Monday, April 17, 2006

Minds of Mush...Oh The Horror!

Time for another exciting episode of 3 beer argument. Today's wingnuttia was defending Lee Raymond the Exxon chief with the 400 million dollar retirement package.

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.......Corporate documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission 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.

Now you may wonder, why would someone defend this. I'll explain as I go along. A bigger question is HOW does someone defend this. This is easy. Just think what someone might say with 3 beers in them.....Well, at least he earned it! Not like Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer and all those Dems! (Actually it was probably 3 oxys or vicodin.)
It's a basic argument for people to lazy to think. First of all I guess if Ted and Barb and all them dems never worked and maintained millions it must not be to hard to do once you get it. Since Mr. Exxon has been making 10s of millions for a number of years you think he would be set.

The next argument was a seemingly complex computation of the price of oil and how it is right on the money and no one is being gouged. As I will note shortly, that is far from the primary issue to me. I think the whole argument on the price of a gallon of gas is useless and could much better be used saying we are done with petrol and we are moving on to something(s) else.

I expected to hear another 3 beer argument that I didn't hear this time. ..Well you just don't want anyone to make any money...or you think everybody ought to get the same. Not true, different jobs have different pay scales for good reasons. It's when it goes to the ridiculous that it is disgusting. I want even more people who are willing to work hard to make more money. The opposite of not wanting anyone to make money. But Ron how is that possible and what does it have to do with the Exxon guy?

Mr. Exxon who has been making 10s of millions for many years must by now have the best of everything and a sizeable nest egg. I'm not sure he needs anymore. The rest is just excess. It's that greed that that good book talked about. Lets say we give him 100 million for a job well done. Oops we have 300 million left over, what to do.
Certainly investing in new technologies would be a forward thinking move. Buying a company that would provide synergy to the tech transfer would be a good idea too. Or even letting it accrue to the shareholders would have a far better economic impact on our country. Exxon has almost 86 thousand employees. Let's call it 100,000 for round numbers. 300 million...hmmm....WOW that's a three thousand dollar bonus for every worker!!!!!! Wouldn't it be far more beneficial to the economy going to 86 thousand or 100 thousand people. Those people are probably not at the best of everything stage yet they will spend it and they will spend it on a wide variety of ways. It would benefit many.
So do you see what they left out of the debate again? The working man and woman. The people that make the company run on a daily basis. Not even given a second thought by wingnuttia.
But that's not how Ted Kennedy made his..at least the Exxon guy earned it!!! By golly!...Have another beer.