Study Finds CEO Salaries Increase With Layoffs

Executives of the top 50 job-cutting firms in the US earned 42 percent more than their peers in 2009, according to a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

As the country's economy continues to struggle, and American workers earn less in weekly wages than they did in the 1970s (adjusted for inflation), executive salaries have remained substantially, disproportionately high. According to the IPS study, "Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession," after adjusting for inflation, the average CEO pay in 2009 is more than four times its average from the 1980s and approximately eight times what it was throughout the mid-20th century.

"Our findings illustrate the great unfairness of the Great Recession," said Sarah Anderson, lead author of the IPS study.

Almost three-fourths of the 50 firms surveyed in the study reported positive earnings after a period of mass firings - at least 3,000 workers per company between November 2008 and April 2010. Meanwhile, the layoff leaders received an average of $12 million in 2009, compared to the Standard & Poor's 500 average of $8.5 million. In some cases, CEO pay during layoff years surged well beyond that range.

Among the culpable layoff giants are Fred Hassan of Shering-Plough, who made $50 million after merging with Merck and firing 16,000 employees; William Weldon of Johnson & Johnson, who laid off 9,000 and received $25.6 million; Mark Hurd of HP, whose severance package of almost $50 million followed his cutting of 6,400 jobs and resignation amid sexual harassment claims; and Kenneth Chenault of American Express, who fired 4,000 and made $16.8 million - after receiving $3.4 billion in federal bailout funds.

To add a hypothetical insult to injury, the $598 million in combined layoff-leader compensation could provide average unemployment benefits to 37,759 workers for an entire year, or nearly a month of benefits to the 531,363 individual workers fired by their companies...

Continue reading

Nadia Prupis @'truth-out'

Robots Taught How to Deceive

REpost: Rock Magic: When William Burroughs met Jimmy Page (Crawdaddy June 1975)

"...I felt that these considerations could form the basis of my talk with Jimmy Page, which I hoped would not take the form of an interview. There is something just basically wrong about the whole interview format. Someone sticks a mike in your face and says, "Mr. Page, would you care to talk about your interest in occult practices? Would you describe yourself as a believer in this sort of thing?" Even an intelligent mike-in-the-face question tends to evoke a guarded mike-in-the-face answer. As soon as Jimmy Page walked into my loft downtown, I saw that it wasn't going to be that way.

We started talking over a cup of tea and found we have friends in common: the real estate agent who negotiated Jimmy Page's purchase of the Aleister Crowley house on Loch Ness, John Michel, the flying saucer and pyramid expert. Donald Camel, who worked on Performance; Kenneth Anger, and the Jaggers, Mick and Chris. The subject of magic came up in connection with Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Anger' film Lucifer Rising, for which Jimmy Page did the sound track.
Since the word "magic" tends to cause confused thinking, I would like to say exactly what I mean by "magic" and the magical interpretation of so - called reality. The underlying assumption of magic is the assertion of will as the primary moving force in this universe -- the deep conviction that nothing happens unless somebody or some being wills it to happen. To me this has always seemed self -- evident. A chair does not move unless someone moves it. Neither does your physical body, which is composed of much the same materials, move unless you will it to move. Walking across the room is a magical operation. From the viewpoint of magic, no death, no illness, no misfortune, accident, war, or riot is accidental. There are no accidents in the world of magic. And will is another word for animate energy. Rock stars are juggling fissionable material that could blow up at any time . . . "The soccer scores are coming in from the Capital ... one must pretend an interest," drawled the dandified Commandante, safe in the pages of my book, and as another rock star said to me, " You sit on your ass writing -- I could be torn to pieces by my fans, like Orpheus." 

Full article 

HERE

♪♫ Hitting Birth - Crackman

Penalty goal of the year!

Is Death the Price of Having a Job? In Some Corporations It Seems Like It

Their names probably won't mean mean anything to you, but these people ought to have some modicum of personal recognition: Jason Anderson, Aaron Dale "Bubba" Burkeen, Donald Clark, Stephen Curtis, Gordon Jones, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Karl Kleppinger, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto, and Adam Weise. These are the 11 workers who were killed when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico on April 20.

For months after the disaster, national media outlets featured extensive coverage of BP's calamitous well -- as they should -- showing us satellite pictures of the spreading plumes of pollution, footage of dead pelicans, estimates of the ecological horror on the ocean floor, analyses of the frantic efforts to stop the oil, commentaries on the astonishing arrogance of corporate executives, feature stories about the slick's impact on Gulf tourism, interviews with lawmakers demanding much tougher environmental protections, etc...

But what about those people? Most of the 11 were in their twenties and thirties. They had families and futures. Yet, aside from an occasional off-handed reference to the general body count, their fate had pretty much been dropped from discussion about the cost of our country's cavalier ethic of "drill, baby, drill." And what about the 17 other rig workers who were injured in the Deepwater explosion, many of them badly burned and maimed. There's barely been any media mention of the price they paid for the corporate rush to complete this well, much less any follow-up on their painful and costly ordeal.

