In The Blogs

Retiring in Style

| Mon Nov. 2, 2009 11:42 PM PST

Just in case you didn't already hate corporate executives enough, here's the Wall Street Jounal on how the boys and girls on mahogany row have responded to tough economic times:

Pensions for top executives rose an average of 19% in 2008, with more than 200 executives seeing pensions increase more than 50%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

....Executive pensions rose even as the share prices at the companies declined an average of 37% in 2008 and many firms froze employee pensions and suspended retirement-plan contributions.

My friends, that's what we call shareholder value.

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

How to Kill It

Submitted by jimBOB on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 12:31 AM PST.

Enough with the hand-wringing. If you want to stop this shit, bring back the 90% top marginal rate. And apply it against both wage income and capital gains, so they can't hide from it.

Couldn't agree more, but

Submitted by g. powell on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 8:21 AM PST.

Couldn't agree more, but what really strikes me is the absence of public outrage. If the freakin' lower-middle-class doesn't support higher marginal rates on the super wealthy, what hope is there?

If you want to stop it,

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 12:45 AM PST.

If you want to stop it, prosecute the CFO and the Board of Directors and the Compensation Committees for fraud and violating their fiduciary responsibilities.

re: Retiring in Style

Submitted by GradyO on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 2:12 AM PST.

Retirement is a big topic, as it's less advisable these days to put your retirement funds in the stock market or real estate, and that has people wondering about retirement annuities. By and large, you want to stay the heck away from them. Here's how retirement annuities work – you sell an insurance company the bulk of, if not totality of, your assets, and they give you a monthly stipend until you die. Your heirs, upon your expiration, get nothing. Now retirement annuities do guarantee that you'll see some money, but they don't mention the huge commission that agents get for it – not to mention whatever's left over – and your children might need quick payday loans to pay your funeral costs.

19% sounds like a lot but

Submitted by B on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 6:07 AM PST.

19% sounds like a lot but that's because it's measured in US dollars. If you consider the huge cluster #@%^ we're in because of US corporations and extrapolate the value of these pensions in Canadian dollars, you'll notice that this represents a substantial decrease in executive compensation.

Today's average corporate board member realizes this and the fact that it is now more important than ever to retain halfway decent executives when it turns out so many are so bad at their jobs.

Executive Privilege

Submitted by MNDante (not verified) on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 6:55 AM PST.

And that's what they call executive privilege.

g. powell "Couldn't agree

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 9:04 AM PST.

g. powell "Couldn't agree more, but what really strikes me is the absence of public outrage. If the freakin' lower-middle-class doesn't support higher marginal rates on the super wealthy, what hope is there?
Couldn't agree more myself. But as a UPS delivery guy told me, he doen't want to tax the wealthy because he intends to be rich someday himself.
What hope is there?

OT, But...

Submitted by nepeta on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 9:35 AM PST.

An extremely revealing investigative report by Greg Gordon in McClatchy about how Goldman played its cards in the weeks and months before the crash. A must-read.

How Goldman Secretly Bet On The Housing Crash

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/77791.html

But the good news is that

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Nov. 3, 2009 2:53 PM PST.

But the good news is that our friends at Fox News are going from office to office to protect hardworking Americans from minimum wage workers with who are dumb, corrupt, or playing along with a very obvious joke.

It's that kind of investigative journalism that will keep the national treasury secure. We as a nation should be ever-vigilant on the pennies that go to outfits like ACORN, and put Wall Street on the honor system when it comes to the storehouses of gold bricks. Yep, this makes a lot of sense.

When exactly are we going to wake up to the fact that the people robbing us blind ain't the poor ones?