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Bailing-Out Financial Dinosaurs: Not!

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Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo
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Bailing-Out Financial Dinosaurs: Not! The Wealth of Nations needs to be redistributed. Half of America's corporations need to be nationalized, and the others have needed to be allowed to, or be driven into bankruptcy. You see, when the NASDAQ faltered, falling by more than 80% in value, from a high of 5100 in February 2000, to a low of 1100 in August of 2002, the federal government through its pre-Democratic, old European Royalty, patronage system-the Federal Reserve attempted and failed to create Socialize Stock Trading. Moreover, in the aftermath of such a failure, with no return to its previous faux high, the NASDAQ allowed its CEO to walk-off with hundreds of millions of my money, your money and everyone's money who ever invested in a stock on the NASDAQ or anywhere else. We, investors want answers and we need a cap on CEO and Executive compensation of PUBLICLY TRADED CORPORATIONS and corporations private or public, which outsource, which is a Treasonous activity. More than that, no companies should ever be bailed out. Let them die and retired, whenever one of them dies their executive staff. Bailing them out is an act of knighting them-making an institution of them-an institution of, a perpetuation of, a rewarding of, failure. They need no reward, they need retirement. Instead, let one of the younger or older, Turks blossom forth in the place of the dinosaur. Add to this the terrible, evil, idea of Planned Obsolescence concocted by "49ers" on the GI Bill at Harvard and you have the ever continuing conspiriitorial realities-most certainly is "Racketeering." It should have been seen for the conspiracy it was. All it succeeded in accomplishing was to hustle in accelerating the expenditure of, the laying of waste to, natural resources, and thereby hastening a real Apocalyptic end of human days. That end, however, would not be not by God or His angels, but by avaricious men who used religion of the sappiest people to conjure up profits and strip-mine our planet. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is working on bills that would require public companies to have these votes on severance pay and "say on pay" votes. That is not enough. I say cap CEO salary packages at $2.5 million and retirement packages at the same ratio to salary as their employees receive. Are the below just the tip of the iceberg? Are they just a few examples of the many Robber Barons of modern times who are driving up your costs and taxes? Judge for yourself. No. 1: Former Exxon Mobil boss Lee Raymond. Total retirement take: $351 million. That is $35,000 an hour. What did his employees get for theirs? He is credited with something, which he did not create or control, or did he? I speak of the war with Iraq, which drove up oil prices by leaps and bounds. Our brave troops were dying and being wounded while receiving an average pay of about $13,000 a year, is this just reward for their work? During Henry McKinnell's tenure, from early in 2001 through 2006, the shares of Pfizer declined 40%. That stock slide cost Pfizer shareholders $140 billion. Should he have been rewarded for such performance? Well, he retired from his position CEO in July 2006 with a $213 million golden goodbye, thanks to an very generous board of his peers. One hand washes the other and what should be washed out is the present make-up of boards of directors. Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli's retirement package outraged many people when he retired from the company in early 2007. First, Home Depot stock declined nearly 8% under his six-year watch. Secondly, he was rewarded for failure, even though he had already collected gigantic annual compensation packages. According to The Corporate Library Mr. Nardelli's compensation package included $219.7 million in the two years before leaving the company, Finally, $84 million of his golden Parachute came from accelerated vesting of deferred stock awards and grants of unvested options. That, according to the AFL-CIO Office of Investment. Merrill O'Neal, unlike most rank-and-file employees Mr. Nardelli got to keep his restricted stock and options and will gain more if his successor, Frank Blake, manages to turn Home Depot around and make its stock go up. Ex-Gillette chief James Kilts. Total retirement take: $165 million. $161.5 million retirement package collected by former Merrill Lynch TO chief Stanley O'Neal You know, my lovely wife often tells me, Peter, dear; you cannot use that kind of language and have people take you seriously as a journalist. My reply has been, gee honey, I am no journalist, and I am an angry sonofabitch who wishes dueling were legal. I would would run for congress and do a Scaramouch throughout all three houses and the boardrooms of most cheating lying corporations who rob and murder Americans and others. Gas is produced even today ay $00.02 a gallon. In Iraq before the "war," it was selling in Iraq at $00.05 a gallon. It sells now at $00.12 a gallon at the pump, in Iran at $00.14 a gallon right now. What the MSM ignores is that Americans are not using more oil then they did in 1999/200, but the profits are up by several hundred % because the production and delivery cost has DROPPED, from Two and six tenths Cents a gallon ($00.026 Cents a gallon) to two and three tenths cents per gallon $00.023 Cents a gallon, a profit margin increase of 167% (one hundred sixty seven percent gallon!) for the same gas. We are being charged, with the previous profit added, nearly 200% profits! They are using this war excuse to redistribute the wealth. If a Democrat is elected PRES, he should do an FDR, and demand a rebate of 80% of those profits to every American! Consumer group Public Citizen released a study over the summer stating that Exxon Mobil (XOM: Research, Estimates) lead the industry pack in record profits, earning $4.15 billion in the second quarter - 123 percent higher than the year-ago period. Chevron (CHV: Research, Estimates) came next with $1.14 billion in quarterly profits, a 136 percent increase over the previous year and $39.5 billion in 2006.

