The report, titled "Executive Excess 2013," found that since the 2008 financial crisis, 40 per cent of the highest-paid CEOs in the U.S. had been either "bailed out, booted, or busted" - that is, worked for companies bailed out by taxpayers, had been fired or had been arrested for illegal activities
"We think the study really undercuts this whole idea of pay for performance," said Sarah Anderson, co-author of the Executive Excess Report, said in an interview from Washington, D.C.
"We have a corporate culture that really encourages risky behaviour that is dangerous for both shareholders and taxpayers. I think it's widely acknowledged that the executive CEO compensation structure for Wall Street bankers was a factor that got us into this crisis," she told CBC News.
The breakdown:
- About 22 per cent of U.S. companies with the highest-paid CEOs received taxpayer bailouts after the 2008 financial crash.
- Eight per cent of highly paid CEOs were fired for poor performance but received golden parachutes valued, on average, at $48 million US.
- Another eight per cent of highly paid CEOs ran afoul of the law and paid fraud-related fines or settlements.
Comment: Is it just us, or does the U.S. intelligence community come out of this article smelling like roses? These 'revelations' read like a cross between a factsheet and a roadmap that "identifies gaps". Describing the budget 'leak' as "this catalogue of technical prowess" hardly sounds like it came from the mind or keyboard of someone who is even remotely critical of the U.S. govt...
It's like this article - written and published by one of the two newspapers on the planet that are supposedly holding the US govt accountable by 'leaking NSA documents' - is trying to say, "Oh look, see here this 'top secret' sensitive information that it just positively kills us for you to see... by the way, here's a list of all the really important stuff we spend this money on to protect you, now could you please sign here, here and here so we can get started on expanding our operations."
Completely left off the list are the real things intelligence agents get up to with the money they steal from you: murder, extortion, prostitution, drug-running, subterfuge, sabotage, propaganda (foreign and domestic), spying (foreign and domestic), coups d'états, blackmail, etc.
Regarding the size of the black budget, the day before 9/11 a Pentagon audit revealed that $2.3 trillion was 'missing', suggesting that the true figure is several orders of magnitude greater than the figure hereby 'revealed'.