You Think The Bonuses Were Bad? Take A Look At Executive Retirement Plans
By Susie Madrak Saturday Mar 21, 2009 5:00pmThe rich, they are different from you and me:
The furor over bonuses for some employees at AIG International Group has focused public attention on the sizable checks employees received at firms that were bailed out by the federal government or received some taxpayer support. Less noticed, though, are the rich retirement benefits. That's partly because firms only recently began to disclose the value of executive retirement benefits in their annual proxy statements, which are filed this time of year ahead of yearly shareholder meetings.
Equilar, a California compensation consulting company, said the average additional value in 2008 to a chief executive's retirement plan was $1.23 million, based on its review of those firms that have filed proxy statements. In 2007, the average was $1.38 million.
These executives continue to accumulate enormous benefits while fewer rank-and-file workers have guaranteed retirement benefits. Just one-third of workers in mid- to large-size companies were in so-called defined benefit plans in 2007, down from 52 percent in 1995, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Some compensation specialists say the executives' sums are far more than what any individual needs for retirement.
"Retirement packages are supposed to help you if you're unable to save for retirement. I don't believe any of these guys could have spent all the cash they've earned in their careers as CEOs," said Paul Hodgson, senior researcher at the Corporate Library in Portland, Maine, which researches executive compensation and corporate governance issues for shareholders and insurers.
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done with stock market investments? If so, they may be worth considerably less than were promised, no?
I doubt they tie their wealth into the stock market... hoodwinking the poor and middle-class into thinking they should tie their retirement into the stock market is their game. They aren't foolish enough to play that game themselves.
They know better. They always have. All along (if I may indulge in some 20/20 hindsight), ever since I created my first retirement account of this nature, there was a part of me that wondered, "Is this the best idea? What if the stock market tanks?" But everyone was doing it, and everyone seemed to think that there was no danger... the Powers that Be said it was ok! How could it be wrong? So, stupid lemming that I was, I went along with it.
Last week, I put my last $8.00 into one such retirement account. (Yep... that's about all I can afford to put in from my bi-weekly paycheck) and swore off stocks-based retirement accounts forever. My thinking on this is simple: if it was a bad idea for Social Security, then why in the heck would I use it for my own personal future??
Thank you for listening to me ramble. :)
All the way down South Park Avenue
toward the Super 27's that have breathed their last few
How do these guys get these jobs, is it superior education and grades, like George Bush or is it family ties and church connections. I am interested how many of these CEO's are Mormons, what churches do they go too, What is their educational background, where they in the skull and bones society in collage?
it's called failing upwards.
this is an elite group that
keeps these positions in their
close nit family and family ties.
fuck everyone else....which we are witnessing.
Failing upwards or "the Peter Principle"
Advancing until you reach a level where you are no longer competent at your job - salary ever increasing as you move up the ladder.
Then suddenly you are being paid for being ineffective in your job.
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NO! NO!
Not Black and Decker too.
No Watchtower till they pry my cold dead hands off my hammer drill.
http://www.famousmormons.net/
Good for a half hour of 'Well what do you know.'
I forgot that I have actually seen that before. Do you know of anymore lists? I am better than them, I want those jobs for me and my buddies now.
I know this is what is going on, it is so obvious anymore. So now how do you stop a group that has the wealth of 200 generations at their disposal. It is like we are a bunch of nats just buzzing around, if we get in the way, splat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIguJ07-ClY&fe...
Found this site with all kinds of celebrity folk who are registered Republicans :
http://wcbstv.com/slideshows/Conservative.Cel...
Clint, yeah, Moses, well go figure, Hopper, sure, Jamie Farr.
Jamie Farr?
Oh Noes, They got Klinger !!!
along with a few others (authors, psychologist) to pad the list a little.
East Coast educated with a business school MBA, Wharton, Harvard etc! Many have undergraduate degrees with emphasis on math. The market is a huge numbers game...
Church connections???? You need to look at the last names!!!They run the gammit...
Some of these guys hide enormous sums in convertible insurance policies that vest as liquidatable assets after a certain time frame. Common practice though it was on the tax man's radar last I checked.
as the RED QUEEN says,
"off with their heads!"
I bet that these retirement plans also include generous health insurance plans for life.
these guys don't need health insurance plans..
not with the money they make...that's the problem
This really is welfare for the rich--income shifting from the workers' productivity pay to the management Mafia at the top.
Just like the privileged members of Congress.
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Maybe .. just maybe .. this is the moment in history when We The People of Planet Earth rise up and say NO MORE richman-poorman .. we are ALL humans .. endowed equally with certain unlienable rights -
For instance Life .. which requires food, shelter, health care and education ..
And that is Job #1 of our Democracy: to ensure that every Citizen's RIGHT to Life - food, shelter, health care and education - is guaranteed.
Remember the "if we pay higher taxes we can't afford to expand our business" line? Well, they can't expand their business because of high bonuses and executive perks, either.
Bill Maher had a point when he said it might be time to bring back the guillotine.
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I can scratch up a few wheels for the tumbrils. Gotta have those!!
As long as the executives make 400 times more than their employees this will continue.
Since no other country on earth allows for this obscene ratio to exist the elite here know they have no-where to run to.
It will still probably take violence to resolve this as that is the only thing these people take seriously. It did in France after all.
I thought it was an incredible moment of historical drama to hear Ed Libby, CEO of AIG, read those death threats in front of Barney Frank and the Congressional Committee.
Saying his people were scared, concerned for their safety and the safety of their children.
I was thinking, "Dam right you should be!"
And I know I'm not the only one.
