If there's anything to glean from this NYT chart on executive compensation, it's the fact that it is so arbitrary. For example, each of the executives below received wildly different compensation in 2008, yet all of their companies had revenue at around $37 billion that year: What gives? There seems to no rationality to this. But Matt Yglesius notes … Read More
Perspective
I was going to write a post about the media obsession with the AIG bonuses, but this cartoon says it all:
About Those AIG Bonuses
The political news this weekend was about AIG, recipient of $170 billion in bailout money (so far) — the largest bailout given to a single company in the history of capitalism. The outrage at AIG this weekend came in response to the revelation that it paid out $165 million in executive bonuses after the bailout. I can understand the outrage, … Read More
Banks Upset To Discover There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
Bailed-out banks are complaining: Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners. They must let shareholders vote on executive pay packages. They must slash dividends, cancel employee training and morale-building exercises, and withdraw job offers to foreign citizens. As public outrage swells over the rapidly growing cost … Read More
The Chutzpah Of Wells Fargo
Campbell Brown: (CNN) — Wells Fargo gets the "chutzpah" award for its PR counter attack. You may have heard about the bank's swanky Las Vegas trip that it had planned for its employees last weekend at two high-end casino resorts. Keep in mind Wells Fargo took $25 billion in bailout money from taxpayers. It was only after The Associated Press … Read More
The Economic Outlook Is GREAT….
…if you’re an oil company. They’ve enjoyed record profits this quarter: Profits at oil companies this quarter continued to reflect oil prices that almost doubled in the second quarter from the year earlier. Exxon Mobil on Thursday reported that second-quarter profit rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, the highest-ever profit by an American company. Exxon broke its own record. The … Read More
Bush’s Off Camera Comment
First, the video: Bush was speaking at a July 18 fundraiser for Pete Olsen. The first moments form the event find him speaking almost incoherently in admitting, for once, that his friends in big business had screwed up: "There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk —that’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV … Read More
Overpaid
Nice work if you can get it: Lazard reported 2007 profits of $122.6 million today, and gave CEO Bruce Wasserstein a bonus of $36.2 million for the year – on top of a restricted-stock grant of $96.3 million. How did Lazard’s share price perform over the course of 2007? Well, it started the year at $47.33, and ended the year … Read More
Stars And Writers Of “The Office” Explain The Writers’ Strike
Sounds like they have a legitimate beef: \ UPDATE: Another video explains the strike…
Why Our Toys Are Unsafe
Because the GOP is all into deregulation, that’s why. They’ve gutted the consumer protection statutes and bureaus (note: the CPSC under Bush actually doesn’t want to do it’s job) and left it up to the businesses themselves to behave responsibly. Mother Jones explains what has happened as a result: What happens when manufacturers are left to police themselves Zenith projection … Read More
What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt You, Right?
Hmmmm: Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized. NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly … Read More
File Under “Chutzpah”
Wow: A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said. The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 … Read More
Fox? Meet Henhouse.
Geeeez: A senior lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers nominated by President Bush to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission will receive a $150,000 departing payment from the association when he takes his new government job, which involves enforcing consumer laws against members of the association. What’s next? The head of the NRA to head the Commission on Gun … Read More
No Chocolate? Jesus!
This is something that even non-political people can get behind. The FDA wants to take away your chocolate. That’s right. Pending right now is a "citizen’s petition" which would allow chocolate manufacturers (Hershey’s etc.) to use vegatable fats instead of cocoa butter, and still call the result "chocolate". Of course, the "citizens" who submitted this petition are the Chocolate Manufacturers … Read More
I’m No Socialist, But….
This doesn’t seem right: Let’s break this down. (All figures, by the way, are adjusted for inflation) From 1990 to 2005, the average CEO pay went up almost 300 percent, whereas the average worker pay went up 4.3 percent. And minimum wage, in real dollars, went down 9.3 percent. Look, I get capitalism. The heads of corporations get more money. … Read More