Tag: workingclass

CEO retirement savings: Top 100 = what 41% of US families have

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The retirement savings accumulated by just 100 chief executives are equal to the entire retirement accounts of 41 percent of U.S. families — or more than 116 million people…

In a report, the Center for Effective Government and Institute for Policy Studies found that the 100 largest chief executive retirement funds are worth an average of about $49.3 million per executive, or a combined $4.9 billion. David C. Novak, the recently departed chief executive officer of Yum! Brands Inc., is at the top of the list, with total retirement savings of $234.2 million.

In recent years, pay and income inequality across different income groups have received increasing attention in the U.S. Significantly less attention has been focused on the growing gulf in retirement savings, a lack of focus that the study’s authors say they are attempting to address.

“This CEO-to-worker retirement gap is a lot bigger than the pay gap and one more indicator of the extreme level of inequality that is really tearing the country apart,” said Sarah Anderson, the report’s co-author…

Some of the chief executives with the biggest retirement stashes are at companies that have cut retirement benefits for new employees.

For many chief executives, the bulk of their pay often used for retirement comes from deferred compensation plans that permit executives to set aside salaries and bonuses on a pretax basis, with no limits. Lower-paid employees with 401(k) accounts can only set aside $18,000 a year and an additional $5,000 if they’re 50 or older. Many companies offer different investment options to executives for their deferred compensation plans than those offered to 401(k) participants.

In addition to deferred compensation plans, about 30 percent of Fortune 1000 companies in 2013 offered supplemental executive retirement plans, usually calculated by multiplying years of service and the average pay earned during executives’ final years of service.

The report’s authors called for a number of policy changes, including applying to executive compensation plans the same annual contribution limits that cover 401(k) plans and preventing companies from deducting from their taxes contributions to executive pension plans if the employee pensions have been frozen.

You won’t find this discussed in any of the Republican so-called debates. They’re idea of entitlement “reform” is taking social security, medicare and medicaid benefits away from workingclass families.

The Democrat so-called debates? Well, Bernie might bring it up. So might Larry Lessig.

RTFA for a few individual examples of pampered executives.

Howard Schultz calls for a boycott of campaign contributions

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Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, has always been the kind of boss who wears his heart on his sleeve. So it came as no surprise to Starbucks employees when, on Monday, he sent out a long, passionate, companywide e-mail entitled “Leading Through Uncertain Times.”

In it, he wrote about his frustration over “the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda” — creating an enormous crisis of confidence in the process. He said that Starbucks had a responsibility “to act in ways that can ease the collective anxiety inside and outside the company.” It needed to continue creating jobs. It had to maintain its generous package of employee benefits. And it was critical, Schultz wrote, for employees “to earn our customers’ trust by being respectful of their own life situations — whatever it may be.”

No, the surprise wasn’t the e-mail; it was what happened next. Although he has made his share of campaign contributions — “to candidates in both parties,” he told me on Friday — Schultz is hardly a political activist. Yet the response to his e-mail — not only from within the company but among a group of some 50 business leaders he shared it with — was so overwhelming that it galvanized him…

In effect, Schultz thinks the country should go on strike against its politicians. “The fundamental problem,” he said, “is that the lens through which Congress approaches issues is re-election. The lifeblood of their re-election campaigns is political contributions.” Schultz wants his countrymen — big donors and small; corporations and unions — to stop making political contributions in presidential and Congressional campaigns. Simple as that. Economists like to talk about how incentives change behavior. Schultz is proposing that Americans give Washington an incentive to begin acting responsibly on their behalf. It’s a beautiful idea…

He believes Congress needs to come back from the August recess now, instead of waiting until September. Then, he says, the president and Congress should hammer out a debt deal, which will restore confidence. And finally, and most importantly, they should start focusing “maniacally” on the nation’s most pressing concern: job creation. Once they’ve done that, the boycott would be lifted…

Is Schultz’s idea a long shot? Yes. Is it worth trying? You bet it is.

First, here’s a link [.pdf] to the original email to Starbucks employees, partners and the 50 CEOs outside the company.

Second, though I have been an activist in both the Republican and Democrat parties years ago – more so in the former than the latter – the contemptible, opportunist and egregious policies of most of our politicians was enough for me to turn my back on both their houses decades ago. I haven’t contributed a penny to either party’s electoral campaigns since the 1950’s.

What I have done and continue to do is support progressive political action within and without the Democratic Party. If I lived in one of the mythical enclaves where moderate Republicans who care about working people still live and breathe, I would do the same – as I did in the past. That’s not very likely in New Mexico.

As a cranky old geek living on my social security check supplemented by a couple of geek investments [no – I still don’t give public equities advice] I can’t afford to donate much of anything, anyway. So, I will continue to advocate for progressive politics, modern economics from Keynes to Leontiev, existential solutions to social, economic and political questions. None of which would I ever expect to find embraced by either dogpile of semi-useless politicians.

Go for it, Howard! Though buying “local” is our usual style, I’ll stop by for a coffee, this weekend, when we come to town for grocery shopping.

Thai election a toss-up favoring Thaksin Shinawatra’s sister

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Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A general election that was designed to put Thailand political divisions in the past has been upended by the emergence of Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, the exiled former prime minister, as front runner.

To her supporters 44-year-old Miss Shinawatra, is “pretty, rich, clever, international”.

The businesswoman mother of one has energized the opposition Pheu Thai party ahead of next Sunday’s crucial election and left the ruling Democrats – led by Old Etonian prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva – in the doldrums…

A raft of opinion polls show Pheu Thai (For Thais) opening up a gap that will give them a lead in the 500 seat parliament and maybe even scrape over the magic 251 to allow them to form the government without recruiting smaller coalition allies.

The fresh-faced woman vying to become Thailand’s first female prime minister was a virtual unknown barely a month ago…

Mr Thaksin, 61, who lives in self-imposed exile in Dubai avoiding a two-year jail term for corruption and abuse of power, is widely seen as the power behind his sister. Yesterday he made a barely veiled plea for his return after next weekend’s election. He said. “If we cannot forget the past, we are still talking about the past and there is no way we can move ahead.”

Pheu Thai’s policy pledges are an echo of Mr Thaksin’s tax give-aways during his years in power between 2001 and 2006, before he was ejected in a military coup.

Cheap health-care, a bump in minimum wages and guaranteed prices for rice farmers top the pledges…

Gen Prayuth – a staunch loyalist of ailing 83-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej – has repeatedly said he would keep out of politics and refuted constant speculation of a coup if the election’s outcome is not to the Thai elite’s liking. But Thailand has endured 18 coups or coup attempts since 1932…

Voters are not surprisingly fearful of post-election divisions.

The fact remains that the monarchy – via the military – has pretty much intervened whenever it felt the Thai people didn’t make a democratic decision the King didn’t agree with.