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Hi, this is Navalny, right at the very end
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of the New Year holidays, we got the news
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that Apple CEO Tim Cook
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had been punished by his own company: the board
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of directors said that Apple had failed to meet
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its financial targets, and as a result
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his annual
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compensation for 2016 was cut by 15%.
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Instead of $10 million,
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he got just under $9 million. Poor, poor Tim Cook.
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Although maybe not that poor: nearly $9
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million a year is still
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a lot of money. And you know, when I
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look at that figure —
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$8.7 million a year for the head of a very
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large and very, very successful global
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corporation — I think of
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the executives of our Russian
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state-owned companies, which are nowhere near as
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large and certainly not successful,
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yet for some reason they pay more there than at
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Apple. To begin with, let’s compare
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the size of our giants, Gazprom and
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Rosneft, with Apple itself.
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Market capitalization — that is, the total value
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of the company — is $61.7 billion for Gazprom, and
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$70.1 billion for Rosneft, while Apple’s market cap
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stands at
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$631.4 billion. That means it is worth
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10 times more than Gazprom and nine times
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more than Rosneft. And even if you
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combined Rosneft and Gazprom into some kind of
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super-company,
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Profit, to be more precise, for the
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latest reporting period was
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$13 billion for Gazprom and $6 billion for Rosneft,
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while Apple made $45 billion,
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so again, incomparably more. And the only thing in which
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Rosneft and Gazprom
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unquestionably
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come out ahead is executive pay: Igor Sechin of
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Rosneft gets $13 million a year, Alexei Miller
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of Gazprom gets
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$17.7 million. And let me remind you
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that Apple is a private company, while
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Gazprom and Rosneft are
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state-owned. Apple is generally considered
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to be very well managed, whereas Gazprom and
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Rosneft are managed very, very badly. At the top of
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them sit unprofessional,
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incompetent people, yet they receive
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more — more out of your and my pocket.
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How are we supposed to feel about that?
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Well, personally, as a citizen, as
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a shareholder, by the way, in both Gazprom and
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Rosneft — a small one, a very small one,
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but still a shareholder — and as a presidential candidate, I
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believe that such colossal
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compensation packages for the executives of these
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state-owned companies are simply legalized
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corruption. Yes, they formalized it as
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salary. But in essence, we all understand
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perfectly well: they stole this money from
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the companies and from the shareholders, because such
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pay is simply disproportionately
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huge
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and clearly does not correspond to the quality of the work
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of those receiving it. What will I do about it
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if I am elected president? First,
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criminal cases will be opened against
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Sechin, against Miller, and against those
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government officials who signed off on and
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approved these enormous salaries for them.
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This involves abuse of
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official authority and embezzlement
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of funds. Second, by law a shareholder has the
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right to file a claim for damages
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against members of a company’s board who caused
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harm to that company. I would order
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the state to file such claims against the members
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of the boards of Rosneft and Gazprom,
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everyone who voted for compensation
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on that scale, because it is simply
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illegal — they caused damage. Third,
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all members of the boards of directors and management boards
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of these companies will be permanently
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disqualified and will never again be able
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to be involved in managing
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state property. All of this is
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completely lawful, and this is the only way to
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restore order. If you support
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this plan of mine, then please don’t forget
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to sign in support of
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my nomination; the link is in the description.
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And subscribe to our channel — here
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we tell the truth.