I'm not pleading here for maudlin coverage of victims -- but for ACTION! Just as the Deepwater catastrophe is a screaming wake-up call and a vital teaching moment for environmental protection, so it is for the protection of America's workforce. Eleven people didn't merely perish in the Gulf on April 20; they were killed by a careless cabal of corporate greedheads and ideological boneheads. It's a case of institutional murder -- and it's a shockingly common occurrence in our country.

LITTLE-KNOWN STATISTIC: Each day, on average, 14 American workers are killed on the job. They're killed by explosions, trench cave-ins, electrocutions, falls, suffocations, fires, poisonings, manglings, and so forth. Another 50,000 to 60,000 workers die each year from cancers, black lung, and other diseases caused by their jobs.

This is murder, because nearly all of these deaths are preventable with proper equipment, work rules, and regulatory enforcement.

This is murder, because CEOs, boards of directors, and financiers know the deaths will occur, but continue to take shortcuts on worker safety and health in order to goose up their profits, secure in the knowledge that they can get away with it. Even if caught, they merely pay a minimal fine.

This is murder, because lawmakers and regulators (national, state, and local) turn a blind eye to its pervasiveness and constancy, insisting that each "incident" is an isolated event that should not interfere with the drive for corporate competitiveness. This is murder, because the media establishment only yelps when one occurs, then goes back to sleep as reform is stalled and the system drifts back to business as usual...

Continue reading

Jim Hightower @'AlterNet'

Iraq combat over but U.S. troops still in danger

U.S. Staff Sergeant Kendrick Manuel swung his rifle over his shoulder and grumbled about being viewed as a "non-combat" soldier in Iraq.
"When NBC talked about the last combat troops are gone, they made it sound like everything is basically over," he said, after escorting a 19-truck convoy through a part of northern Iraq where roadside bombs and mortar attacks are still a danger.
"To us it was like a slap in the face, because we are still here ... we are still going in harm's way every time we leave out of the gate," Manuel said at a U.S. military base, Camp Speicher, near Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.
On August 31, the U.S. military formally declared an end to its combat mission in Iraq, 7-1/2 years after the invasion that removed Saddam and led to sectarian warfare and a fierce insurgency in which tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed. More than 4,400 U.S. soldiers have been killed since 2003.
U.S. networks such as NBC showed what the U.S. military labeled the last combat brigade rumbling into Kuwait. Soldiers whooped and shouted on camera that the war was over.
Yet, there are still six brigades made up of 50,000 troops in Iraq, ahead of a full withdrawal at the end of 2011. Their focus is to assist and advise their Iraqi counterparts, not lead the fight against insurgents, but they remain heavily armed and face frequent threats.
On September 7, two U.S. soldiers were killed and nine wounded when an Iraqi soldier opened fire on them at an Iraqi commando base.
The hype around the change of mission, which allowed President Barack Obama to say he was fulfilling a pledge to start ending the unpopular war, set off complaints among some soldiers left behind who were no longer viewed as combat troops.
U.S. military convoys are still shot at and bombed, and bases are mortared, despite a change in the name of the U.S. mission from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn.
"That doesn't really change a thing, it is still dangerous," said 22-year-old Specialist Byron Reed, on his second deployment in Iraq, as he prepared to escort a convoy to Camp Speicher from Balad air base in Salahuddin province.
Manuel said changing the mission's name meant little if any of his soldiers were to be killed by a roadside bomb.
"If a life is gone, it is gone," he said. "As long as we are going in harm's way, it (the war) is not over for us."
e failure of politicians to form a new government six months after an inconclusive election...

Continue reading 

Rania El Gamal @'Reuters'

Sasha Grey's upcoming Playboy cover

♪♫ Jon Hopkins - Vessel (Four Tet Remix)

Why Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Sky should be blocked

Anti-Piracy Boss Denies DoS Attacks, Torrent Site Refutes Claim

Jon Savage compiles Black Hole: Californian Punk 1977-1980

Jon Savage has curated a new compilation for Domino, Black Hole: Californian Punk 1977-1980.

The esteemed journalist and broadcaster, best known for his formidable 1991 punk tome England’s Dreaming, aims here to pay tribute the first wave of Cali punk, pulling together routinely angry and anti-establishment – if often darkly humorous – tracks from the likes of The Dead Kennedys (pictured), The Germs and The Zeros. There’s a more in-depth explanation of the project’s motivation in Savage’s sleeve notes, which are reproduced below:

“This compilation celebrates the first wave of California Punk that briefly flourished between 1976 and 1980. Before then, there were a few glitter + cuspy street rock/ power pop bands – in Los Angeles, the Pop, Zolar X and the Nerves, in San Francisco, La Rue – while afterwards came the deluge: Hardcore, Rockabilly Revival, Industrial, and mainstream Power Pop.

