Sometimes I’ve had it up to here with these Socialists. Here is Jack Cafferty, moonbat extraordinaire, crying about the CEO of Exxon retiring with 400 million dollars.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I’ll tell you about a little deal that your agent should look into for yourself there, Wolf.
Oil and gas prices soaring around the United States. We’ve got a gas station in Brooklyn, New York, this clown is charging $4.50 a gallon for gasoline.
This is called capitalism Jack, if no one is buying his product then he either lowers the prices or folds. It has worked for over 200 years Jack…but according to this moonbat the owner of this station is a clown.
Oil giant Exxon’s former CEO is retiring. And he is going to walk away from the company with his pockets bulging.
It’s estimated when you add it all together, stock options, retirement package, all of the compensation, that he will have something in the neighborhood of $400 million with which to live out his golden years. But he says he’s worth it. He’s got no problem with it.
His name is Lee Raymond. And instead of taking any blame for this rather large separation from the company, he blasts politicians, the auto industry, Wall Street, environmentalists, and other critics for what he says is their failure to understand the nature of the energy business.
Raymond says it was Exxon’s policy for employees’ pay to reflect the performance of the company. And boy, has Exxon performed. Record net income of $36 billion last year.
You think maybe that’s why he got a nice retirement package? Maybe because under his leadership their stock has risen 5 fold? You think?
And not everybody agrees with Mr. Raymond. Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan says the retirement package is “a shameful display of greed.” He says it should be reviewed by Congress.
That would be the first thing Congress has done that amounts to anything. And it’s just lip service. It won’t happen. He also said it should be investigated by federal regulators. That won’t happen either.
Yup, you heard that right, this private company should be investigated for rewarding a CEO who was actually successful.
This is Socialism in all it’s glory.
He is pulling on the heartstrings of those who are pissed about the price of gasoline but newsflash here Jack, the “big five” oil companies, Chevron, Conoco, Exxon, BP, and Shell control just 15% of the world’s oil. Who sets the price of oil? The biggest producer of oil of course and that would be OPEC.
They do more to set the price of oil by deciding how much to pump, refine and ship. So if you want to blame someone, blame them.
How about the Federal and State governments who tack on almost 1/3rd of the price of each gallon in taxes to pay for all the Socialist programs they run. Do you think maybe these guys tacking on all these taxes may be somewhat to blame also?
Does he cry about the 20 million Tom Cruise gets to say a few lines? How about the 16 million Katie Couric will get to sit on her ass in a studio and read some lines?
So this blowhard goes on and on about a guy who created one of the most profitable oil companies in recent memory, and created a ton of good news for stockholders, and will get paid by a PRIVATE company. But does not say one iota about a public figure who made a ton of money off of the taxpayers backs:
The top Democrat on the ethics committee of the House of Representatives, Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, was reported, first by The Wall Street Journal, to have quietly directed at least $178 million in taxpayer funds to a network of home-district friends, business partners, contributors and former employees. Along the way, Mollohan curiously became a multimillionaire in real estate, and federal investigators are looking at whether he failed to properly disclose scores of newly acquired assets.
Typical. Vilify those who are successful, Vilify those who disagree with your politics, and ignore those REAL criminals who just happen to be in the same political party as yourself.
Typical.
UPDATE
Seixon has caught the supposed “conservative” Chris Matthews deliberately misquoting someone in the Administration to prove his belief that Iraq was for oil:
Matthews asserted on his show yesterday:
MATTHEWS: This cost has come directly to the American people and also we’ve been stuck with higher gas price. That was another promise made, that this war would help us get cheaper gas. None of these promises come through.
Dan Bartlett fired back:
BARTLETT: That’s not correct. The president or no one else never said that the war was going to result in cheaper gas prices.
Matthews with the set-up:
MATTHEWS: Just to make it official, Dan. No one in the administration has ever said that we would have cheaper gas because of the war in Iraq, just to make it official?BARTLETT: I don’t recall anybody ever saying that.
