Adonis Diaries

Where’s my money gone?

I mean the money of the other citizens:  You never had any in the last two decades to wonder where’s your money had gone.  Or at least, you know exactly how your few dollars were spent, and you are ashamed to divulge their destination.

Your few dollars were not directed to be fed adequately, to wear sensibly, to drink soberly, to get entertained among good friends, to taking your kids to the zoo, to public parks…

Where the money of those who earned just enough to think high and wide: Taking vacation trips overseas, buying over-sized individual residences, faster and newer cars…

Hodgson wrote in The Guardian: “Wages for everybody else (guess who are these people) have either been in decline or stagnated in this period, and that’s for those who are working. I had a feeling that we would see some significant increases this year. But 30-40% was something of a surprise.”

Bosses won in every area, with dramatic increases in pensions, payoffs and perks – as well as salary.

Apparently, 2010 was a great year to lose your job as a CEO.

Four of the 10 highest paid CEOs in the US were retired or departing executives.

Ronald Williams, former head of Aetna, a health insurer, exercised 2.4m options for a profit of $50.4m.  Why? Because Aetna’s stock price declined by 70% from when Williams assumed the role of CEO in February 2006 until his retirement.

At pharmacy chain CVS, Thomas Ryan made a $28m profit on his options. During Ryan’s 13-year tenure as CEO, CVS Caremark’s stock price decreased almost 54%.

Omnicare’s Joel Gemunder retired last August and received cash severance of $16m, part of a final-year pay package worth $98.28m.

Adam Metz, the former boss of General Growth Properties, a real estate company that specialises in shopping malls, walked away with a $46m cash bonus in 2010. GGP executives received nearly $115m in bonuses from the firm as it emerged from bankruptcy.

Have you noticed the trend?

The faster a company worth declines, the richer is the departing CEO, not to mention those hidden members of the boards, who are never mentioned, and are effectively the same names recurring in almost every big company.

Where the money of these bankrupt companies gone?

Not on employees who didn’t get raises for years because syndicates are no longer doing their job right and have misplaced their mission toward the companies and liberal capitalism “wealth generator” mechanism…

Where’s my money gone? How my taxes have been spent?

On the top 100 enterprises that Federal government contract out their services and products. Mainly on military hardware…Otherwise, these fat companies would have closed their shops decades ago…