http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/19/news/companies/schlumberger-ceo-pay-oil-jobs/index.html

Quote :

"Oil driller cut 25,000 jobs, paid CEO $18 million"

Well the CEO saved the company lots of money so he earned his 18 Million compensation! AM I RITE?!?!

2/19/2016 11:42:51 AM

maybe the jobs weren't needed anymore for the business the company is currently doing.

2/19/2016 11:49:51 AM

HUR when are you going to get over the fact that our government and corporations don't give a shit at all about individual people? We are cattle, property of the state (this is the only reason suicide is pegged as a negative thing, can't have property gov't destroying itself) and resources to be exploited. Looks like perfectly normal news ITT

2/19/2016 12:46:43 PM

I mean oil is fucked right now and its his job to the board members to keep the company solvent and profitable. He made a hard descision. He earned it. Im sure its already in his contract for that amount anyway.

2/19/2016 12:53:50 PM

$18M is only $720 per person. the labor costs alone probably saved a billion dollars per year (assuming a $40,000 yearly salary). so yeah, he earned his 18.

2/19/2016 12:59:37 PM

CEO be like

2/19/2016 12:59:50 PM

$18M could have saved some jobs. But nah, let's make the rich richer. That will solve the problem.

2/19/2016 1:14:12 PM

2/19/2016 1:20:56 PM

18M would have saved 450 jobs @ $40,000 / year for 1 year.

2/19/2016 1:25:28 PM

18M is too much for one man to be paid for firing 25,000 people. That money should go to R&D or to pay back tax subsidies oil companies receive.

2/19/2016 1:27:32 PM

If all you have to do is be good at firing people and get paid millions for it, where do I sign up?

2/19/2016 1:34:26 PM

well, the trick is figuring out who you can fire without losing money.

2/19/2016 1:36:18 PM

Oh that's pretty easy.

2/19/2016 1:37:26 PM

Then why hasn't anyone ever asked you to be CEO of any company?

2/19/2016 2:00:07 PM

because you have to be born into privilege to be offered a CEO job. You realize you're hand selected by a board right? Which is comprised of other back scratching country club corporate bigwigs, right?

2/19/2016 2:24:07 PM

are you arguing with me? I'm pretty sure I'm on your side of this argument.

2/19/2016 2:31:02 PM

nope anyone willing to work hard can be ceo. we can all be ceos. capitalism 101.

[Edited on February 20, 2016 at 3:43 AM. Reason : k]

2/20/2016 3:43:15 AM

once bernie is the prez he going to make it illegal to make more than a million a year. take that capitalist pigs!

posted from iPhone 6S

2/20/2016 7:38:05 AM

Quote :

"because you have to be born into privilege to be offered a CEO job. You realize you're hand selected by a board right? Which is comprised of other back scratching country club corporate bigwigs, right?"

There is book out there called "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Good read if this is your opinion on CEOs.

2/20/2016 8:33:25 AM

^excellent read. Our company gives that book and a few others to our upper management for reading.

After the book was written, some of the case study businesses underwent major CEO changes and then promptly declined. It seemed to lend a lot of credence to what was written.

2/20/2016 12:06:32 PM

Sounds like they are training you guys to be there little bitch haha.

2/20/2016 12:10:17 PM

Quote :

"THERE LITTLE BITCH"

I'm all for losing tax subsidies when layoffs occur.

2/20/2016 6:50:49 PM

I wonder what folks think is an appropriate salary for a CEO. I also wonder what kind of CEO you would actually get for offering a relatively low salary.

2/20/2016 9:03:50 PM

^ agreed.

I'm left on many things, but who the fuck cares what CEOs get paid, and even if you do, what do u propose is done about it? I can get behind minimum wages, but not maximum wages.

2/20/2016 10:12:56 PM

the problem with this CEO's pay, in this instance, is that I'm not convinced he's shown leadership or vision or anything deserving; shareholders and board members may disagree, but I'd be pissed if I had significant holdings.

Schlumberger had some pretty solid years in the fracking/drilling gold rushes up through sometime in 2014. Good for them. They repurchased something like $10billion in stocks between 2011 and 2015 (something ridiculous). The share price increase between that time has basically been cut in half since the oil slump, suggesting a loss of $5B or so, just so they could look good on paper, management could reach their short-term goals (and get bonuses I'm sure). Long-term strategic investment was an after thought.

Now they are taking a hit, job losses are gonna be a part of that. Rather than take a look at the parts of their company that could possibly be profitable (they manufacture smart meters, industrial flow meters, other stuff I'm sure) what do they do? They double down on stock repurchases, announce another multi-billion dollar program to prop themselves up on what very well could be a dying industry.

That's what passes for leadership in 2016, totally visionless, but willing to make the "hard decisions."

In a nutshell, I think this is one of the most significant problems in our economy and this attitude in endemic among large companies. I wish I had a prescription to change it around.

2/21/2016 12:46:53 AM

the CEO of a huge company like SLB ought to make megabucks.

$18M is chump change relative to the impact a really good vs poor CEO could have on a company of that size. I no longer own SLB and don't keep up with that that much, but if the CEO is doing a good job, he's worth every penny of that.

[Edited on February 21, 2016 at 1:02 AM. Reason : sour grapes jealous motherfuckers. why do you care if someone succeeds and gets rich?]

^ Umm, of course they've taken a huge hit, they're an oil drilling company, and prices are at, like one fourth of where they were at what...1.5 years ago? and if ever there's a time for share repurchasing, it's when your stock price is in the toilet and is expected to rise at some point in the future.

[Edited on February 21, 2016 at 1:08 AM. Reason : $120 oil may not be on the horizon, but you can bet your ass it won't stay at 30]

2/21/2016 1:01:43 AM

the ceo isn't necessary. you can coop it and have a board of workers vote on the direction of the company. but this is all because i know increasing profits is a fraud and unsustainable. profit really just means you used some resource and didn't pay for it.

2/21/2016 4:14:36 AM

Quote :

"just so they could look good on paper, management could reach their short-term goals (and get bonuses I'm sure). Long-term strategic investment was an after thought."

this what its all about. I've seen a company fire a group of guys (who are badged employees) and then hire them back as contractors and pay them more. Makes no sense but its about being on a paper with the headcount.

2/21/2016 8:26:28 AM

Quote :

"^ Umm, of course they've taken a huge hit, they're an oil drilling company, and prices are at, like one fourth of where they were at what...1.5 years ago? and if ever there's a time for share repurchasing, it's when your stock price is in the toilet and is expected to rise at some point in the future. "

And how about between 2011-2014? When they where making money hand over fist, did they look to invest in their subsidiaries, possibly diversify their clientele beyond oil and gas? No, they spent 20% of their REVENUES on stock repurchases when they should have had a high price regardless. Now all of that cash is gone and all they have to show for it are old earning reports.

I agree that their latest stock repurchase program may be legit and a decent company move, although I'd at least wait till oil showed some indications it was on its way back up so it looks a little less hamfisted. All the analysis I've read indicates oil could be cheap for sometime, and fracking (where SLB was really taking it in) wasn't even making money in the $50-$75 a barrel range, so it may take even longer for it to return to its former self.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I still find it hard to pat the CEO on the back and give him a raise. I hope he at least is answering some hard questions.

2/21/2016 8:53:32 AM

Quote :

"I wonder what folks think is an appropriate salary for a CEO. I also wonder what kind of CEO you would actually get for offering a relatively low salary."

It's less about what a CEO makes and more about how employees are taken care of in relation to that pay. I couldn't give a fuck about a CEO's salary provided that the employees are being fairly compensated. But CEOs getting multi-million bonus during taxpayer bailouts? Layoffs? Paying poverty-level wages? Unwilling to provide or increase needed employee benefits? And even into regulatory issues. CEOs love to cry about regulation costing so much! It's $1M over 10 years! That's 25 jobs we'll lose! Meanwhile, said CEO is getting $25M annual bonuses.

2/21/2016 9:52:12 AM

For every CEO that might not like or want their job, there are thousands that are more than willing to take his place. I'd say it's 50/50 whether they succeed or fail.

CEOs get compensated for making the 'hard decision', but it's also the easy decision to make. Their job is to make shareholders money. If the business isn't raking in the money, then they make cuts. It's pretty obvious what a company would need to do, it's just unsavory in the sense that it means people lose their jobs.

CEOs earn their keep by being the face of the company and by being the best 'salesperson' in getting people to continue to buy their stock. I think vision and decision-making are less important nowadays, especially when the board and majority shareholders basically force the CEO to make certain decisions or be fired.