Consumer group Public Citizen released a study over the summer stating that Exxon Mobil (XOM: Research, Estimates) led the industry pack in record profits, earning $4.15 billion in the second quarter - 123 percent higher than the year-ago period. Keep up the great work, I love it when we can use locker room language publicly, it displays the passion we feel and it comes straight up from the heart. When I am really angry I do the same thing, but here you have excelled at mastering the art of locker room language to the highest echelons of manly/womanly Journalism, and Kudos to the editors and/or Rob for promoting your piece to Headline status, language and all! ATT CEO Retirement Package Chief Executive Edward Whitacre retirement package in 2007, weighing in at $158.5 million Angelo Mozilo, who as co-founder and chief of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial and who some claim bears a good bit of the blame for the current sub prime mess, would collect more than $73 million, according to Paul Hodgson, a CEO pay expert at The Corporate Library. Why are they getting so much? Because they are geniuses? Only the most naïve' would venture or entertain such a fantasy. I have met few CEO's or upper echelon officers as smart or smarter than my most moderately gifted students. Many of them are where they are, not because of intellect or genius, but because they are members of a Good Olde Boys Club. All the board's of directors are CEO's or former CEO's, who will be eventually looking for new jobs or seeking others in their realm to support in their next compensation package. One hand washes the other, one seeking to have his back scratched, is primed to scratch the backs of the present scratchers. However generous they are in awarding one of their group on which board they serve, becomes the precedent for their own compensation packages, when their turn comes. In essence, when they give higher and higher compensation packages to others and incredible retirement packages to failures, they are setting themselves up for a similar or better award, they are, essentially, awarding themselves, the wealth of ages. They are involved in robbing investors in that corporate stock. Now, Here is the tricky part, this is redistribution of the wealth. IT IS YOUR MONEY THEY ARE GIVING THEMSELVES! Especially if you own or have owned stock in any corporation, they are robbing the till of your stock price and your dividend and the growth of your investment. Even if you personally do not own any stocks, your pension fund does-it must in some form or other because pensions and profit sharing do not come from interest rates alone, they come form stock performance. I believe that in addition to soaking us $3.75 a gallon for gasoline, which only costs $00.02 cents, a gallon ought to qualify the executives of the oil industry to be hung by the feet and pelted with wet rags infected with goat dung. Doesn't it bother anyone that a 163% increase in gas profits is a bit much? That is like paying for prime organic meat at $25 dollars a pound, $4075 dollars for each one-pound steak you buy. Or paying for a $9.00 hamburger $1467 dollars. Besides why has my always in prime condition, always tuned up, Lexus, which used to get 22-28 mph now getting only 15-20 mph? How much are you paying for gas? Before the Bushites war, I was spending $27 a week on gas, now, although I am driving far less, I am spending $135-$165 per week on gas and I am getting lower mileage for the same vehicle. Why is that? I'll tell you why, because adding a certain formula of Acetone will increase your gas mileage, but adding a lesser amount can decrease your gas mileage?

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Professor Bagnolo has majored in: Cultural Anthropology, Architectural design, painting, creative writing. As a child prodigy, abed with polio for almost two years, he was offered an opportunity to skip three grades at age 8.
Later He was a (more...)
 
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