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Edited on Sat May-30-09 06:48 AM by AllentownJake
I figured this out when I was in my first year in corporate America, hired into one of those 10/80/10 programs.
Here is how Corporate America works for 99% of the Fortune 500 firms.
The Board of Directors is composed of CEO's from other companies, other high ranking E-suite executives former politicians, and Military leaders. They get at least $100,000 a year for showing up at 4 meetings a year, listening to some speeches and rubber stamping the current E-suites agenda. This group is primarily elected by mutual fund companies and banks. If you own a mutual fund, you agree that the mutual fund company gets to vote your portion of the shares of any equity investments.
Next in line you have the E-suite. The CEO and all his officers. This group is rewarded with stock options as an incentive to keep the stock price high, regardless if it has a negative impact on future growth. They engage in a lot of insider trading disguised as just "diversifying" their assets. If you want to know if a company is going to have a bad year, keep an eye on how the E-suite guys are slowly selling their stocks. They can't make big moves because that will result in the SEC smacking their hand for making their fraud to obvious (its not about committing fraud, its about doing anything that might upset the unwashed masses) They get paid the most but work the least. I'm not talking manual labor, they literally work the least. Golf outings with other business leaders, sporting events, dinners, etc. Are all considered "work". Oh yes and since the Board is composed of other people like them. If they fuck up, the board lets them leave with a very large compensation package. Why do they do this, well if someone on that Board fucks up they want one to.
After that you have the lower level executives. They do whatever they can to get into the higher tier. They will do unethical and illegal things to ingratiate themselves to their E-Suite masters. Generally speaking, if something goes wrong these are the guys that get thrown under the bus. Its ok though, as long as that something going wrong doesn't make the front page of the Wall Street Journal, they are quietly given a nice severance package to keep their mouth shut and they appear in another corporate entity a year later.
After that you have the managers. These guys are expected to keep the unwashed masses in the lower level in-line, and also work the most hours of the in charge crowd. They desire to be the lower level executives but aren't trusted yet to do the official corporate dirty work. They will protect their own asses at any cost and will do unethical things, however they aren't trusted yet to do the unethical things the E-suite demands. They get smaller severance packages but nice ones none the less and if they screw up can find themselves back with the unwashed masses. Their severance package is also based on keeping their mouths shut.
Lastly you have the unwashed masses. The group that does the work. They spend most of their days terrified they'll lose their job. If they get laid off, they are expected to get maybe a weeks pay for every year of service, no continuation of healthcare coverage, and a pension they may never collect on.
Oh yes and one last thing, their is more fraud, abuse, and evil things coming out of Corporate America than any other place in the world. However, unless the scandal is one like Enron or Madoff and the media is forced to cover it, it is never reported. Simple reason, the media has become one of the Corporations and the other Corporations are customers. Reporting on their fraud would be bad for business.
Also our President has no plans to disrupt it, in anyway, that has become clear in the first 3 months. Its not that I don't think he wants to, however, Corporate America now has more power than the government.
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