Good example is Roger Goodell. People would say he absolutely sucks at his job and isn't deserving of the $34M he made last year. He deserves to be compensated because the league is a billion dollar business and the owners are making plenty of money. If I made my bosses billions, I would think I'd be compensated accordingly. That said, he's the face of the NFL, he takes all the crap so the owners don't have to, and that's really how he earns his pay. But to that point, there's a lot of people in the world that feel a magic 8 ball could do a better job. CEOs don't feel nearly as special as they used to be.

2/21/2016 10:03:35 AM

the whole system doesn't make a lot of sense if you take a step back. I mean, people subscribe to it because its all they know and all they've seen but it would be a lot better if people actually worked for money instead of betting on the work of others.

and yes I know investments are often for retirement but if the government guaranteed a livable retirement to everyone, you wouldn't need such a volitile way of saving for retirement in the first place. if your portfolio crashes at 64, you are pretty much screwed in this system.

Shareholders are doing nothing but siphoning off the spoils of the people actually doing the work. fuck that. but you have to take a step back to even see it.

2/21/2016 11:35:25 AM

Quote :

"The average CEO, using Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, makes $216,100. The average private full-time American worker earned $48,920 in 2014 (based on an average hourly wage of $24.46). That would give us an 'Average CEO-to-Average-Worker Pay' ratio of only 4.4-to-1 in 2014."

Lock thread

Send that guy ^ back to econ 101.

2/21/2016 3:46:04 PM

I never missed a question in econ 101. 100% in the course. Its not about not understanding "economics" its about disagreeing with your idea of "basic economic principles". You've been brainwashed into thinking that "thats just how it works" but its actually just a social construct and doesn't "work" unless you narrowly define the parameters.

2/21/2016 4:14:04 PM

Quote :

"$48,920 in 2014 (based on an average hourly wage of $24.46"

in my company of 800, that probably weeds out 99.9% of non-exempt workers

2/21/2016 4:31:07 PM

One thing I hate with regards to CEO and really just general executive compensation is when it's sky high while at the same time the company is acting like they are having monetary problems that can only be solved by means other than cutting their salaries.

It's like when Papa John complained that providing all of his employees healthcare was going to cost the customer an extra 70 cents per pie (I forget the actual number) or how there are those warnings before movies telling you that when you buy pirated movies you are costing the lighting guy pay or even his job as if those are the only options.

I mean I get it, it's their right to pay themselves whatever they want to pay, but to tell me that the only options for making that lost money up is anywhere but their pay is bullshit. Be honest about it. Papa John wants to pass the cost of healthcare onto the customer that's his choice, but if you're going to complain about it on an investor conference call it's dishonest not to explain that's the only option BECAUSE you're not willing to make cuts to executive pay. Movie piracy is hurting the business? Will just have to pay our least valued employees less instead of finding other ways to make up that money...or hey, maybe the industry just isn't quite as profitable as it used to be and we might need to reassess our executive pay structure

2/21/2016 6:37:23 PM

Quote :

"well, the trick is figuring out who you can fire without losing money"

easy, since Clinton says men make more than women, you fire all the men

2/21/2016 7:45:26 PM

I just find it hard to believe that in today's world people would would stand behind people who makes millions and could cut their own pay to help out, but never ever do.

2/21/2016 8:35:03 PM

then the company would fail. thats why the whole system is flawed and not the people who don't choose to make less than what they could.

2/21/2016 8:44:03 PM

I wouldn't say they never do...more like rarely, but WTF can we do about it? They're not public officials. You wanna change something be a [large] shareholder. Only people "standing behind" them are their shareholders, and even then it's often a stretch. It's all about that paper mane.

[Edited on February 21, 2016 at 8:45 PM. Reason : ^^]

[Edited on February 21, 2016 at 8:46 PM. Reason : Shareholders don't give a fuck about people getting laid off...actually they usually like that.]

2/21/2016 8:45:20 PM

Quote :

"it's their right to pay themselves whatever they want to pay,"

Another one who needs to go back to econ 101.

2/22/2016 5:57:27 PM

Quote :

"easy, since Clinton says men make more than women, you fire all the men"

hilary makes more in 1 speech than the average CEO makes all year

2/22/2016 6:05:21 PM

learning economics doesn't solve problems. Economics is how the economic model "works" but its not Science and doesn't represent how the world works. Specifically, it ignores environmental and social "capital".

2/22/2016 7:00:36 PM

Quote :

"the ceo isn't necessary. you can coop it and have a board of workers vote on the direction of the company. but this is all because i know increasing profits is a fraud and unsustainable. profit really just means you used some resource and didn't pay for it. "

hahahahahahahaha

That's all well and good if you want to run a fucking lemonade stand to enrichen the lives of neighborhood kids. If you want to run a big time business, you can't have a "board of workers vote on the direction of the company." hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Even for a fucking nutjob like you who believes that profit is evil, what in the hell is the case that it's a fraud and unsustainable? It has been sustained for thousands of years.

...not to mention the fact that exactly how do you plan to have any sort of meaningful commercial or industrial activity to begin with? Who is going to finance...anything? You think investors will be lining up to risk and supply capital to be rewarded with no profit? hahahahaha


That leaves ownership and administration by the state. THAT has certainly been one hell of a success story throughout history.

2/23/2016 6:53:54 PM

Quote :

" If you want to run a big time business, you can't have a "board of workers vote on the direction of the company.""

Thats exactly what the executive board does except these executives are disconnected from the well being of the actual products, the customers, the workers and the environment. They have one thing in mind and thats profit, more profit than the competitors in order to win investors. Most CEOs probably couldn't even make the products they are in charge of.

Quote :

"what in the hell is the case that it's a fraud and unsustainable? It has been sustained for thousands of years."

It hasn't been "sustained" for thousands of years. Theres just always been a new place to go and dig, or somewhere/someone else's stuff to go and take...until now. It doesn't "work" unless there are "unlimited" resources.

Hypothetical: If a shoe company who manufactures in an unregulated country switches to a glue that gives off toxic fumes when heated, they can make the shoes for a reduced cost and raise their profit margin. That profit wasn't "created" it just means that someone else is paying for the glue in the shoes

Workers are paying for the glue with their decrease in health.
The environment (and all who rely on it) are paying for the glue that is disposed of and does damage.
Customers are potentially paying more than what they have agreed to pay in the long run.

If you factor in environmental costs, most companies would actually go broke but its unrealistic to think we can regulate everything like a carbon tax to fix the fundamental problems. Just like profit isn't real if you don't factor in the cost of labor (slavery), profit isn't real if you don't factor in the environmental costs and other social costs as well. That cashier making 10/hr is subsidizing the cost of your food with her wages. That child sewing garments in a factory is subsidizing the cost of your swag with her future. That "profit" is essentially being stolen from someone else. Its easy for us to stomach because its usually invisible but if it was visible no one could live with themselves.

Quote :

" ...not to mention the fact that exactly how do you plan to have any sort of meaningful commercial or industrial activity to begin with? Who is going to finance...anything? You think investors will be lining up to risk and supply capital to be rewarded with no profit? hahahahaha"

You can't try to have one part of the system without the other. You have to kick a ball to play soccer but you don't have to play soccer at all. We can find a sport that doesn't require kicking.

If you only had small companies, producers would have more of a direct connection to the products and communities. The world is ready for this sort of thing. Small business isn't perfect, but its not completely flawed either. GOFUNDME, BERNIESANDERS and KICKSTARTER are great examples of people putting money behind things because they believe in them and not because they will make a profit. Crowdfunding could work really well as a source of capital because people who want the product, pay for it up front.

Quote :

" That leaves ownership and administration by the state."

no it doesn't. ownership and administration by the producers. producers own the means of their own production. workers own their work. not such a difficult concept because its natural. the man who makes my pizza, owns the oven he makes the pizza in. See cooperatives and employee owned companies.

Quote :

" THAT has certainly been one hell of a success story throughout history."

Aren't you in the military?

[Edited on February 23, 2016 at 7:40 PM. Reason : k]

2/23/2016 7:37:04 PM

I like the direction this thread has taken.

2/23/2016 8:21:42 PM

Quote :

"Most CEOs probably couldn't even make the products they are in charge of. "

Similarly, most employees couldn't run the company that builds the products.

Quote :

"If you only had small companies, producers would have more of a direct connection to the products and communities"

Riiiiiiight. So...aside from the fact that small companies cannot possibly deliver many of the technologies, products, and services that we enjoy today...and overall productivity would go massively down (not taking advantage of comparative advantages, economies of scale, etc...let alone much of the incentive to strive, since there is no profit)...

how then, with only small, self-funded companies, do you expect to make this crowdfunding thing work? Who's gonna make the computers/smartphones? Who's gonna provide internet service? How about banks to deal with whatever capital you do manage to raise?