If this isn’t Gotcha Journalism, I don’t know what is:
MATTHEWS: Well, our staff has dug this up. This was a case made by Lawrence Lindsey, who was chief economic advisor to the president in the months before the war in the fall of 2002. Very directly he made the economic case for the war would be cheaper gas prices.?Under every plausible scenario,? he said, ?the negative effect economically would be quite small relative to the economic benefits that would come from a successful prosecution of the war. The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil, which would tend to lower oil prices for us.?
[…]As Think Progress makes clear, the source for this is a Washington Times article from September 2002. Think Progess offers no link to the article, neither does MSNBC. You want to know why? Here it is:
“The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” which would tend to lower oil prices, he said.
Is that bolded part in quotes? No. Does that bolded part state as a matter of fact that gas prices would go down? No.
Here MSNBC has used text attributed to Lindsey by the Washington Times as a quote. Also, they are playing cute with the distinction between “would tend to” and “would”. Think Progress, on the other hand, goes one step further, changing the statement to this:
?The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,? which would drive down oil prices, giving the U.S. economy an added boost.
Oh, the irony. So who’s lying?
Did the Bush administration make a promise that the war would give cheaper gas?
Apparently Chris Matthews and MSNBC Hardball believe that their fabricated quote from a former Bush administration official in an interview to the Washington Times constitutes a promise made by the Bush administration.
These loony lefties really don’t know when to quit do they? At first they tell the world that this war is for oil, not for security or democracy. Then when that lie is beat down by the simple fact that oil isn’t any cheaper they move on to blaming Bush for not doing what they lied he was doing. Making oil cheaper by invading Iraq. Get it?
Me neither.
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You’re right digger–we all want to blame somebody. Adding taxes is only going to make our gas more costly in the end, and it takes money away from the company’s investing in new and cleaner technologies. Plus, this never gets said, but most of Exxon’s profits are from outside of the U.S.!
It’s really easy for Congress to grandstand on an issue like this, since the majority of the public doesn’t know the government is already getting their piece of the pie. The public sees high gas prices, and their knee-jerk reaction is to blame the oil companies. This allows Congress to call hearings, act indignant and threaten the oil companies with more taxes. All so they can get a bigger piece of the pie.
I hope he does something to benefit the less fortunate as well. Surely he will, even if only for the tax deductions. Either way, I was surprised to learn about all of the taxes you mentioned from ground to tank. Something like 50 cents per gallon. Meanwhile the oil companies’ profits are less than 10 cents per gallon. Looks like we should question our government more and the oil companies less.
Interesting post Curt. Glad you posted it with some comments. Honestly I wasn’t too sure about how I felt with guy retiring with almost half a billion when the price for gas is stupidly high. But I was failing to make that connection, or rather I was making a connection where there wasn’t one.
I think we tend to forget how many steps (and tarrifs) there are from ground to tank.
Doesn’t stop me from hoping that Raymond will put that money into something that could benefit less fortunate people…but in the end it is his money.
It’s quite odd, and quite immature. They never seem to grow up and continue to harbor this comic book view of the world.
I was listening to Tony Snow this morning and he read off the profit margins of different industries for the last quarter of 2005, guess where oil was? At the bottom.
It’s odd how so many bleeding hearts on the left think with their hearts, and not their brain. They are stuck on a childish worldview where somehow stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is the answer. They malign guys like Bill Gates and people who have earned their wealth; and the success of guys like Bill Gates and Lee Raymond, makes the world a better place. We all benefit from innovations and job creations; Dick Cheney and his wife are only able to contribute generously to charities, because of the income they have generated. Do you think he would have donated close to $7 million to charities, if he only made 8 million? Or how about if he only made 100 thousand? Who loses out? Those charities do. How does setting policies that “hurt” the rich, benefit the poor? Guys like Bill Gates, who is also extremely generous, creates a bigger pie of wealth for everyone to enjoy. The pie is not finite, where if he has a bigger cut, that leaves less for others to have.
Thanks for tacking on the Chris Matthews piece. It really is frustrating to know that so many people rely on MSM to get their news; and MSM can’t even get their facts and research straight.