Ha ha ha ha ha!
Why would he? Because he’s following the moral leadership of Trump? Ha ha ha ha!
Check again.
Look, there is absolutely nothing wrong in what I said. You simply don’t know what you’re talking about. The timing lines up with this.
Your attempt at listing competitors is a joke. Phillips66 is a refiner for Christ’s sake. Oil stocks are up big this week. Credit Saudi Arabia, not Trump.
Yes, if Trump (personally, his company, his family, his foundation) takes compensation or contributions from Foreign governments, absent some extremely well structured, publicly known independent watch dog okaying it, I would call for his impeachment.
Did I say there was pay to play? I think I called it an inexcusable appearance of a conflict of interest, which it was.
What does a tax return from 2003 have to do with Kerry becoming SOS ten years later?
Warning. Do not insult other posters.
Which he left in 2008. Before Obama was elected.
He started as SecTreas. in 2013.
Well, let’s see, he’ll probably stop being the CEO because he’ll be taking another job, and I’m pretty sure the position of CEO of the world’s largest oil company is a full-time position. Further, Exxon, as I already said has a mandatory retirement age of 65 and he’s 64, so he’d have to retire anyways.
He’ll probably sell down his Exxon stock since he’s not a total moron and won’t want his entire net worth tied up in a single company that he no longer works for. Also, since it is a broadly held publicly traded company, he can liquidate his stock immediately on the open market.
In other words, two things he’d be doing next year even if he wasn’t taking the Secretary of State position.
You aren’t that bad a fellow, after all. Very nice to see such a reasoned stance. Perhaps we’ll impeach him early in his term and Republicans will be left to try to re-elect the scandal-ridden and charisma-challenged homophobe Pence.
So?
I had already read that article and it struck me as fairly thin stuff. People of the stature of Baker, Gates and Rice have plenty of opportunities to make money without having to recommend their business clients as Secretary of State. It’s especially implausible for Baker who is 86 and probably very rich already.
So there wasn’t the conflict of interest you implied.
I didn’t imply there was a conflict of interest; I did the exact opposite. The point was that there isn’t by default an appearance of a conflict of interest just because your current position in government dovetails with your former position in the private sector. The appearance of a conflict of interest would only be if he stands to benefit from his actions in the government position. As long as Tillerson divests himself of his ownership then he would be avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Wait. Do you expect that he will unload all of his shares in Exxon? Because as long as he owns stock, he has an interest in Exxon’s well being. And you don’t expect he would have an ongoing loyalty to the corporation he worked for every day of his working life?
As far as “dovetailing” private life experience with government, sure, as that implies experience. One might, for instance, hope that the man offered for Housing might have some experience with housing. Duh. The job he is being promoted for is chief diplomat of the US. Perhaps we should have a cabinet position for chief business negotiator with Russia. For which he would be admirably qualified.
Stock movement by major and large independent oil companies today shown below. I guess I’m just not seeing this major Tillerson announcement boost that you guys are. Seems a lot more clear to me that oil stocks are just up today because oil prices are up.
Exxon +1.8%
Shell +1.6%
Chevron +0.3%
Total + 1.4%
CNOOC +4.1%
Eni +1.9%
Conoco +2.6%
BP +0.9%
Repsol +1.2%
EOG +2.2%
Occidental +1.6%
Anadarko +2.4%
Pioneer +1.5%
Apache +1.0%
Hess +3.2%
Continental +2.0%
Noble +4.6%
Marathon +1.5%
Newfield +2.6%
Devon +0.2%
I expect him to have loyalty and duty to the current job that he takes on. He might have some affinity for Exxon, but his loyalty should be to the U.S.
As far as his stock goes, I would have expected him to unload a very large portion (90%+) even if he wasn’t taking on the Secretary of State position. I absolutely expect him to sell off all of his stock. He would be crazy not to. Depending on the tax ramifications of the sale or other similar types of considerations, I think some potential wind down period or other reasonable accommodations could be made as long as there is historical precedent. The only reason he hasn’t sold it so far is because of the negative perception created when the CEO sells stock in the company.
Let’s be real though, Exxon is an incredibly mature value blue chip stock. We’re not talking some high growth potential stock here. It has its ups and downs, but we’re talking a stock that pretty much trades at the same level it did 10 years ago plus the dividends it has earned over the years. What’s he going to do as Secretary of State, turn Exxon from a 3% gain per year to a 4% gain, all the while risking violating laws and losing his reputation? He’d make more money by figuring out how to stay on as CEO for a few more years at his $25 million plus current compensation. I’m pretty sure Tillerson could take his $240 million worth of Exxon stock and make more than that in any number of reasonably lower risk alternatives.
There’s some good news on both of these points.
A tax rule exists to defer taxable gain when assets are required to be sold in just this kind of situation. It really is quite common to have to divest yourself of assets. Virtually all politicians do and so do most people who work in the financial industry.
And in terms of negative perception: I don’t think this would be reported as insider trading, not if properly done anyway. The assets would be put into a blind trust with the expectation that the trustee would sell some or all of Exxon. (That’s a key - it’s blind because you don’t know how much, or if any, is still in the trust.) Since the shares are transferred to the trust and then sold by the trust, it’s not the same as a CEO selling his own shares directly.
That’s today. What do the last 2 weeks look like? Because Tillerson was pretty much settled on as “the guy” like a week ago.
Also, look at Lockheed Martin shares after Trump’s tweet about the F-35 and Boeing’s after his spat w/ the CEO. This shit Trump does moves stock prices, it’s not deniable. Investors are skittery animals and it doesn’t take much to drive them off.
Respectfully, you are just not correct here. Tillerson wasn’t even a rumored candidate until around December 4th. He emerged as the favorite on the afternoon of December 9th, Friday.
Trading days from when he was the favorite have been 12/12 and 12/13. As I said before, the entire oil complex is up those two days because of the announcement from Saudi Arabia and the Non-OPEC cut announcement.
At this point, why not? Trump’s cabinet picks are as much as an outright statement that we are no longer going to to even pretend to be a country of, for, and by the people. Practically every one of his appointments have been to put someone fundamentally opposed to the function of a particular department in charge of said department – putting a personal friend of Putin and CEO of Exxon in charge of State makes perfect sense in that context.
America as it once existed died the day Trump was elected, and the carrion beetles are eager to start chowing down on its rotting corpse. The free-for-all begins on Jan. 18, 2017.