CEOs lay off thousands, rake in millions

[OhioChick]

updated less than 1 minute ago

When Hewlett-Packard’s Chief Executive Mark Hurd resigned last month he received something few regular workers see when they quit their jobs under a cloud: A massive payout.

Turns out Hurd is far from the only top executive to be rewarded with a rich package despite a management performance that could be considered less than optimal — especially by rank-and-file workers.

A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies.

The report, from the Institute of Policy Studies, found that the 50 layoff leaders received $12 million on average in 2009, compared with an average compensation of $8.5 million for chief executives of companies in Standard & Poor's 500. Each of the 50 companies examined in the report laid off at least 3,000 workers between November 2008 and April 2010.

“Our findings illustrate the great unfairness of the Great Recession,” said Sarah Anderson, lead author of the study, “CEO Pay and the Great Recession,” the latest in a series of annual “Executive Excess” reports published by the institute, a progressive think tank. “CEOs are squeezing workers to boost short-term profits and fatten their own paychecks.”

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38935053/ns/business-us_business

[ihavenobias]

1. # 4. n/t

[DJ13]

2. Vulture Capitalism

A nation with a capitalist economy can, under the proper leadership, facilitate democratic freedoms and create a high standard of living. However, with the kind of leadership the U.S. has suffered under for several decades, capitalism becomes a tyranny in which the moneyed class loots the nation, while the working class suffers lower wages, higher prices, decreased constitutional liberties, and chronic unemployment. This latter kind of exploitative economy is most accurately called "vulture capitalism," and we are seeing it now in full view with the fascistic tactics of the cabal.

The U.S. is a "consumer society" in which workers must buy and sell to live. Every part of life becomes a commodity, something to be bought and sold, whether it is a computer, the latest automobile, sporting or technological skills, sex, or our ability to work. In essence, capitalism is "generalised commodity production," the transforming of all life into a "thing," something to be owned or traded.

Vulture capitalists call this commoditization of human life the "free-market-system" and force it on nations throughout the world. When this "system" fails, the vulture capitalists send in their carefully-selected Harvard economists to see that the nation's financial ruin is complete. In 2001, Argentina was the last in a long list of nations which have fallen prey to the ravages of vulture capitalism: currency-manipulation, asset-stripping, and factories and products sold at pennies on the dollar.

More-
http://www.hermes-press.com/vulture.htm

[Frustratedlady]

3. How do these clowns sleep at night? Don't they see what's happening?

They should publish a list in area newspapers and the public should shun them. That may sound harsh, but no one should accept that kind of compensation when others are starving.

[chimpymustgo]

5. $598 million to top 50 CEO layoff leaders = year's unemployment benefits to 37,759 workers

-edit-

Overall, the Institute for Policy Studies calculates that the $598 million total compensation awarded to the top 50 CEO layoff leaders was enough to provide average unemployment benefits to 37,759 workers for an entire year, or nearly one month of benefits for each of the 531,363 workers their companies laid off.

-edit-

[COLGATE4]

6. Wouldn't make any difference. I worked an an energy

company where the obscene salaries of the top echelon officers were published in the newspaper (at the same time they were conducting waves of layoffs) and nobody cared. They do it because they can - there are no negative consequences for this type behavior in our society today.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. Ain't the 'free market', grand?

:hangover: