Phil Gramm, architect of the repeal of Glass-Steagall and subsequent financial collapse, feels very, very sad about one rich pal's measly severance package.
Phil Gramm, a former three-term Republican senator from Texas who once ran the Senate Banking Committee, told the House Financial Services Committee yesterday that “it was an outrage” that his friend Edward Whitacre, the CEO of AT&T, only got “$75 million” when he retired in 2007.
“If there’s ever been an exploited worker” it was Whitacre, said Gramm, testifying on the fifth anniversary of passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Gramm appeared genuinely aggrieved by Whitacre’s shabby treatment and literally pounded the table while speaking.
Whitacre actually received a retirement package totaling $158 million.
Gramm attributed public anger at CEOs like Whitacre to “the one form of bigotry that is still allowed in America,” which is “bigotry against the successful.”
Why the next thing you know, these rich people are going to be forced to retreat to their estates and spend all their time counting their money and ordering the servants around.
#Billionaireslivesmatter
To which I reply, #AllLivesMatter.
Spare me the "outrage" over a $75 million retirement package, please.