I'd like to see the majority of the assets seized from ALL the persons who profitted from their schemes.
And then put them in a nice safe medium security federal lockup for 10-20 years.
Might be the best way to ensure their safety!
As in the proceeds of crime and RICO laws?
Or is this class above those pesky details?
Fitzmas in July! I'm there.
Mercy buttercups, the execs are scared for their families.
Suck it up, jerks. So are we, from leukemia-engendering carpet dyes, teratogenic tomato pesticides, emphysematogenic copier toners, VOC-laden "air fresheners", and those plastic cups full of bisphenyls you all pushed at us while ridiculing people who drank their coffee from recycled jars or Mason jars.
Our families died or are dying from the poisons you pumped into our workplaces, or those we are required to pump in order to keep the job.
Don't whine about your fears. The weapons were yours all along. Are you simply upset that someone was still healthy to fight back? Is that your true objection to affordable health care? Is that why Warren Buffett pimped Obama--so he could shuck off the group health care and replace it with taxpayer-paid care which only applies to folks who don't work???
If violence is what it takes... (who am I to object?)
Here I was, having a great night with the juke box cranked up, big ole glass of southern comfort, the house to myself and a clean desk. Geez, I must have been crazy to decide I would see what the blog world had going on. It's been hours since the asshats crossed my mind. Going back to Delaney and Bonnie "Soul Shake" now and leave it with you all....
BBC is showing (right now) a bus tour now being conducted---> to the homes of the rich and infamous. People pile out of the buses with film crews and vent their anger right on their home doorsteps. It's way cool.
They bone us for the TARP payments.
They bone us for the continued CEO perks.
Good thing the overseers of this train wreck are bought and paid for.
Let the boning continue till the torches are lit.
I don't know this website, but I've heard about these guys before.
http://www.realestateradiousa.com/blog/2008/0...
In 1996, Michael Ovitz was “fired” by Disney. The entertainment golden boy was brought on to be the new crown prince of the world’s biggest entertainment company. Ovitz, a big time power broker and owner of arguably Hollywood’s most impressive Rolodex, lasted just 16 months before he was unceremoniously ousted. The cost for Disney to relieve themselves of this burden, a cool $140 Million dollars
Read more (click the link)
There is executive deferred compensation and then qualified benefits. The qualified benefits are non-forfeitable and guaranteed. The non-qualified benefits (or executive deferred compensation) is subject to a 'substantial risk of forfeiture' until it comes contractually due. By definition at this point, it is likely that the non-qualified benefits will be forfeited, but the qualified benefits will not.
The reason for the disparity between execs and rank-and-file on the non-qualified stuff is the risk. Employees shouldn't bear risk; executives absolutely should.
Hey, at least they can't tap the US Treasury for this risk. Lord knows they've had enough dips at that well.
I am not for violence against these people, but the country needs $$ to pay for this mess. Tax heavily any and all income over 1/2 million; 60 -> 70 or more percent. Including pensions, capital gains, dividends. And I'm not talking about just the company's who took bailout money. All income. Including the Rush Limbaugh's, Including all media, sports people who make these rediculus salaries.
The repubs say we cannot afford Obama's budget. Well, it the rupubs you got us into this mess. It's their fault we are in this mess. It's their fault we need these new tax rates.
Let them call it class war. Who cares. We need to give trickle UP economics a chance to work.
Is that the general public is paying attention to the crooks that have been put in charge of big corporations and banks. The mentality for too long has been to put the sociopath at the helm. That way everybody surrounding him or her can take a fistful of dollars and not feel guilty. The public has felt unable to fight the powerful corporations. I think AIG has given the common man a new way of looking at things.
Boo Hoo for the execs.
This is a waste of time and a distraction. I am so sick of hearing about this crap. Yea, big shock, the guys who run trillion dollar companies make a lot of money, lets move on and fix things.
As I said on Twitter, everybody wants to hate AIG. Me, too. But taking aim at their qualified retirement plans because they have to disclose the value of accrued benefits on the balance sheet is an ignorant attack, one that would be far better left alone. For starters, the calculation of benefit values and liabilities for balance sheet purposes bears almost no relationship to reality, or the actuarial requirements for pension funding set by the Internal Revenue Service. Simply put, the FASB standards for pension benefits inflate the numbers by a minimum factor of 2.
All qualified retirement plans, whether AIG, or Granny's Home-Grown Beet Farm down the street, are subject to the same rules. There wasn't an exception made for AIG.
Fastfeat's comment earlier in this string starts to touch on the problem that AIG and many others (including the UAW, and other "friendly entities" to Dems) have, which is that the value of the assets will be substantially lower to fund those benefits than was reflected on the balance sheets you used for this post. That means that accrued liabilities are likely to double, and if AIG does declare bankruptcy, some (but not all) of those benefits will be insured by the PBGC -- the Federal Government's version of pension insurance, similar to the FDIC.
Don't stir the pot with this. It's already a disaster, but if progressives start taking aim at this, and turning up more Congressional hearings, and the House writes a bill aimed at hammering AIG, every single person in this country who is lucky enough to still be covered under a Defined Benefit plan (after they've been used as a tax carrot and stick depending on the state of the economy for the past 20 years) will lose future benefits.
A feeding frenzy is unnecessary here. Step back, do some research first, (feel free to email me on pension questions, or contact someone at http://asppa.org for details before going off on this. As one who has worked in this field for nearly 30 years, I guarantee you that attacking qualified benefits will have repercussions that will reach down to union workers and employees of the smallest businesses. It's ignorant to walk this road.
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