortunately, the public which meekly swallowed & bought all that back in the 50s & 60s no longer exists...something the execs of the Big 3 have never managed to comprehend. Which is WHY they're tanking & still aren't producing anything worth buying. What's pitiful is, they can't figure out what's wrong. If they'd just spend the money to do a humongous survey - a GOOD survey, not skewed or designed to give them the answers they want, but to give them the facts & the truth, about what consumers really want, it would be worth every penny in the future, far more than all these half-wit marketing gimmicks & bullshit they fork out big money for now. My guess is it would NOT show that US consumers necessarily want honking huge gas guzzlers, anymore than they want tiny little windup toys. They probably don't want a lot of stuff they don't need, which automakers insist on piling on anyway because such items mean they can charge more for Upscaled Details.
I think if US automakers want to survive, they'd better pay less attention to marketing gimmicks of any sort, and a lot more attention to the quality of their product and what consumers want, instead of trying to sell them what they (the automakers) say they SHOULD want. But they won't of course, so I look for GM ultimately to go down like the Titanic.
25 - Dave Nalle
All that is possible, Nancy. But the fact is that sales accross the board for hybrid cars is down by a significant percentage this year, which is an inexplicable and very bad sign.
As for 'macho' vehicles. There's nothing wrong with wanting a good, solid truck. I plan to buy one. I'd just like to buy one which gets slightly better gas mileage.
And they DO exist, or should. Ford has a prototype which is ready to go into production which uses the hybrid engine and regenerative braking system from the Mercury Mountaineer. It's a brilliant design, they just aren't confident enough of the market to commit to producing it. Dodge actually has a hybrid pickup in production that's just great. But they won't produce it in suffiicient quantities to sell to the general public. They only do custom orders for commercial fleets. Again because of market skittishness.
What the US consumer wants is not a honking great gas guzzler, they want a powerful and versatile pickup truck which gets 50% better gas mileage because of a well designed hybrid engine.
Failing that they're going to do what I'm going to end up doing and get a pickup that will run on biodiesel and get extra gas mileage that way.
Dave