Are the CEOs Of Oil And Defense Companies Reaping Immoral Profits? (America, Article)

[Sunstone]

From the Jspot blog:

With Americans now paying over $3 per gallon, petroleum profiteers are raking in nearly three times the pay of CEOs in comparably sized businesses. In 2005, the top 15 U.S. oil CEOs got a 50% raise since 2004. They now average $32.7 million, compared with $11.6 million for all CEOs of large U.S. firms….CEO William Greehey of Valero Energy took home the oil industry’s biggest executive pay rewards in 2005, pocketing $95.2 million. The average construction worker at an energy company would have to work 4,279 years to equal what Greehey collected last year.

Nomi Prins also takes on the issue of energy policies and fiscal constraints Americans are feeling on a number of issues, including credit card debt, insurance and social security in her new book, Jacked.


The report also demonstrates that since post 9/11 and “the “War on Terror” began, CEOs at the top 34 military contractors have enjoyed average paychecks that are double the compensation they received in the four years leading up to 9/11…These 34 CEOs combined have pocketed almost a billion dollars since 9/11 — enough to employ more than a million Iraqis for a year to rebuild their country.”

Read the rest of the article here:

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Is this right? Should Defense and Oil Company CEOs get all the profits their companies have made in recent years? If their companies are going to reap enormous profits, why isn't a bigger proportion of those profits going to the companie's workers? Why must all those profits go to the executives?

Should these companies even be making such huge profits at this time?