The arrogant embezzlers of Wall Street

Many corporate executives openly and arrogantly steal from the public companies they work for. Since the company belongs to the stockholders, they steal from the stockholders. They betray the stockholders’ trust. Take a look at this chief executive compensation data, please.

Paying themselves such wildly unearned bonuses constitutes simple embezzlement. Of course, the board of directors must approve these bonuses, most of which have increased during this spiraling downturn (let us call it what it is, this depression.) But the directors are part of this conspiracy.

An engaging question: Is such conduct criminal?

Let me make the argument with a simple analogy: John Manager runs a local grocery story for its owners, the many heirs of Henry Owner, deceased. All of the money earned from the business belongs to the estate, and none, of course, belongs to John or the trustees.

A fair and reasonable wage for John, according to his skill and experience is $100. But John has a special relationship with the trustees. First, they were selected by John. Next, they have a tacit understanding: John gets $1000 for his work instead of $100. But the trustees John selected get benefits that include tickets to the Superbowl, recommendations to join John’s clubs, his political support when one of the trustees wants to get on the city council, trips with John to Hawaii during the deadly winter, and John buys groceries from the trustees who are his wholesalers. John is also on the board of the wholesalers who happen to overpay themselves. The heirs are so many and so scattered that they take what they get and are happy to get any benefit at all.

John has, in fact, stolen $900 from the heirs since the reasonable value of his service is $100 while he has paid himself, with the trustees’ consent, $1000. Nifty little scheme. Remember, the monies have been paid by the trustees with the full knowledge of the above facts. The conspiracy is to aid John in stealing $900 from the estate. A dedicated prosecutor could make a criminal case stand up against both John and the trustees.

But no one will prosecute because John and the trustees and the prosecutor and the prosecutor’s political bosses and all of their mutual friends are members of the same country club, all give to the local symphony and all go to the same church and pray together every Sunday and, of course, buy a gross of Girl Scout Cookies.

If Billy Joe, half doped up and in need of another fix, comes stumbling into the store and, at gun point, robs it of $20 he will be immediately prosecuted and sent to the pen for twenty years. He is a danger to society, is he not?

I rest my case.

If a corporate executive will steal from the corporation it runs will it not also steal from the American public that constitutes its customers and clients? And can we really trust its products or services?

The art of catching pigs

Recently someone wanted to talk about catching wild pigs. Why should anyone want to know? There are a plenty of domestic giant hogs running loose on Wall Street.

He told this story:

“You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs discover it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The storyteller then suggests that that is exactly what he sees happening to America.”

I say, I have rarely seen a corporate executive who was hungry. Yet more than a half million children in America go to bed hungry each night. Tell them and their parents the pig story.

The cruel irony is that the pigs, the giant hogs on Wall Street and elsewhere (they thrive in Washington D.C. as well) are engaged in capturing the people upon which they feed. One hog asks another: “Do you know how to capture innocent citizens? You make false promises. You lie and cheat and commit all nature of fraud, and the innocent people, believing that huge investment houses and corporate businesses with legendary names would never steal from them entrust we hogs with their money. It is that simple.”

The irony proves to be even more insidious. Corporate America, the non-living, non-breathing composite hog has captured massive numbers of Americans, indeed, most, through television, teaching them year after year what they must buy in order to be cool. They are taught to buy on credit. They are taught to mortgage their homes and cars. They are taught “to shop until they drop.” Then the corporate glob teaches them how to get out of debt by going to a debt-consultant who takes more of their earnings to help them keep the corporate hog fed.

Corporations do not build fences to catch people. They throw propaganda nets, called advertising, over the people. The bait in the nets is the TV shows that people watch, and as they watch they are gradually dumbed-down and captured by endless corporate propaganda that tells them how they must spend their earnings to be acceptable — the new car –the new TV set – the diamond that is a symbol of love — on and endlessly on.

Now that the people are in debt and need help, the corporate hog would doubtlessly love the pig story. The questions the corporate hog now asks hard-working ordinary people are: “Why don’t you work even harder to feed yourself and your family? Why aren’t you independent like you should be? Why do you want something free?”

Now the irony approaches absurdity. The giant hogs have eaten themselves. Nothing remains. Their lies and their frauds have been exposed. Their destruction of trust and their rejection of basic American values has now become rampant. And the hogs come begging to the people, ride their corporate jets to Washington, and beseech the people to save them.