4) Robert Iger (Walt Disney)Compensation - $21,578,471
Laid Off - 3,400
3) Mark Hurd (Hewlett Packard)Compensation - $24,201,448
Laid Off - 6,400
2) William Weldon (Johnson & Johnson)Compensation $25,569,844
Laid Off - 8,900
1) Fred Hassan (Schering-Plough)Compensation - $49,653,063
Laid Off - 16,000
Total compensation for these CEOs amounted to nearly $253 Million and the total number of employees that they laid off was 107,448. All of this was done without remorse. Over 100,000 Americans lost their jobs as a result, and nobody seems to give a damn, including our first black president, who impressed us with his knowledge of democracy, but who is failing in his efforts to implement his ideas, mostly due to right wing interference.
At these extraordinary levels of corporate compensation, one really cannot trust anyone and, therefore, one cannot be trusted, not even by oneself. The trust of these people is embedded in their self-interest. There is no instance too small to lie about, no issue unworthy of fabrication, in order to maintain the status quo.
These people do not care for the employees they hire, they do not even care about the corporations that hire them. They just want continued deregulation, extraordinary compensation, and bonuses on par with their Roman god. It is all about them, their money and their power, in a competitive Roman religious world (3). Their allegiance is for sale.
This is another subject that ought be on every American's mind, because it has nothing to do with democracy. We have long established lower limits to personal recompense, although we have not raised the minimum wage in over a decade. It is also clear that we need upper limits on individual incomes as well.
First of all, consider the mindset of these people who make several millions per annum. How does an honest human deal with the fact that he makes more money than does the Roman god, Jehovah? How does one come to terms with the fact that no one on earth is worth the kind of money that they make? The Roman mindset necessarily demands leaving honesty out of one's program, with everything else built upon that shortcoming.
Please recognize, good People, that this is all pure Roman bull, with nothing to do with Jefferson and Franklin's democracy. Indeed, Jesus was Thomas Jefferson's best friend on this earth.
How does the neocon right wing consider itself to be Christian at all? Apparently, in the Roman tradition, they ignore the words of the Christ, "it's not good enough to just keep saying the word "Lord," you need to actually follow the teaching and take care of the poor"(Sermon on the Mount) (4). This message has traditionally fallen on deaf ears in the Roman world. Clearly, the neocon right wing needs to be liberated from itself. They ought give nascent Christian liberation an honest effort, as Jefferson requested.
Consider Imperial Rome, dedicated to conquering the known world in its day. Rome has never followed the teachings of the Christ, but has used those teachings to justify, without accountability, their Roman warring - launching Crusades against even the 'holy lands'. Martin Luther had no choice but to walk away.
