Such, they may cry, deserve the sovereign state, whom those that envy dare not imitate!
Illiad, Book XII
Lawrence Summers is a professor of economics at Harvard University. As President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Summers supported repealing parts of the Glass-Steagall Act and not regulating derivatives markets. As chief economist at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo arguing for the economic merits of locating polluting industries in poor African countries; after it leaked he claimed it was “sarcastic.” While he was Harvard’s president it paid $26.5 to settle a lawsuit against economics professor Andrei Shleifer, who’d used inside knowledge to buy Russian stocks while under contract to design Russia’s privatization program. Shleifer is a close friend and protegé of Summers. As director of President Obama’s National Economic Council, Summers fought against including either caps on executive pay or more infrastructure spending in economic stimulus bills. Citigroup, one of the companies that would have been affected by the executive pay caps Summers fought against, had given him use of a private jet the year before. Summers is currently in the running for chief economist at the World Bank, again.
David Cote is chairman and CEO of Honeywell International. The company paid no corporate income taxes between 2008 and 2010. Over the same period, it made $4.9 billion in profits, received $34 million in tax rebates, laid off 968 worker, and increased executive compensation by 15%. Honeywell has also created more Superfund toxic waste sites than any other corporation. Cote is on the Board of Directors for JP Morgan Chase and is an adviser to the leverage buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, the so-called “merchants of debt.” In 2010, President Obama named Cote to the Bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst)
Latin Proverb
Jeff Immelt is CEO of General Electric. The company has not payed any corporate income taxes since 2008, instead getting $4.7 billion in tax rebates. It made $10.4 billion in profits, spent $84.3 million on lobbying, laid off 4,168 US workers, and increased executive pay by 27% over that same period. Meanwhile, GE’s capital division received $74 billion in loan assurances from the federal Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program in 2008. In January 2011, President Obama named Immelt chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness; six months later, GE moved its x-ray equipment manufacturing from Wisconsin to China.
Chris Dodd was the senior senator from Connecticut from 1981 to 2011 and is currently CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). In 1994, Dodd bought a cottage in Ireland at less than half its market value from a man whom he lobbied President Clinton to pardon for insider trading the previous year. In 2003, Dodd received two home loans at below market rate from Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. He then proposed legislation that would have benefited Countrywide as part of his role as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Dodd also insisted on the financial stability of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac up until the firms were taken over by the federal government in 2008; he was the largest congressional recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Angelo Mozilo is the former CEO of Countrywide Financial, which received an $8 billion TARP bailout and a $51.5 billion loan from the Atlanta Federal Home Loan Bank at the height of the economic crises. According to Condé Nast Portfolio, Mozilo presided over sweetheart loans to members of congress, federal regulators, and executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He settled charges of securities fraud and insider trading with the SEC for $67.5 million (he’s worth $600 million) while refusing to admit any wrongdoing. Condé Nast listed Mozilo as the second worse CEO in US history, and Time listed him as one of the 25 people responsible for the economic crisis.
