Exxon — Exxoff
Take a moment to learn about Exxon.
Then ask yourself whether you could serve as Chairman and CEO of that company, even if you had 43 years to learn the job.
If the answer is “no,” then please just shut up about Lee Raymond’s retirement package, whether incorrectly headlined as $398 million or correctly valued at far, far less.
Meanwhile, if the answer is “yes,” then either you are already the CEO of a huge multinational oil company, or you suffer from a very severe case of hubris, or — most likely — you have been taught that a business’ management serves no real purpose and makes no real contribution to the firm; that profits reflect nothing more than the process of exploiting workers and gouging customers; that entrepreneurship is not a factor of production deserving of a return just like land, labor and capital; that “no one deserves to make too much;” that life under capitalism is nothing more than a lottery — or a scam — that you happen to be on the losing end of; that what you are feeling toward CEO salaries is not petty envy but righteous indignation.
Regardless of whichever it is, you’re dead wrong. So again, please just shut up.
Now about those “excessive” salaries of professional athletes…
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Kip,
I wish I understood this post.
Why should my abiliy to serve as a CEO of a multinational corporation matter one whit to my ability to comment on its public outputs (i.e., securities disclosures, employment practices, lobbying). If your rule were to be enforced, the sphere of public discourse would be quite impoverished, I think.
[Kip replies: Now wait just a minute. That's a complete bait-and-switch that has nothing whatsoever to do with what I actually wrote.
I have no qualm with passing judgment on business practices. But this isn't that. The topic at hand is only the arrogance of people who declare free-market outcomes, such as CEO salaries or gasoline prices, to be somehow "wrong" out of what is, at the end of the day, nothing but arrogance or petty envy.]
Professional athletes are underpaid.
Cmon though. A complete moron could have made a profit at Exxon when the price of oil is above $70.
I think CEO's should be paid based on how the stock price does compared to its competitors. This CEO might be doing fine, I haven't researched it. But I surely hope the board isn't giving him credit for rising oil prices.
Nonetheless – this is up to the shareholders to decide. Nobody else.