Well, it’s one of the ways change happens.
The Boston Globe’s Brian McGrory has been on a tear for the past 3 weeks, penning (pixeling?) a series of columns notable for their in-depth reporting, damning details and no-holds-barred scorn directed at Liberty Mutual’s board of directors and top executives for their outrageous, uncontrolled executive compensation policies.
Having exhausted (for the moment?) the store of revelations about Liberty’s executive pay ($50 million a year to CEO Ted Kelly), compliant board members (paid $200,000 annually), and corporate perks (a five plane “air force” with regular flights to senior executives’ vacation homes and favorite resort destinations), McGrory asked the next logical question: does anyone else do this?
Lo and behold, they do. Today’s column is based on McGrory’s use of that new-fangled internet the kids are all talking about. (Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?) More specifically, the Wall Street Journal’s Jet Tracker site, a searchable database that uses FAA records to track the flights of corporate planes.
It turns out that Springfield-based Mass Mutual has its own “air force” which regularly flies to business centers like Fort Lauderdale, Naples, Stuart and West Palm Beach, Florida—as well as Cancun, Grand Cayman and the Bahamas. Mass Mutual’s CEOs are, however, paid a mere fraction of their counterparts at Liberty—only $10 – 12 million a year.
“When you open up a can of worms, you should expect to see things that crawl. I just wasn’t prepared for the extent,” writes McGrory. Ain’t that always the way.
Opening up the can of worms (i.e., realizing what’s actually happening) is the first, and arguably most difficult, step in creating change. It’s never easy having our established notions of how the world operates challenged.
But asking whether anyone else is “doing it” is the next step. Discover that the outrage (whatever it may be) isn’t an exception, but rather the established norm, and you’re well on the way to changing the world “as it is” to look more like the world “as it should be”.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
And…?
As Velma Hart said not long ago at one of Obama’s townhall meetings (he doesn’t do those anymore) “I don’t feel the change yet”.
I don’t see Joe Sixpack getting bent over great reporting on corporate excesses. So a company uses private jets, so do various sports and movie celebrities.
Who outside of New England is even going to know/care about this?
When does the boycott of Liberty Mutual start?
http://www.hotelresortinsider.com/news_story.php?news_id=1673&cat_id=10
I’ve started my Liberty Mutual boycott already.
Really.
Why?
How?
Because…besides the evidence above, etc…
A couple of years ago I was informed by my union that they had a “partnership” with Liberty Mutual Insurance. Special group discounts, etc. I was buying a car at the time, so I decided to check it out. I already had a quote from the insurance company that I have used all of my life, State Farm. They are not “cheap” but they have never double-dealed or tried to weasel out of any claim I have ever made.
Anyway, I called up Liberty Mutual and asked for a quote. Gave them the details about the car, where I live my (excellent) driving record etc. They said that they would get back to me, and they did.
Hoo BOY did they get back to me!!!
Their quote was more than twice as high as State Farm’s. I laughed out loud. “Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what!!!??? I got yer special group discount, right here!!!”
Curious, I did a cursory check of several of the most heavily advertised insurers. All were somewhere near the State Farm ballpark.
What a hustle!!! I’m sure it rakes in money for them, too.
Deep.
Fuck Liberty Mutual and alla the other hustlers out there, insurance or not. Bubble-makers is all they are. Bubble makers and profit takers.
There oughta be a law.
But there isn’t, of course.
Why not?
Because that obscene kind of profit-making…preying on the less intelligent among us…produces huge money, and lots of that money goes to those who make the laws.
Bet on it.
Here is Liberty Mutual’s 2010 PAC data
And here is where the money went.
There oughta be a law.
Disgusting.
And this is just one corporation!!!
We are living in a kleptocratic scamocracy today.
Fuck ’em all!!!
Ya wanna see how it all works?
Go here, to the opensecrets.com “Influence & Lobbying” page.
Disgusting.
A bought and sold government…of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.
Disgusting.
You think your boy O’Bomber is clean?
Please.
Go here for the skinny on who’s getting what from where.
Disgusting.
Ya wanna know which way the fix is headed?
Please.
Hmmmm….
Disgusting.
Too big to fail?
Nope.
Just too big to be honest.
Bet on it.
AG
Superpole, thanks for your reply and your great question.
I don’t know when (or if) the Liberty Mutual boycott starts. I do think McGrory’s columns are a small illustration of one way change happens.
That way is what some organizers refer to as “turning a problem into an issue”. Doing the research and homework to identify specifically who is doing what to whom, and how. Also identifying what they get out of it, what their sources of power are, and what their vulnerabilities may be.
Eventually, in an organizing campaign, that work leads to specific, concrete, winnable demands—and action aimed at winning those demands.
Whether that will happen with Liberty Mutual, I have no idea. But for a brief illustration of how that research can be done, McGrory’s columns are (I think) a pretty good example.