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CEOs rewarded most for raising unemployment
Guardian ^

Posted on 09/25/2011 4:17:55 PM PDT by AfricanChristian

Black & Decker is a household name across the US, as in the UK – as the maker of home and garden improvement products such as the power drill. The company made $8.4bn in sales in 2010 in the US, with net earnings of $198m.

The 101-year-old Maryland-based company has also recently risen in the Fortune standings of top businesses from number 543 to number 288. For this stellar performance, John Lundgren, the CEO, was paid $32.6m last year, a 253% raise over the previous year.

In short, this looks like a solidly successful business that might seem worth emulating in the national search for ideas on how to overcome the economic recession and beat unemployment. Yet – as the latest jobs numbers show no net growth and unemployment stubbornly stuck at 9.1% – the opposite seems to be true.

Not all Lundgren's employees were quite as well rewarded as he was – some 4,000 of the 38,000 Black & Decker worldwide workforce were projected to lose their jobs. Nor did his company give much back to the public – instead, Black & Decker collected $75m in tax refunds from the government in 2010.

Lundgren is one of ten CEOs profiled in of "Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging", an annual report published by the Institute for Policy Studies. "Guns don't kill people, the old saw goes. People do," write the authors Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Scott Klinger and Sam Pizzigati. "By the same token, corporations don't dodge taxes. People do. The people who run corporations."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ceo; unemployment
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1 posted on 09/25/2011 4:18:03 PM PDT by AfricanChristian
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To: AfricanChristian
I know this will come as a complete shock to the Big Government pimps at the Guardian but CEO's are rewarded for cleaning out dead wood and improving and strength of their companies.

I know that is completely foreign idea to the "change nothing ever unless it means more gimmes from the government" mindset of the Progressive Fascist. Too bad for them that is how the real world, outside their living quarters in their parent's basement, works.

2 posted on 09/25/2011 4:22:26 PM PDT by MNJohnnie (Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)
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To: AfricanChristian

Lib media mad businesses not hiring to help Zero.


3 posted on 09/25/2011 4:23:35 PM PDT by nhwingut (Palin '12... Accept No Other)
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To: AfricanChristian

To be fair, very few people believe in raw unvarnished capitalism unfettered or unshaped by social, spiritual, and ethical mores. Capital is a wonderful servant but a horrible master. CEOs themselves confess that their position hems them in to the duty to grow the business for the sake of the stockholders, though the heavens may fall on account of the measures taken, and say that moral guidance has to come from somewhere else. In European tradition, CEOs’ pay is at least an order of magnitude less than at US companies, and they don’t go hopping all over the place even among the most successful enterprises.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is.


4 posted on 09/25/2011 4:29:13 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (There's gonna be a Redneck Revolution! (See my freep page) [rednecks come in many colors])
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I don’t know what the moral of the story is.

The moral of the story is that capitalism, in itself, is not moral.

The founders famously said that the Constitution would only protect a moral society - that it was powerless to protect a society that turned against morality.

The same is true for capitalism. A lot of conservative make the mistake of seeing capitalism as moral, because communism is fundamentally immoral. But it's apples and oranges. For example, fascism is capitalistic communism, etc.

A society that looks to capitalism alone for it's moral balance is doomed just as surely as a communist state. Capitalism, like guns, are merely tools. Who uses those tools, and why, makes all the difference.

5 posted on 09/25/2011 4:38:19 PM PDT by Talisker (History will show the Illuminati won the ultimate Darwin Award.)
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To: AfricanChristian
Not all Lundgren's employees were quite as well rewarded as he was – some 4,000 of the 38,000 Black & Decker worldwide workforce were projected to lose their jobs.

With layoffs imminent, a Merck memo uses these 12 euphemisms for job cuts

Merck (MRK) president Mark Timney recently sent his U.S. employees a memo which contains at least 12 different euphemisms for the company’s planned job cuts and layoffs in October, but doesn’t actually mention the words “jobs” or “layoffs.”

“reducing our expense base.”
“manage our expense base”
“vacancy management”
“restructure”
“removing more open positions”
“necessary actions”
“we cannot promise the avoidance of such activities.”
“restructuring exercise”
“affected employees”
“the people who are directly affected.”
“the need for us to change our underlying operations”<.p>

6 posted on 09/25/2011 4:39:27 PM PDT by MamaDearest
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To: MNJohnnie

If I am doing the math right then the company only made a 2.36% profit...at least it is a profit but not much of one for the billions invested.


