Exxon boss' $400 million golden parachute

ExxonMobil supremo Lee Raymond has retired with a payout of something like $400,000,000 (I can't begin to make sense of all the details of his package, so it might really be more or less), including a check for $98,400,000 instead of annual pension payments. But, hey, this was only 1.1% of Exxon Mobil's $36,000,000,000 profits last year. Mr. Raymond worked for Exxon for 43 years, so his retirement package is less than $10 million per year, which seems quite fair. And his annual pay in 2005 of something like $50,000,000,000 was only 0.13% of profits. Quite a bargain!

And, since Mr. Raymond was responsible for orchestrating the vast global conspiracy that drove oil prices so high last year in order to generate Exxon Mobil's colossal profits, he clearly deserves every penny. Oh, wait a minute ... he testified to Congress that he didn't have anything to do with oil prices being so high. So, then, what exactly did he do to deserve this? Did he outcompete his rivals? Well, it sounds like his main accomplishment was merging Exxon with Mobil in 1999, which isn't exactly outcompeting them. Why did the Clinton Administration approve the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999? Were they going to both go out of business if they didn't merge?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer