Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds

[dogday]

An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year, RAW STORY can reveal.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.




“Halliburton has already raked in more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney Administration for work in Iraq, and they were awarded some of the first Katrina contracts," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it. The Vice President should sever his financial ties to Halliburton once and for all.”

Cheney continues to hold 433,333 Halliburton stock options. The company has been criticized by auditors for its handling of a no-bid contact in Iraq. Auditors found the firm marked up meal prices for troops and inflated gas prices in a deal with a Kuwaiti supplier. The company built the American prison at Guantanamo Bay.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

WAKE UP AMERICA! WHEN IS IT ENOUGH?

[w8liftinglady]

1. I emailed a few MSM guys

cafferty,olberman,lou dobbs,and chris matthews,asking them to validate this and report it.This really burns me up.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. I'm sure Martha Stewart is very proud of Unka Dick.... perhaps

he would like her cell.... or not.

[noamnety]

3. So why hasn't he given the stock to charity?

What's the point of hanging onto the stock while making the pledge to give the proceeds to charity at some nondefined date in the future? Why not hand over the stocks now?

[On the Road]

4. The Reason: He Has Options, Not Stocks

They're not publicly tradeable and are probably desginated specifically for Cheney. What he's doing is the correct way to dispose of them. Whether he should ever have had them is another matter.

[Yupster]

5. You can't sell stock options

In fact, at the risk sounding like a pompous know-it-all, allow me to explain stock options.

Let's say you are a manager of a sales force at XYZ corp. The company awards you stock options to buy 1,000 shares of XYZ corp stock anytime in the next five years (there's always an expiration date) at a price of $ 50 per share. currently the stock is selling for $ 37 per share.

Well what good is that? you may ask. Why would I want to buy the stock at $ 50 if I could buy it at E-trade for $ 37? The thing is worthless.

That's the idea. It only has value if the stock price really climbs. It's the stockholders' way to say to employees and managers "hey, you have your job to make the stock price go up and make us, the owners money."

So what really happens?

Most stock options expire worthless. However, if the stock moves all the way up from $ 37 to $ 60, then the employee can exercise his options and for $ 37,000 (less commissions) buy the stock, and then immediately sell it for $ 60,000 (- comm) and pocket over $ 20,000. Most companies allow this to be done as a cashless transaction so they don't have to come up with the $ 37,000 to start the process.

There are some problems with stock options.

1. They are an accountant's nightmare. Using my above example, you have 1,000, no make it 1 million shares at $ 50 per share and the stock is selling for $ 37. You have to file a net worth statement. What do you value the options at? The quickest answer would be zero, because you would make no money if you exercized them. However, clearly they have huge value because if the stock price just goes up to $ 52 a share, you make $ 2 million. If they're at $ 52, do you value them at $ 2 million? The next day the stock price goes back down to $ 50 and they're worth zero again. The day to day swings can be ridiculous if large numbers are involved.

2. It's hard to decide when to exercise them. If your strike price is $ 50 and the stock price is 52 and you have 1,000 options, do you exercise it and make the $ 2,000 less commissions and taxes, or do you wait until it's worth some real money and risk it becoming worthless again if it goes back to $ 50? And what is real money?

3. Commissions can be very expensive. If you buy 1,000 shares at $ 50 per share that is a very large trade and the commission at a full service broker could be up to $ 300 or more. Then there's the sale too. But you aren't getting the money it sold for. You only end up with the difference between the strike price and the exercise price which in this case would be $ 2 a share or $ 2,000, and that's before commission and taxes.

Anyway hope that helps if there are people who don't know what toc options are.

[w8liftinglady]

9. 300,000 of his options expire after 2009...

how does this affect his "deal"

[bridgit]

12. but can't you transfer them, you don't find it odd...

that cheney's options up $3,000,000 and he runs out shopping for a $3,000,000 house on the street rumsfeld & meyers live on :shrug: i think offering these sort of ilk technical exits is just what they are looking for, in the time it takes to delineate a 'technical exit' the clock runs out.

it is akin to holding the ball, or stepping out of bounds.

[bridgit]

13. or "barrow" on them...

:shrug:

[Usrename]

6. By my cyphers that's only about $4000 per dead soldier.

I was quite confident he was making more than that. Of course that's just his options. His other holdings probably get him above $10,000 per body. Just speculating. No additional data available.

[BlueEyedSon]

14. $4k/per is incentive for more dead soldiers (for Dicky)!

[Selatius]

7. Profiting off war is immoral

No one should be making any money off the blood of soldiers and innocent people. Of course, morality means nothing in the face of greed and the bottom line. I mean, how rich did certain companies get building the weapons and bombs used to destroy countless lives? I remember hearing IBM made money selling counting machines to the Nazis to keep track of the people in the death camps and forced labor camps, but nobody came down on IBM when the war ended.

[bridgit]

11. hell, i remember them shitting all over themselves about hillary's....

piker little $10,000 cattle trade

http://watch.pair.com/reich.html

but the bush admin led now by dick cheney has no moral compass; every body keys upon nazi's goose-stepping past w/swastikas, roman designed banners, jack-boots & shiny little skulls on their regimentals; but nazism is as well, and perhaps in particular: collusive amalgam of heartless, global/corporate interests

[OneBlueSky]

8. nice work if you can get it . . .

and you can get it if you try . . .

(with apologies to George Gershwin) . . .

[BlueEyedSon]

10. The rich are using the government to steal your money.

....and your kids' money.