7 posted on 09/25/2011 4:45:25 PM PDT by WorldviewDad (following God instead of culture)
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To: MNJohnnie
The problem is management today isn't being rewarded for strengthening their companies, they are being rewarded for emaciating them through a system of perverse incentives that favors superficial short-term thinking.

I spent much of the last decade watching MBA's fire engineers who could neither describe their positions let alone evaluate their performance. They were driven only by the promise of a $50,000 bonus for every $1,000,000 dollars in salaries they cut. Want to guess how that company is doing today?

8 posted on 09/25/2011 4:53:44 PM PDT by WalterSobchak2012
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To: AfricanChristian

There would be fewer layoffs, and the laid-off would be able to find better replacement jobs quicker, if the socialists were not trashing the private economy.


9 posted on 09/25/2011 4:59:12 PM PDT by Socon-Econ (Socon-Econ)
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To: AfricanChristian

Harry, Nancy and Obama pass socialist laws that make it unprofitable to hold- much less hire- employees.
...Then their minions attack the companies.

It’s a two-fer!


10 posted on 09/25/2011 5:02:33 PM PDT by mrsmith
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To: AfricanChristian

I know about this from my town. B&D went on a buying spree, merged companies doing the same work and reduced cost and employees. It ain’t pretty, but it was needed. One of the companies they closed here was immediately bought and is still in the business of making air compressors.


11 posted on 09/25/2011 5:16:18 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: MNJohnnie

But they are hiring like mad in India, Brazil and China (for less the cost).

Let’s have a balanced argument. While there might be a good amount of “dead wood”. I don’t accept that all the people fired are “dead wood” - the numbers are too high.


12 posted on 09/25/2011 5:19:11 PM PDT by AfricanChristian
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To: AfricanChristian

I know about this from my town. B&D went on a buying spree, merged companies doing the same work and reduced cost and employees. It ain’t pretty, but it was needed. One of the companies they closed here was immediately bought and is still in the business of making air compressors.


13 posted on 09/25/2011 5:22:15 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: AfricanChristian
"give much back to the public"

Damn commie rhetoric. All they worry about is "give back."

I'm sure B&D managed their affairs wisely to minimize their tax liability and maximize shareholder value. The board, management, and the employees work for their owners, ie, the shareholders. They do not work for "the public" or "the government."

I get all I need from B&D by having them deliver excellent products at affordable prices when and where I need them and backed by good warranties. What more can you ask of a company?

14 posted on 09/25/2011 5:24:52 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Talisker

I agree with you completely.

We forget that both the Slave Trade and Colonialism were driven by Capitalism. We also forget that many people who were genuinely disgusted by the excesses of Capitalism were drawn towards Socialism.

We also forget that there was a time when the Church acted as a moral guide, imposing limits on the excesses of Capitalists. Today, our infatuation with the “prosperity message” has blurred our vision.

The middle class in the developed World is under threat. There is immense pressure from shareholders for outsourcing and cost reduction. Supply chain managers are scouring the globe for the “next China” and the next set of cheap jobs.

When the history of America is written, will it be said that America’s greed destroyed its economy?


15 posted on 09/25/2011 5:41:27 PM PDT by AfricanChristian
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To: MamaDearest

My bud who sells replica stuff on Ebay must be working as a Merck writer. Instead of the word ‘replica” (or knock-off), he uses “Italian-style” (as the product was an Italian known product).


16 posted on 09/25/2011 5:42:57 PM PDT by max americana (FUBO NATION 2012 FK BARAK)
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To: AfricanChristian

The game is rigged. My IT dept is cut too so few staff that we are working 45 and 50 hour weeks and almost every weekend for FREE! No raises, we are not paid for the extra time we put in and no bonus for the extra time. Free money for the “shareholders”, who sit on their ass and collect the money. The people doing the work deserve a cut of the “profits” too!


17 posted on 09/25/2011 7:04:04 PM PDT by Plumres
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To: Plumres

The people doing the work get rewarded with a wage, that is mutually agreed to between them and their employer.....they are not entitled to anything else.


18 posted on 09/25/2011 7:12:39 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Plumres

Why the should they pay you a penny more than an H1B slave?


19 posted on 09/25/2011 9:17:55 PM PDT by RC51
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To: Plumres
"Way to go, Plumres, you woke up some Nazi's!"
20 posted on 09/25/2011 9:25:41 PM PDT by de.rm ('Most people never believe anything you tell them unless it isn't true."-Groucho Marx)
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