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Financial elite back in the saddle

The good news is that there are still some tickets left for the Fraser Institute's 35th anniversary gala dinner next Monday night in Vancouver. The bad news is that the tickets -- including tables for 10 at $7,000 -- will probably all eventually be sold.

And that means yet more money flowing into the amply filled coffers of an organization that for 3 1/2 decades has worked tirelessly to cut taxes for the rich, undermine public health care, destroy confidence in public education and prevent Canada from joining the global climate change battle.

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environment financial crisis Corruption Harper government tax cuts business executives wealth distribution elite right wing agenda Fraser Institute
Jim Stanford

CEOs and 'creating value'

By
Jim Stanford
| May 27, 2011

Today's Globe and Mail carried a story on the front of the business section about Jason Underwood, CEO of Whiterock REIT (a real-estate development income trust). He earned $4.8 million compensation last year (an increase of 475% from the previous year), which is especially surprising since the entire fund has a market value of just $373 million. (REITs, like other income trusts, consist of investments in various operations which flow through to the trust's unit-holders, thus evading the corporate income tax.)

There's nothing really new about another exorbitant CEO compensation package. The thing that caught my attention was Mr. Underwood's justification of his largesse:

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Columnists

Getting a grip on greed

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against tarring and feathering those AIG guys who helped destroy the world economy with their financial manoeuvres, and then received million-dollar bonuses to undo their own handiwork.

But focusing just on them is like just going after the crude thugs who unleashed dogs on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, without noticing that their actions were the product of a climate of lawlessness and vengeance fostered by the White House.

Similarly, for several decades now, the financial and corporate elite has championed an unbridled capitalism, and pressed for the removal of crucial regulations needed to protect the public. It has also championed an ethos of greed that justified extraordinary compensation, and very low tax burdens, for those at the top.

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Capitalism socialism protest activism economic crisis workers greed business executives financial regulation economic inequality social change
Columnists

The linguistic deficit of this recession

Alongside the economic equality gap, which embodies the current crisis, there's an opinion acceptability gap, which bedevils it. Here's what I mean.

A Strategic Counsel poll in The Globe and Mail this week found: "Slim majority opposes rescue of auto makers." My only surprise was that the majority was not larger. But the question assumed that a rescue is a bailout is a handout, full stop, as has largely been the case in the United States. Responses changed when conditions were added: 88 per cent would be more favourable if auto CEOs took pay cuts, 86 per cent if Canadians got discounts on made-in-Canada cars or if it saved jobs, and 62 per cent if government got an ownership stake in return.

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democracy media democracy economic crisis workers mainstream media Auto Industry Bailouts banks tax cuts business executives economic inequality CBC
Columnists

Those hit hardest get no bailout

Taxpayers' bailout money for AIG bonuses has rightfully provoked a massive backlash against AIG, Wall Street, President Barack Obama and his economic advisers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. The U.S. public now owns 80 per cent of AIG. The outrage is bipartisan: Iowa Republican Sen.
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US bailout economy economic crisis Barack Obama workers stimulus business corruption business executives tax system economic inequality wealth distribution
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Those poor, persecuted rich people

"This is a vision of a nation in which we're all in it together -- in which burdens are shared broadly, rather than simply inflicted upon a small minority."

More visionary socialist stuff from Barack Obama? Well, not quite.

In fact, the line is from conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. And, in case it isn't obvious, the "small minority" whose burden he is urging everyone to share is: the rich.

Yes, we should all stop focusing so much on ourselves, and think more about the plight of billionaires.

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economy economic crisis Barack Obama economic stimulus working class business executives tax system middle class economic inequality wealth distribution
Columnists

Only in Kazakhstan, alas: The maximum wage fight

A friend on the left says it may be time to stop fighting for a higher minimum wage and start fighting for a maximum, like those mild compensation limits in the Obama bank bailout bills. But it's Kazakhstan's Prime Minister, Karim Masimov, who's shown the way on this. He says "executives at state-run firms and banks" should make no more than he does, in order to "prevent social unrest." He makes a modest $4,700 a month -- he wrote on his blog -- but it's nearly 12 times the average. Mining and oil execs get way more. His proposal is "likely to be implemented immediately," though only in Kazakhstan, alas.

Economic inequality has yawned ever wider in recent times, especially in the United States, source of the current crisis. Since 1968, when U.S.

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labour socialism minimum wage workers wages tax cuts Wealth working class business executives middle class economic inequality wealth distribution
Columnists

How much is a bank CEO worth?

It's probably a while still before we see bank CEOs on street corners selling the homeless news.

But reports last week of bank presidents cutting their own pay were somewhat eye-catching. (For a little perspective: Rick Waugh of Bank of Nova Scotia will take home $7.5 million this year -- after his cut.)

Still, the pay cuts suggest that even inside the most well-fortified Bay Street towers there are jitters that the people down below may start questioning how the economic pie is divided and why they are getting such a small -- and shrinking -- slice.

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Wall Street bailout labour economic crisis workers wages business corruption business executives tax system
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