Heinz Chief Executive Officer - King of Greed

Today’s reigning king of corporate greed  is Heinz Chief Executive Officer William Johnson, who stands to reap a staggering $212.7 million payout if he leaves the company when it is taken private by multi-billionaire Warren Buffet.

I have always supported the capitalist, free enterprise system, which enables individuals to parlay their skills into a great deal of wealth.  The Johnson package, however, like so many others in this era of unrestrained money-grabbing, goes beyond reason.  It is legal, but not ethical or honorable.

In the “good old days”, competent employees had the security of lifetime positions and fair rates of compensation.  Those at the top echelons of the companies interacted with the rank and file and cared about them. Those at the highest levels in the companies earned dozens of times what their subordinates did. 

Today, greed rules the day in most corporate boardrooms.  The corporate officer that is deemed to be highly skilled commands hundreds of times the earnings of his or her subordinates and when the individual leaves the company, he or she is  often showered with more money could be spent in multiple lifetimes. The leaders of corporations are increasingly isolated from rank and file workers in every respect, including in the community.

Individuals who fleece their companies for all that they can do not deserve to be regarded as good corporate citizens.  I do not know how they show their faces in public.  A co-worker of mine appropriately noted that an individual who steals a loaf of bread to feed his or her family may go to jail, but there is no crime inherent in a corporate officer making off with millions of dollars even in instances in which he or she has presided over a company’s decline. 

Even companies that have received federal bailouts are permitted to lavish extraordinary largesse on their leaders.  Case in point is the Chief Executive Officer of the “new” General (Government) Motors, who garners compensation of $9 million per year.

In the years to come, government at all levels will be forced to scale back entitlement promises out of necessity.  That action, combined with shameful feeding at the public and private trough by rich corporate executives, is likely to sow the seeds of civil unrest.  The revenge of the “have nots” against the “haves” may be coming to a community near you.