In the business section of the Denver Post today is a story about the compensation of corporate "chieftans" of 15 homebuilding and "financial-services" publicly held companies. Just about spewed my whopper when I saw these numbers, all of them at least 8 digits long. In a table captioned as "Execs cash in" were the 5 year compensatin totals of some of the biggest names in the US financial business' ; Countrywide, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and AIG. Get your puke bucket ready....
The "chieftans" of those 5 firms averaged $43,259,624.24 per year the last 5 years. That is 974 times the US median household income.
Is there a legitimate reason for someone to be compensated that much, and then have the company fail? What is so freaking special about these people that they earn 974 times the median income, while driving their company off a cliff?
I say it has to be greed. Truly gut heaving, over the top GREED.
Which brings me to the current batch of "chieftans" clammoring for our money to save their companies, the "big three" CEO's.
I guess we have to keep those 3 million jobs in the auto industry going for awhile, but I would ask that no one, not even the CEO can make more than 100 times the lowest paid employee in the company as a condition of the bridge loan. Millions of blue collar workers have made wage and benefit concessions, about time the top dogs make some real sacrifices too.
Alot has been said about the use of private planes, that cost $20,000 one way, Gross Pointe to Reagan National.
What is outrageous is that those three companies still own private jets. They should have sold them on eBay long ago!
Back in the day when automakers were pulling in a billion a year in profits, private lunch rooms, company massuese, private luxury jets, who cared, everyone was living the high life. Assembly line workers were making $76 an hour.
Now though, those top executives are still enjoying the high life while tens of thousands are laid off and millions more blue collar jobs are at risk.