Cheneyâ??s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year

[fishman3811]

Sources:
Raw Story, October 2005
Title: â??Cheneyâ??s Halliburton Stock Options Rose 3,281 Percent Last Year, Senator Findsâ?�
Author: John Byrne

Senator Frank Lautenbergâ??s website
Title: â??Cheneyâ??s Halliburton Stock Options Soar to $9.2 Millionâ?�

Faculty Evaluator: Phil Beard
Student Researchers: Matthew Beavers and Willie Martin

Vice President Dick Cheneyâ??s stock options in Halliburton rose from $241,498 in 2004 to over $8 million in 2005, an increase of more than 3,000 percent, as Halliburton continues to rake in billions of dollars from no-bid/no-audit government contracts.

An analysis released by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) reveals that as Halliburtonâ??s fortunes rise, so do the Vice Presidentâ??s. Halliburton has already taken more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney administration for work in Iraq. They were also awarded many of the unaccountable post-Katrina government contracts, as off-shore subsidiaries of Halliburton quietly worked around U.S. sanctions to conduct very questionable business with Iran (See Story #2). â??It is unseemly,â?� notes Lautenberg, â??for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his administration funnels billions of dollars to it.â?�

According to the Vice Presidentâ??s Federal Financial Disclosure forms, he holds the following Halliburton stock options:

100,000 shares at $54.5000 (vested), expire December 3, 2007
33,333 shares at $28.1250 (vested), expire December 2, 2008
300,000 shares at $39.5000 (vested), expire December 2, 2009

The Vice President has attempted to fend off criticism by signing an agreement to donate the after-tax profits from these stock options to charities of his choice, and his lawyer has said he will not take any tax deduction for the donations. However, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded in September 2003 that holding stock options while in elective office does constitute a â??financial interestâ?� regardless of whether the holder of the options will donate proceeds to charities. Valued at over $9 million, the Vice President could exercise his stock options for a substantial windfall, not only benefiting his designated charities, but also providing Halliburton with a tax deduction.

CRS also found that receiving deferred compensation is a financial interest. The Vice President continues to receive deferred salary from Halliburton. While in office, he has received the following salary payments from Halliburton:

Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2001: $205,298
Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2002: $162,392
Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2003: $178,437
Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2004: $194,852

[fishman3811]

Well he can thank the American public for his tiny little profit.....What a fucker...Why doesnt the American public do something about these fucking crooks??Well he is laughing all the way to the bank....

[medicinal]

Well he can thank the American public for his tiny little profit.....What a fucker...Why doesnt the American public do something about these fucking crooks??Well he is laughing all the way to the bank....I agree, although outside of just shooting the asshole there's not a whole lot the average citizen can do. We look to the opposition party to take car of policing crooks but they are so interested in getting pork they don't care, IE. being crooks themselves. The whole political process in the US has been so corrupted that there really isn't much the citizenry can do outside of revolution, and the American are so stuffed with McDonalds and brainwashed with TV, they could care less unless something affects them directly, like Job loss. Maybe when most of the middle class has lost their jobs to illegal immigrants and outsourcing, they'll wake up. I doubt it though, they'll just get hooked on speed and become a lost cause, Optimism at it's finest.

[Fengzi]

As much as I hate Cheney, and think he's the real evil genius in the current administration, these stories are kind of misleading. It makes it sound like Haliburton's stock actually went up that much and that simply isn't the case. In fact, HAL went down nearly 25% from April 2006 to Oct 2006 and is only just now crawling back up close to the price(per share) that it was a year ago.

In comparison, two of HAL's competitors, TransOcean and Global Santa Fe (which I own stock in) have pretty much followed the same path and actually even done better over the same period. The bottom line is that Big HAL simply isn't doing as good as people think it is, or should be.

What happened here is that Cheney's stock options have vested. When a company gives you a stock option it will "vest" over a period of time, usually 3-4 years, sometimes more depending on the circumstances. Until the shares are vested you can not sell so they are really only worth something on paper, not in reality. So, if he had 100 shares vested at the beginning of 2006 he had 3000 shares vested at the beginning of 2007, meaning he could now sell them and they'd actually be worth something.

Why Cheney still has stock options vesting this long after he left is definitely interesting. :wtf: Typically once you leave a company you have a very limited amount of time to cash in on whatever you currently have vested or they're gone. Even CEO's, although they usually get a better package, aren't usually given this long. The statement that "â??It is unseemly,â?� notes Lautenberg, â??for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his administration funnels billions of dollars to it.â?� Is a bit of an understatement if you ask me.