Expose on Insider Loans

Ctimes2 writes "Everyone's been grousing a lot lately about high priced CEO's and compensation packages, in no small part due to the 'Enron incident'. Business2.0 has a lengthy but enjoyable feature about how corporate loans became 'compensation packages', forgivable, sometimes tax free the and norm for corporations. And Slashdot's favorite whipping boy Microsoft, while not leading the pack, certainly isn't the poster child for trustworthy finance. More importantly (or rather, to our eternal annoyance), the article provides some much needed information trolls can add to their 'CEO's are bad!' rants: "Insider lending added thrust to the long surge in executive pay that has pushed the average major-company CEO's compensation from 45 times that of the average worker in the early 1970s to about 500 times worker pay today.""

Comments

Re:Too Bad-

[Chris Johnson]

Why are you assuming that Microsoft makes money?

If every last one of those companies listed are doing the insider loans as a part of corporate bloat and corruption that is causing them to lose money, and Microsoft is doing insider loans, suffers corporate bloat and corruption... but hey, Microsoft, they make money!...

...then maybe you need to ask what is more likely- that Microsoft is mired in that kind of corruption and waste and yet unlike all those other companies makes loads of money, or that Microsoft is mired in corruption and LIES, claiming that it is making money.

Do you really think they are so different from the other companies on the list?

Re:we're talking CEOs of large corporations (Re:ju

[L0rdJedi]

I heard about this guy on a talk radio show. One of the things this article doesn't tell you is that he was REQUIRED to take those private jets by his health insurance. He had become such an influential man that the health insurance company didn't want to take any risks of him dying in a plane crash/terrorist strike.

Also, from the article:

During his two decades as GE's leader, the company expanded from a $13 billion maker of appliances and light bulbs into a $480 billion industrial conglomerate. It has 313,000 employees in more than 100 countries.

In fact, the article doesn't even suggest that he got more than his fair share. All it says is that it might be PERCEIVED in todays business climate that his 6 year old contract might be excessive. He probably deserved whatever perks he was getting, but at least he's now VOLUNTARILY giving up those perks. How many other CEOs out there could say the same thing?

Speaking of financial trolls...

[NaCh0]

Its fitting that Michael posted this story.

What the hell has happened to slashdot??!?!?!

Re:This has nothing to do with making money...

[BitGeek]

Sheesh. I don't think you know what an unethical business practice is.

Giving money to your employees is called "compensation" not fraud.

You list a bunch of companies that committed fraud in the same breath, and that makes me suspect you can't tell the difference.

This old liberal saw is getting old-- if you wanna be rich, then work hard and be wise with your money.

Stop the constant anti-rich people rants. It just makes you look like all the other bigots in the world (The anti-jew people, the anti-black people, etc.)

Republicans are fast and loose with human rights, but Democrats are just as loose with human rights and on top of that are whiny babies who can't seem to handle the fact that some people have managed to make a lot of money. On top of that, it seems that you guys skipped economics in college and cant' tell that those rich people do far more for the opportunities availible to poor people than any government program ever has.

Like the guy says: "I don't hate rich people, I've never had a poor person give me a job. I always believed if I worked hard, good things would happen to me, and they have."

ALL of this anti-rich crap is sour grapes. Unless you were an investor in or employee of Enron, Worldcom etc, you have no right to complain because their fraud has not affected you.

And if you're like the idiot who said "Well, enron caused the stock market to go down and that hurt my holdings" then you do not belong invested in the stock market because you do not understand enough about how it works to risk money there. Better get educated or put your money under a matress. Cause if you're buying stock in a company and it goes down because of something that happens at another company, any intelligent person says "Hey! I was gonna buy it anyway, but now I get a deal"

Re:we're talking CEOs of large corporations (Re:ju

[BitGeek]

If you think an apartment in NY is absurd compensation for the job Jack Welch did, then...

IF you think Jack Welch didn't work damn hard at GE then you are ignorant.

Hell, his efforts there are well known.

There's no excuse for you commenting on something such as that-- he well earned his compensation.

In fact, the whole reason he got the compensation plan he did was it benefitted the company to defer the compensation until after he retired.

That liberal idiots have managed to convince him to give back that money is a shame.

But he did nothing wrong. He earned what he got.

Sheesh.

What is this, russia?

Re:In other news...

[BitGeek]

Never mind that Joseph Lieberman, VP Candidate for the Marxist party, wanted to cut it to ZERO and threatened to do so if the SEC passed accountability rules that he opposed--- rules that would have uncovered ENRON much sooner.

This little bit of hypocrisy is completely lost on the bedwetting liberals in this country...