This is war. Class war. Class warfare. Let's just call it what it is, for some reason the minute any person gets the title executive they somehow have entered some global boys club, thinking they can just rob the nation, their share holders and especially their employees blind...and it simply has to stop!
Citigroup
The New York Post calls it: Just Plane Despicable
Citigroup buys a Corporate Jet! It's not even American made, it's French!
Gather says it best:
I can't believe this. Citigroup, after receiving $45,000,000,000 in taxpayer dollars from the United States Federal Government, has decided to spend $50,000,000 on a brand-spanking new corporate jet.
What chutzpah they have! They were in trouble, got a huge chunk of the TARP government bailout money set aside for financial institutions, and now their executives are being shuttled around in a plush, new corporate jet.
I mean, here I am trying to figure out where I'm going to get the money to put some food in my fridge and stock the pantry and the American corporate executive is jetting around in Learjet's latest and greatest vehicle. This really is unmitigated gall!!!
Layoffs
CNN is calling today Bloody Monday because there were announced 71, 400 layoffs in one day. But things get more outrageous.
Looking at executive bonuses from CNN's body count list:
On Sprint layoffs:
Hesse and other employees may still be eligible for end-of-year bonuses. Bonus payout "depends on whether they met their (financial) objectives" for the year, Horner says
Microsoft CEO may get 20 million:
During Pfizer's press conference of announcing even more layoffs (they have been trashing research scientists for some time) the question was never asked to reduce executive pay.
Business Week said that executive pay is now a cancer
Today, however, average public company CEO compensation is 400 times that of the average employee. And thousands of senior managers in addition to CEOs are drinking at the same frothy trough, especially, as we have all just seen, senior managers in the financial services industry. (By contrast, the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average employee has remained around 22 in Britain, 20 in Canada, and 11 in Japan.) And with such U.S. exalted compensation, management has so elevated itself above average employees as to have become, in my opinion, a constituency unto itself—and one that, to compound the inequity, largely sets its own compensation.
Matter of fact some of the top executive pay from this site, many of these companies were acquired or went bankrupt or are laying people off.
The AFL-CIO also keeps an executive pay database and it begs the question: When corporations are laying off workers why in God's name do the executives get even one dime? Another question, this time from shareholders is similar: How can a board award some executive millions and millions for simply running the company into the ground?
The executive is the only job classification I know where one can be completely incompetent and get a bonus. Even worse, it is the only job category I know where one can get fired and then hired again for even more money in a similar position!
If you think there are limits on executive compensation for TARP recipients, as Business Week says, Don't Hold Your Breath.
In case you missed it, Merrill Lynch now fired CEO Thain redecorated his office to the tune of 1.2 million and moved up his executive bonus a couple of months before stepping down.
There are attempts to limit executive pay and tie it to a shareholder advisory vote. I should say so with this kind of economic blood bath for America going on.
Comments
Make 'em sell the plane
I've flown in a Dassault before, a private flight between Chicago and some place near LA. It wasn't a bad flight, especially since I got to ride for free :P
Seriously though, if I were a shareholder, I'd raise a ruckus to sell the plane.
David Kay Johnston
in his book (see reads section) has a whole chapter on how U.S. taxpayers pay for corporate private jets.
But why I went off is the minute most of these cats get the title executive they really get this grandiose attitude like somehow they are superior, it's a feudal lord caste, has nothing to do with business at this point.
It's more of a symbol. In fact when writing this I had a hard time finding the exact recent info on executive pay but it's in the billions, even with these latest PR stunts to claim they are "reducing it"...well, $60 million to say $12 million is simply not reducing it enough. Especially with all of the hidden "perks" like outrageous retirement packages while employees benefits are now cut to nothing.
We have a whole generation coming up who have gotten royally screwed on retirement and that is going to hit like a tsunami.
Citigroup Cancels Jet Purchase
Jet cancelled.
Someone in public relations got a clue. But that said, corporate jets are a tax write off and obviously....luxury items maybe should not be a write off as the "cost of doing business". So, while Citigroup generated outrage, there are plenty of private corporate jets flying around as a tax write off.