Aging 1% er gets $100 million severance for the offspring

1% er and wife

One of the 1 per center's with one foot in the grave has just been handed $100 million. Eugene Isenberg the 81 year old CEO of a oil drilling company, Nabors, has been stripped of his CEO status in favor of an underling but is keeping his token job as chairman. This is very handy as the maneuver triggers a clause in his contract entitling him to a $100 million payment "as a result of this change in responsibility."

Isenberg's hand-out beats Viacom's CEO Philip Dauman's gift of $84 million last year. Isenberg's buddy who takes over the CEO job believes that he deserves the gift as he is a "brilliant strategic thinker." "I don't think he ever stopped working" he added.

Well my mum never stopped working even at 85 when she died. Millions of workers never stop working except maybe when they're unemployed or fighting the one per center's wars and they don't get $100 million for it at age 81. It's a gift to this wasters offspring.

Folks may remember the $140 million retirement package Michael Ovitz, who was CEO of Disney for a brief moment in time, received in 1997. Robert Nardelli received a $210 million hand-out when he left Home Depot in 2007 and Sanjay Jha, a CEO at Motorola is up for a $65.7 million severance package if he leaves within the next two years according to the Wall Street Journal.* Hmm, that must be a hard decision to make.

The Occupy Wall Street movement's impact on society has already been felt as a previous blog pointed out because it has put these parasites and their so-called free market system we call capitalism on the defensive. It has shifted the focus of debate and discussion in society. People are talking about capitalism; the class question is coming to the forefront once again.

This increased class polarization also lays bare not just the economic equality but the social and political inequality, the hypocrisy of their legal and judicial system. Nabor's Isenberg whose offspring have just been handed $100 million stolen from workers in the form of unpaid Labor, was labeled one of last year's "five highest-paid, worst-performing US executives." by the Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. Nabor's stock has fallen 19% this year and underperformed the S&P stock index repeatedly. What would happen to a worker after doing such poor work?

Understandably, Isenberg's hand-out does not please many of the shareholder's whose goal in life is earning money (accumulating capital) without doing any productive Labor. But there's not much they can do it seems. Workers covered by Union contracts will like this one------ when asked if there was any way the company's board could have avoided paying the hand-out, Isenberg's successor answered, "If there was, the board would have found a way to not pay it. It was contractual."

What do they do when Delphi or GM or any other employer like a municipality wants to renege on Union contracts that guarantee pensions or other rights and benefits? They declare bankruptcy even if they're not broke or they change the laws or they declare a state of emergency or even claim that for workers to demand that bosses abide by contractual agreements in "hard economic times when we all have to sacrifice" and "live within our means" is an act of terrorism; it's downright unpatriotic. Well, living within means is all relative just like being a "brilliant strategist" is. It depends what your strategizing about--------Goebbels was a brilliant strategist by some folks' definition.

The movement that is developing all around us and throughout the world is a historic moment in time. Capital is on the defensive, Wall Street and the wasters that work there are on the defensive. Next time you hear someone repeat the bosses' propaganda that public sector workers' pensions, public services or high paid Unionized workers are wrecking the economy think of Isenberg's gift which is a mere tip of the iceberg when it comes to the plundering of society's wealth. I was attacked by a conservative blogger who filmed me calling for a $20 an hour minimum wage. We must not be fooled by their propaganda; such a wage is not only necessary it is easily affordable as is a 30 hour week with no loss in pay. As the movement develops and fights for the society that we want that will provide these needs** it will, whether we agree with it or not, seek to challenge the corporations and their two parties for political power. As a socialist I support this development.

Candidates fighting for what we need and rooted in the movement and its campaigns in our communities and eventually linked nationally in to a party of working people will be a huge step forward along the road to millions upon millions of workers drawing the conclusion that capitalism cannot be made nice, it can never become human and environmentally friendly it has to be shown the historical door. The socialist traditions of working people will re-surface and the only alternative, the collective democratic socialist society will be on the agenda once again.

*A Very Rich Adieu for Nabors CEO: WSJ 10-31-11
** For small business, taking in to ownership the banks and finance houses (not the deposits of savers) will allow for capital to be allocated for social need rather than for profit including cheap loans for small business like the mom and pops in our communities.