CEO: Salaries tell many stories
With the Obama bailout to the many large American corporations using our taxpayer monies, and the many billions still not paid back, the executives of three of those were ordered to take a pay cut. Of these three companies, 70 executives of AIG (American International Group Inc.), General Motors Co. and Ally Financial Inc., all had their compensations reduced by 10 percent. Sure sounds like a lot.
The CEOs of these corporations had their paychecks frozen to their 2011 amounts. None of these three companies have repaid what they were loaned from the $700 billion Obama bailout, still making plenty of profit and apparently with no restrictions, not in any hurry to pay it back.
AIG still owes around $50 billion (that’s billion), General Motors still about $25 billion and Ally Financial around $12 billion, for a total of $97 billion, which would help reduce our trillion-dollar national debt. Example 10 percent reductions and frozen limits:
Ally Financial CEO Michael A. Carpenter will receive (not earn) about $9.5 million in total compensation. General Motors CEO Daniel F. Akerson will receive (not earn) about $9 million in stock and salary this year and for some reason, AIG’s CEO salary was left out. Could any of us possibly survive on these amounts today?
When you make your yearly donations to your favorite charities this year, stop to consider this information: American Red Cross CEO Marsha J. Evans’s yearly salary was $951,957 plus expenses. The United Way Foundation President, Brian Gallagher, was paid $675,000 plus many expense benefits. UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern was paid $1,900,000, plus all expenses including a Rolls Royce company car. Less than 5 cents of every dollar donated goes to help any of UNICEF’s causes.
The Salvation Army Commissioner, Todd Bassett, received a salary of only $13,000 plus housing for the year. Mr. Bassett manages a $2 billion donated cause with almost 99 percent going to help those in need. There are many other organizations that are directed with “zero” salaries.
Are many organizations here in the U.S. out of step with reality or just greedy?
BILL SINGLETON
Coeur d’Alene