This meme banks on the viewer not knowing the context behind Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol’s compensation, the economics of price inflation and basic finance. Which is a safe bet in today’s world, so here’s the breakdown:
▪️First, this “$24M raise” occurred in 2020. The viewer would assume “last year” means 2021, when rising prices became big news, but in fact was a year earlier when prices weren’t yet spiking.
https://www.nrn.com/fast-casual/chipotle-mexican-grill-ceo-brian-niccol-made-38-million-2020-2898-times-more-median
▪️For context, Niccol’s 2018 compensation was $33.5M, which went down by over half to $16.1M in 2019 (remember all the memes bemoaning his $17M paycut?). It then went up to $38M in 2020.
https://www.salary.com/tools/executive-compensation-calculator/brian-niccol-salary-bonus-stock-options-for-chipotle-mexican-grill-inc?year=2020
▪️Niccol’s salary was initially set to be $14.8M in 2020, but because of the company’s stellar performance that year, he qualified for large financial bonuses. That’s where the “$24M raise” comes from. With Covid lockdowns and mandates, fast food places like Chipotle benefited & flourished.
▪️Of the CEO’s $38M earnings, just $1.2M was base pay, while $33M was stock awards and options. Keep in mind, stock awards aren’t paid out like a salary by Chipotle, pressuring their bottom line to raise burrito prices. They are borne by shareholders diluting their own stock, in hopes that these rewards incentivize the CEO to increase the value of the company.
▪️Which it did. Chipotle’s stock went up more than 65% in 2020 alone, and since Niccol joined the company in 2018, its market cap has increased by $30.6B, a 475% increase. In this context, $30M in stock grants are a rounding error to the company, and a winning one at that.
https://www.qsrmagazine.com/fast-casual/chipotle-ceos-pay-increased-137-percent-38-million-2020
▪️Chipotle also gave $40M in bonuses and assistance to employees during the pandemic, as well as another $13M in tuition assistance. But while this was more than CEO compensation, even this would pale in comparison to giving each employee a $1/hr raise.
https://www.qsrmagazine.com/news/chipotle-paid-out-over-40-million-bonuses-and-assistance-pay-employees-during-covid-19
▪️Chipotle has 88,000 employees. Assuming they work even just 25 hrs/week, a $1hr raise is an extra $114.4M per year (not including benefits). A $2/hr raise, probably more in line with restaurant worker salaries over the pandemic, would be an extra $228.8M.
▪️And, of course, this is just one component of burrito prices. All of the meat, rice, beans and produce got more expensive, which gets passed on with higher menu prices. The economic reality is that the Chipotle’s CEO pay has very little to do with burrito prices.
As with the leftist freak out over “banned books” this is not banning books, it’s still easy to get Harry Potter and bookstores should be able to limit whatever books they want for whatever reason. But not only does it show a double standard, the rationale is far less justifiable than removing certain content from school libraries. At least there the justification was the content of certain books are inappropriate for children, clearly not every book should be available in a school library. Here, there’s no argument about the content they just don’t like the author’s politics!
Because news came out about his letter to the FBI, revealing he was a nutcase. The letter was rambling and incoherent, claiming he was trained by the US military off the books, and that Walz had instructed him to kill Amy Klobuchar so he could run for Senate. None of it made any sense (Walz is not running for Senate) and none of the assassinations made any sense, even in a diabolical way.
Nearly all of his hit list was Democrats (including Walz) and abortion clinics, but he was supposedly working for Walz?! Plus, one of the guys he killed wasn’t even on his list, and others were no longer in office or deceased. None of it makes sense from any coherent angle.
Basically, it appears the guy was mentally ill and neither the left or right can use the incident to push their agendas anymore, so the story was dropped.
This is so dumb. First, this means LA began as Spanish land founded to support Spanish missions (i.e. colonialism). Which contradicts their entire premise. But the reality is that Los Angeles is a quintessential American city.
▪️When the US acquired California in the 1840s, LA was a small town of less than 2,000 people. It was basically nothing. It became large only after the gold rush and the railroads completed in the 1870-80s, which brought thousands of new settlers and a booming commercial center.
▪️But LA had a major issue limiting its growth, no water. It wasn’t until Mulholland found a water source and built an aqueduct down from Northern California that LA had the infrastructure to grow into a major city.
▪️Then, a combination of oil, real estate and the film industry caused it to boom in the early 1900s. Post WWII, industries like aerospace continued its spectacular growth. Calling this “Mexican land” is a brain dead take. Neither the Mexicans, Spanish nor ...
