Another American corporation pays its CEO millions while screwing their employees.
This short story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune is the perfect particular story that illuminates a universal truth about American corporatism and its incredible anti-American values.
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/1192801.html
How do these people sleep at night, look in the mirror and explain how in any way, shape, or form, they are not the moral equivalent of Paris Hilton?
Qwest says the reduced benefits for retirees have been made necessary by the increased costs it faces. But the contrast between the treatment afforded the CEO and the rank and file isn’t limited to Qwest.
Top executives are being paid 262 times the average worker’s wage, up from a multiple of 24 about 40 years ago, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s most recent analysis in 2005. The gap widened significantly in the 1990s, in part because of the generous use of stock options in executive pay packages.
And these are the fuckers that tell us that business can do the job better than government. These are the fuckers whose welfare our current govenment defines as its purpose. This is why Hugo Chavez is on the right track. This is why the culture of Las Vegas is more authentic than that of the corporate board room.
in the corporate world, it’s one of those key buzzwords we will soon add to the Orwellian doublespeak dictionary. That word is “sustainability”. Since when in the all the history of man has outright decadence been “sustainable”?
Another Example.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/business/20tele.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Two horrible stories. And there are many more. I just don’t understand how the society doesn’t shun the executives and corporations that pull this crap.
That poor old man and after what happened to him it was really sad to read that he actually misses talking to those people …didn’t it say he had 8 children, yet they must all be too busy to even take turns visiting or talking to him.
It was heartbreaking.
Society does not shame them because society is blindly blaming everything on government.
There is no expression in support of ‘government’. That would be… SOCIALISM!!!
As if protecting and ensuring the well being of our fellow citizens, maintaining and improving our vital infrastructure, and educating and healing our people were some kind of blashphemic evil while spending trillions to kill and maim in the name of profit and “national interests” is moral and upright.
It’s pretty sad, and until we find someone capable of making the kind of arguments that defend government, we are going to continue to find the message of corporatism falling on deaf ears.
What makes this even worse is that it’s right on the tip of everybody’s tongue – right at the top of their head! People get it, but they are not able to throw off the yoke of ‘Government is Bad’ to place the blame where it belongs – on out of control corporations.
The destruction of the so called American way of life will not come about by terrorists nor by the warnings of the Falwell’s that our country is morally bankrupt but is slowly but very surely being destroyed by corporations, large and small who have no use whatsoever for average worker..they only care how many more stock options and millions they can squeeze out of any given company.
I just read where a newspaper(pasedena online I think) hired two journalists from India to report on local news….from India…saying that those reporters thanks to the Internet can cover town meetings etc from there as they can get all local info on line…the reason of course was money. Two journalists in India can be hired for about 10,000 a year-basically two for the price of one reporter here.(not that 20 thousand a year is a livable salary here)
I’ve also read where a fast food place(don’t remember which one)is trying a new program. When going through the drive through lane and giving your order you will not be talking to a person in that building but has outsourced to say a room hundreds of miles away to take your order than relay it back to the fast food joint you are at….I’m sure this is only a step to outsourcing the order taking to say India or Mexico or wherever……..
That’s craziness. Outsourcing of jobs to machines is one reason I will not use the self-help check out lanes at the grocery store. I would rather pay extra for a human than the cheaper convenience of a machine.
Unfortunately the inertia behind this is pretty substantial. I think it would be great to see someone put together an organization whose stated goal was the repeal of corporate personhood. Unforutnately, it takes money and influence to enact such a law, and who has the money and influence these days? (I’ll bet you guessed it.)
It is going to take a revoution to get this to change. Now it remains to be seen whether such a revolution will happen at all; whether it would be a peaceful revolution (which would of course be my preference); or whether it would be blood in the streets. I hope for the second; I fear it will be the first; but I would fear the third just as much.
http://poclad.org/
These guys have done it.
Done some fine work in Central PA as well. Beat back corporate farms. Thanks for the reminder.
Cheers,
ron
Amen. And for those who don’t know, Omir is right. The cornerstone of this evil is that in the United States a corporation is legally considered to be a person, a person which lives forever and continually amasses wealth and power.
Repeal THAT and we’d be a lot better off.
Pax