How can greedy CEOs live with perks?
As I read the news that as AIG was going under, they still managed a $400,000 employee retreat complete with spa visits, and as I learned that although WAMU (my personal bank) was actually seized by the U.S. Government, their top executive raked in millions for a three-week stint, my ability to remain silent vanished.
This may sound naive but do these people have no conscience? Where are their mothers? Did no one ever teach them the value of decency and fairness? As a parent, I'm constantly preaching to my kids to "do the right thing" and "help those in need." I wonder how the executives at these companies can look at themselves in the morning.
Too bad life isn't like a Frank Capra movie where the Ghost of Economy Present could lead these executives one by one into a local restaurant to see the waitress struggling to make ends meet, or into the car repair shop where the mechanic working on their car is lost in thought over how he'll pay for his child's medicine. The ghost could then turn to them and say something like "when you signed that pay increase for yourself, you stole his child's breakfast." The ghost could then take the executives to see an elderly couple that sit silently at their kitchen table devastated that their entire life savings has just been wiped out and the ghost would say, "Your greed and incompetence caused these people to lose everything they've worked for over the last 50 years."
Shame on the so-called leaders of these organizations. Shame on the so-called leaders of our country, left and right, for allowing them to get away with thievery. Shame on us for not demanding better. If we can't believe in Capra, maybe we can wait for karma. Something else my mom taught me is what goes around comes around. At some point, I have to believe these criminally negligent "corporate executives" will get what they deserve and it won't be in the form of a golden parachute or another ill-advised government bailout.
Until then, we will continue to teach our kids to do the right thing and help those in need. Little did we suspect the people in need might be us.
Suzanne Brazil
Vernon Hills