CEO's bonuses climb as laid off worker commits suicide

Rat and Mouse Disney's Iger got $13 million

Well, things are really picking up. Data just released shows that “CEO bonuses at 50 major corporations jumped a median 30.5%” reports the Wall Street Journal. The 50 CEOS received $126.1 million, not exactly a Goldman Sachs moment; but hey, whose complaining?

Starbucks boss pocketed $3.5 million bonus for the year, his biggest ever and way more than last year’s paltry $1 million. Robert Iger, Disney CEO received a handy $13 million bonus for the year, a 45% increase. Daniel Ustian, trucking company, Navistar’s CEO received a $1.95 million bonus on top of $1.9 million the year before for developing a business model that “kept the company profitable in the midst of the worst truck market in 50 years.” said a company spokesperson. The Journal doesn’t give any details about the business model but I’m sure laying off workers and cutting back on pay, benefits, hours or a combination of the above is part of it.

Meanwhile, a couple of the thugs that were involved in the collapse of Washington Mutual, one of the 350 banks that have failed since early 2007 and the US’s biggest ever bank failing are being sued by regulators at the FDIC in an attempt to regain some of the lost cash. But what’s unusual about this one is that their wives are also being sued. The FDIC is going after the wives of two of the top executives, Stephen Rotella and ex CEO Kerry Killinger accusing them of illegally moving cash and property in to trusts in order to “Shield the assets from legal claims” the WSJ reports.

These executives are accused of “Going on a lending spree knowing that the real estate market was in a bubble.” Says the Journal. What these thugs did, and plenty of others like them, was gamble billions of dollars of other people’s money on high risk home loans in order to increase, or “maximize” their compensation as the WSJ puts it.

Rotella apparently transferred more than $1 million to his wife after the bank was seized. Rotella is quite upset, it’s “almost beyond belief that the FDIC would take action against an effective, hard working bank manager who performed well under extraordinary conditions in an effort to save an important financial institution.”

You have to give it to these guys; they have no shame.

Meanwhile, a maintenance worker for the city of Costa Mesa jumped to his death from the roof of City Hall after getting his layoff notice. The poor guy was already off work with a broken ankle when he was called in and told he would be without a job. The City Council, as representatives of the capitalist class, the bankers and speculators, the folks that caused the economic crisis, voted to cut more than 200 jobs nearly half the city's workforce in order to close a $15 million budget deficit. And the 400 richest people in the US have more wealth than 155 million of the rest of us.

"This is a tragic event for the city and all of its employees," Costa Mesa's police chief told the press. adding that "The city is concerned for their well-being and making efforts to help them through this."
I find it hard to see how laying workers off, making workers and the general public pay for this crisis through cuts in services, is showing concern for workers "well being" and helping us.

There will be follow ups on this story about the man's mental health and how he was managing his depression etc. etc.  When the reality is that this man's death is directly connected to the folks referenced above. It is connected to Alan Greenspan, Goldman Sachs, the crooks that run the banks and the hedge funds and gamble with people's lives on a daily basis. As we pointed out in a previous blog, John Paulson, the hedge fund manager made $5 billion last year.  He made $5 billion in 2007 also betting on the chance that poor and working class people would be so overwhelmed paying the moneylenders their pound of flesh for the right to a roof over their head that they would end up defaulting.  His bets paid off and millions have lost their homes and he earned $5 billion. But it is the system that is the culprit.  We cannot stop this by simply jailing these crooks or regulating their activity, bad as they are.

And as I write I think of one other thing.  There is very little interest from these thugs in investing in the nuclear industry--- too risky.  But for the private owners of the industry, like PG&E in California and their class colleagues in Japan, its a very lucrative venture.  The taxpayers pay for it and will pay for the clean up too. We'll also pay with our lives as the workers at Chernobyl did and the workers in Japan will.

And they tell us workers are selfish and greedy, that socialism is a Utopian dream, that this individual selfishness is what prevents the collective running of society; this is capitalist propaganda backed up by religious institutions and taught in the schools.  It's not the CEO's of the energy companies that live near those plants or who are almost certainly giving their lives trying to save the rest of us from their failures.

History is ours for the making. Workers have accomplished great things through collective struggle, through unity.  The most important task before us is the overthrow of capitalism, the rule of the market and the building of a democratic socialist world federation of states. This will be our greatest victory and the best  gift we can give to our children and the future of humanity.