Some levels of wealth are just obscene

I'm not for some draconian socialism, but no one should make a thousand times minimum wage. People do not generate wealth. They just get a bigger piece of the limited resource that is planet Earth. That is why it is especially disturbing that the kind of freewheeling payouts that preceded the current scam are occurring again.

Keeping with the theme of the last post

You think Universal Health Care is costly? Well, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog if you did, but here are some numbers for you if you encounter someone who things private health care is fine and dandy:

ANNUAL COMPENSATION (2006 and 2007):

-Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
-H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
- David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
- Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
- Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
- Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
-Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
-Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
-William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
-Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
-James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
- Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
- Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
- Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
- Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
- Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
- Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
- Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
-Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825

These people came to help and help themselves they did.

Thanks Liz for the numbers.

Oil Company CEOs hit hard by the economy

Yeah, they are hit hard by the amount of money they are hauling home. They need to design a bigger Hummer with a trailer to fit all their cash.

The five year salaries of the top 30 Oil Executives totals $2,250 million. That is more than 20,000 average American citizens.

You think that might be criminal in the face of the job and economic situation we are in?

Wait. There is more.

The oil stock these 30 dudes (Yes, they are all dudes. I checked.) is worth $5,737 million (I could write it in billions, but it loses the drama).

Let's do some Cannibal Planet math. If we waved the magic wand of nationalizing oil wealth of only these 30 guys, we could do an Oprah, but with solar panels. Remember, this is just the oil stock holdings of 30 guys. Not their 3-5 houses, their money market portfolios, hedge funds, other real estate holdings, nor their pure bred Arabian Horses. Just the oil stock turned over to all Americans.

With that money, my buddy Tom could put enough panels on roofs to power 230,000 households.

Talk about a quick road to energy independence!

For scoring low, you still get to fly high

For the exclusive club of airline CEOs, performance has nothing to do with pay. First off, all these guys qualify as cannibals because they take home over a million in salary, bonuses, and exercised options EACH YEAR. What I'd like to summarize here is the performance from these high flying fancy boys versus how much they wrangle in all compensation including options not yet exercised.

The score card:

US Airways. CEO Douglas Parker $26 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $61/share in May 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $4/share today.

Continental Airlines. CEO Gordon Bethune $22 million in 2004
under his helm stock price fell from $17/share in January 2004 to $9/share in January 2005

United Airlines. CEO Glenn Tilton $10 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $50/share in January 2007 to $7/share today.

Skywest. CEO Jerry C. Atkin $9.9 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $28/share in January 2007 to $15/share today.

American Airlines. CEO Gerard Arpey $7.9 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $40/share in January 2007 to $13/share in January 2008

JetBlue. CEO David Barger $5.2 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $17/share in January 2007 to under $4/share today.

Mesa Airlines. CEO Jonathan G Ornstein $4.1 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $8/share in January 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $.72/share today. (that's 72 cents!)

Delta Airlines. CEO Richard Anderson $3.3 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $21/share in April 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $6/share today.

Southwest. CEO Gary C. Kelly $3.1 million in 2007
Stock price nudged down from $16/share in January 2007 to $13/share today.

Northwest Airlines. CEO Douglas M. Steenland $2.6 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $26/share in May 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $7/share today.

Because Mesa (via Go! Airlines) wiped out Aloha, Hawaiian is gaining because of little, and soon no, competition:

Hawaiian Airlines. CEO Mark B. Dunkerley $2.7 million in 2007
Stock PRICES GAINED from $3/share in March of 2007 to $7/share today.

You can say these guys are doing the best they can in a downturning economy, but do they really have to make these obscene amounts of money while they drive their companies off the cliff?

Each one of these personal payouts could be downsized and save not dozens, but hundreds, and in the case of some, thousands of living wage jobs.

Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest, is one of the lowest compensated in the bunch and has made some of the smartest decisions, like getting a fixed price on aircraft fuel for the next couple of years.

On the other hand, Douggie Parker of US Airways, made truly the worst decisions in the industry, and received the highest compensation.



Sooooo...bigger compensation does not equal better performance....laid out clearly here on Cannibal Planet.

Crash and burn baby.

Another nose dive

You could simply blame it on the oil executives who are hell bent on making their billions grow, but the rash of airline bankruptcies points to something simpler - ego.

Take Jonathan G Ornstein of Mesa Airlines. Mesa today announced that a budget shortfall might send the company into bankruptcy. Well, he did give away practically free airline tickets in Hawaii to drive the 60 year old Aloha Airlines out of business. He operated in the red and 'couldn't possibly be aware of the looming rise in oil prices'. Many of his employees posted on blogs that he was the worst person to work for and this whole run up against Aloha Airlines was a bad idea. So, the average airline support person has more sense than the CEO (Where do they find these CEOs? In caves?) But wait maybe he did see this coming.

In 2007, he exercised $2.8 million of his stock options out of a total of $3.3 million. Any more that the 2.8 and the SEC might be doing some investigating, eh?

But Jonny Boy wasn't the only one to take the money and run while making poor decisions for Mesa. Michael J. Lotz, President and Chief Operating Officer cashed in on $2.2 million out of his $2.8 total. Brian S. Gillman, Executive Vice President, converted $680k out of $760k total (i.e. 90%). So I guess everyone knew there were some bad decisions being made and the time to get their money out was last year (while driving Aloha out of business and putting almost 1000 lifelong Aloha employees out of a job).

Now, Mesa sees the writing on the wall, but the CEOs and prezzies made off with their millions. Mesa employees will now have to complete with ex-Aloha employees for the diminishing job opps.

Now tell me why these CEOs and executives deserve compensation 100 times as much as their average employee?