There’s an interesting column over at Motley Fool about how we really can’t blame the oil companies for high gas prices.  The writer, Glen Kenney, works at an oil refinery and does think that ExxonMobil’s retirement package for its outgoing CEO is wrong.  Here’s what he said:

Exxon did increase its profits fourfold during Raymond’s tenure, and
he did make the right call in acquiring Mobil at depressed prices,
making the newly formed ExxonMobil the world’s richest company. Some of
this good was due to Lee Raymond’s guidance, for which he should be
recognized, and some of it was merely the luck of market conditions
that would have happened had Donald Duck been CEO.

The ExxonMobil board of directors gave Raymond a retirement package
worth at least $400,000,000. That’s a lot of zeroes. That’s probably
more than the combined retirement packages of all the employees where I
work. Do I personally think he, or anybody else, deserves that kind of
money? No! NO! A thousand times NO! Is he worth that much
money? Yes. The bottom line is this: Whether it’s a CEO’s pay or an
athlete’s, it’s a free market. The person is worth whatever somebody is
willing to pay for his or her services.

Did his huge paycheck increase the price I pay for gas? NO again! I
saw in Exxon’s annual report that they have a total refining capacity
of 6.2 million barrels per day. At that rate, Raymond’s retirement
package cost less than half a cent per gallon, if it were paid for in
just one year.

Now, even though I don’t believe it cost me anything, his retirement
package was a slap in the face and an insult to all us working stiffs
out here. I feel the same way about the athletes who sign the
$250,000,000 packages, or who get the $50,000,000 endorsement checks.
(But perhaps if I could hit a baseball 500 feet 70 times a year, I’d
change my mind.) I’d like to see the ExxonMobil stockholders send a
strong message to their board of directors, declaring they
won’t support any more insults like the Lee Raymond incident.

It is a slap in the face when an executive gets that kind of compensation.  I have no problem with people getting paid lots of money; that’s what the free market is all about.  The real problem I have is when people get outsize pay for what they’ve accomplished. Can we honestly think that one person made that large an impact on an organization?

But there’s a remedy for this situation in the free markets as well: shareholders.  If I were a shareholder in ExxonMobil I’d be gunning for every member of the Board right about now.  What they’ve allowed to happen is outrageous and in the long run it will most likely hurt the company.  There will come a rainy day when that $400 million would have been nice to have in reserve.

And as far as gas prices are concerned Mr. Kenney thinks we’d do a whole lot better spending our energy looking for ways to decrease the demand for oil rather than beat up on the providers.  I’ve read the same over at Boyd’s blog and I tend to agree with them both.