So there were two to three years where – while admitting a generalised loud and fast punk template – almost anything went. Anyone who visited California in 1977 and 1978 could see that the major labels would never give the new generation of groups access to proper funding, television, radio and supported tours. They existed in a black hole. But in that vacuum they found freedom.

As the co-founder of key LA punk zine Slash Claude Bessy remembered, ‘the record companies and media were all hippies who had made it, and they were very hostile. But that’s when it got really good. We decided it was our party, nobody is interested, let’s go wild. It definitely seemed that we were going to be rejects forever’.

Californian punks were self-starters, creating an infrastructure out of nothing: venues like Brendan Mullen’s guerrilla club, the Masque; fanzines like Slash, Flipside, Search and Destroy out of San Francisco; and of course groups, ranging from sped-up rockers and pure punkers to synth experimenters and agit-prop consciousness raisers, leavened with the theatre of the absurd.

Having experienced a taste of this squalling subculture – I was very disappointed that it got almost no media attention in the UK. I’d get sent the records by Search & Destroy’s V.Vale and I couldn’t believe how good they were: easily as good as anything being produced in the UK, if not better in their black humour and earthy swing.

It was chauvinism of course, and nationalistic chauvinism at that – doubly nauseating. England had become ‘the world’s Punk Rock Centre’ – never mind that the idea, or a variant thereof, had also occurred to the alert and the alienated in New York, Cleveland, Paris, maybe even Chickasha, Oklahoma. And so its music press had to maintain the position. By slagging off the Yanks.

As if it was needed, this compilation should address that historical neglect. It has been gratifying to see Cali Punk given its due by recent oral histories like Brendan Mullen’s “We Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A.Punk” (with Marc Spitz), and “Lexicon Devil – the Fast Time and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs” (with Don Bolles and Adam Parfrey 2002).

But the music contained herein needs no further justification than the fact that it rocks; that it contains ideas, tunes, anti-establishment rants, sharp comments about the world, attempts at transcendence and plenty of savage wit. Because it has remained an open secret, it hasn’t become a cliché, and so sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded.”

This is the second compilation that Savage has made for Domino, the first being 2008′s Dreams Come True: Classic Wave Electro 1982-87. It’s due to be released on November 15, on CD and digital download; more info and pre-orders here.

Tracklist:
1. The Germs – Forming
2. The Dils – I Hate The Rich
3. The Screamers – Peer Pressue
4. Crime – Murder By Guitar
5. The Zeros – WIMP
6. The Avengers – We Are The One
7. The Consumers – Anti Anti Anti
8. The Randoms – A-B-C-D
9. Black Randy And The Metro Squad – Trouble At The Cup
10. The Alleycats – Nothing Means Nothing Anymore
11. The Weirdos – Solitary Confinement
12. The Zeros – Beat Your Heart Out
13. X – We’re Desperate
14. The Offs – 624803
15. The Sleepers – Seventh World
16. The Middle Class – Situations
17. The Bags – Survive
18. The Germs – Media Blitz
19. The Middle Class – Love Is Just a Tool
20. The Flesheaters – Pony Dress
21. Urinals – Black Hole
22. The Aurora Pushups – Victims of Terrorism
23. The Avengers – The American In Me
24. The Dead Kennedys – California Uber Alles
25. The Dils – The Sound of the Rain
26. The Sleepers – Los Gatos

@'FACT'

Mandela 'blasted Blair over invasion of Iraq'

What I found in my inbox today

An old friend sent me an email this morning. In it were pictures (e.g. the above picture is one) of Muslims praying on Madison Ave in New York city. Here are some snippets of the text:

• This is NYC on Madison Ave This is an accurate picture of every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout NYC where there are mosques with a large number of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque
• This is in New York City on Madison Avenue, not in France or the Middle East or Yemen or Kenya.
• Is there a message here???? Yes, there is, and they are claiming America for allah. (sic)
• if we don't wake up soon, we are going to "politically correct" ourselves right out of our own country!

Can you spot the Obama reference?

This is actually an annual event that is planned and has a permit. Snopes details it here. Seeing my friends and countrymen embrace this fear and loathing is unsettling, but sadly I have to say it is also not surprising. It is campaign season again and the din of hate will only grow loader as we near November. Now, with large media outlets and talk radio fanning the flames we will all be awash in it. Joe Canason writes, "Paranoia and prejudice have long been instruments of right-wing politics in America, from the Red Scare and McCarthyism to the Nixonite Southern strategy. The current outbreak of Islamophobia represents the latest product of the same old manufacturing process." Indeed it does.

Joe Canason @'Salon'

HA!

Pedo Bear VS the Nazi Pope!

HERE