Quote :

"no it doesn't. ownership and administration by the producers. producers own the means of their own production. workers own their work. not such a difficult concept because its natural. the man who makes my pizza, owns the oven he makes the pizza in. See cooperatives and employee owned companies. "

Who makes the oven? Who grows the grain and cows and produce needed (not large, efficient corporate farms. A gazillion moms and pops...who now are fucking growing tomatoes instead of writing software). How about the trains and airplanes and ships and ports and whatever to transport all that stuff? Who owns those? Who builds those? Who mines the iron ore and produces the steel and so on so that someone can build them?


and furthermore, these coops and employee-owned companies...are their profits also fraud and unsustainable? Are they wrong for "us[ing] a resource and [not paying] for it?"

Quote :

"Aren't you in the military?"

No. I used to be.

...and are you, of all people, going down the road of arguing that the military is a shining example of something owned and administered by the state that somehow isn't a clusterfuck at best? ...because let me assure you, it is a disastrous clusterfuck, at best. It just beats the alternative of national security being a matter of a business deal, and of the issue of the government making the laws, but not having the guns--you'd have military leadership of the country.

2/23/2016 10:54:16 PM

The new CEO at Zenefit has banned workplace boozing, and supposedly workers can't have sex in the stairwells anymore either.

So there's a good argument for negative CEO compensation.

2/23/2016 11:08:37 PM

Quote :

" Similarly, most employees couldn't run the company that builds the products."

If that were, true, if executives were necessary, every small business and coop would fail.

Quote :

"Riiiiiiight. So...aside from the fact that small companies cannot possibly deliver many of the technologies, products, and services that we enjoy today"

thats just what they want you to think. as long as you believe it, it stays true.

Quote :

"nd overall productivity would go massively down (not taking advantage of comparative advantages, economies of scale, etc...let alone much of the incentive to strive, since there is no profit)..."

this is verifiably false. theres no profit but wages go up since workers are being fully paid for making the products instead of shareholders being paid a large portion of their salary. A lot of the "profit" just becomes higher wages. Workers have more incentive to work because better work leads to higher wages. This is actually the opposite of today.

I'm glad you brought that up though because its one of the most effective pieces of propaganda being pushed by the oligarchial powers.

Quote :

"how then, with only small, self-funded companies, do you expect to make this crowdfunding thing work? Who's gonna make the computers/smartphones? "

There are already small companies making computers and smartphones. Even on kickstarter. They are actually pretty good and if you took apple and samsung out of the picture, you would end up with a lot more innovation. These large companies actually hoard talent and hoard innovation so they can release a little bit each year. Thats problematic because its a wasteful system of planned obsolescence . We live in an age of 3d printing where people will soon be able to design products and have them manufactured one at a time for a low price.

Shared manufacturing "libraries" with 3d printers available by reservation would make the means of production accessible to anyone. More competition always leads to more innovation.

Quote :

" Who's gonna provide internet service? How about banks to deal with whatever capital you do manage to raise? "

public internet is just as smart as public roads for obvious reasons. Some things just need to be done by the government. They are usually the things that everyone needs in the same format. Large, private banks are among the worst of all. #breakemup. Everyone likes credit unions better anyway.

Quote :

"Who makes the oven? Who grows the grain and cows and produce needed (not large, efficient corporate farms. A gazillion moms and pops...who now are fucking growing tomatoes instead of writing software). "

Why is it hard for you to understand the idea of a bunch of farmers coming together and purchasing equipment together. You don't need a corporation to do that. More people don't have to be involved in the farming process.

Quote :

"and furthermore, these coops and employee-owned companies...are their profits also fraud and unsustainable? Are they wrong for "us[ing] a resource and [not paying] for it?""

Theres a difference because they are the worker. They have to live with the products they make. People want to make good products. The problem with boards is that their product is solely the profit itself. They have no connection to the health of the local environment or local community because they probably live thousands of miles away from the people they are destroying. This is another one of those things that the stats support and is the benefit of "buy local" movements.

2/23/2016 11:44:51 PM

^^^the best answer to your first couple of paragraphs is Mondragon Co-op. It manufactures durable consumer goods, healthcare products, car parts, electronics, etc. and at a price that is competitive in the global marketplace. They've been in operation for 50 years, employ 70,000 people, and turn over 11B Euro in revenues annually.

And while they may be folding some of their subsidiaries (their primary market, Europe, is still slow-motion imploding) they've performed at least as well as the average corporate multinational.

[Edited on February 24, 2016 at 6:55 AM. Reason : There are questions of "seed money" with Co-ops, but their governing structure is capable]

2/24/2016 6:53:41 AM