LTTE -- To cut crime: Kill the CEOs?

[tk2kewl]

This letter appeared in Newsday today. I got a kick out of it.
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/letters/

To cut crime: Kill the CEOs?

I was struck by the irony of "Bennett's big mistake" being followed a few pages later by "Convicted former Tyco executives denied bail" . William Bennett suggested on his radio show that aborting all black fetuses would reduce the crime rate, but it would be a reprehensible thing to do.

Of course, Bennett may have been more accurate and less personal by replacing "blacks" with "those without economic opportunity." The Tyco executives were convicted of stealing $150 million from Tyco and manipulating the stock price for another $430 million of gain. Let's see, how many purse-snatchings and pockets picked equals $580 million?

I've read that in this country the average chief executive is compensated 600 times as well as the lowest full-time employee. Is this capitalism or democracy? Is this pay deserved by merit? No, it's cronyism and theft on a grand scale. To reduce the effect of crime, wouldn't it be more cost-effective and save more lives by just killing all the CEOs? Then there's the advice to kill all the lawyers - I guess these are the people who often justify our madness. Maybe we should just kill everybody to solve our problems - or nobody.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Pretty funny

My husband heard an idea that he liked-publically execute the richest person in the US every year. He figures that there would be a mad scramble to give it away...I figure that the rich crooks will figure out a way to hide their wealth, and the one to go to their death would be some poor schnook who won the lottery the day before....

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. Excellent

I'd be all up for that.

[tk2kewl]

7. "Maybe we should just kill everybody to solve our problems"

Planet Earth may be working on this as solution.

[shenmue]

3. Yeah why not

They steal billions and nothing happens. (In my view, voting yourself an insane-oid salary of whatever you want out of the company treasury counts as stealing, from your workers and the public.)

Some poor guy steals a couple pack of smokes and some groceries and he winds up on Cops and gets jail time.

Go figure!

:shrug:

[PurgedVoter]

4. How could I disagree?

CEO's bribe politicians, spread lead and other pollution, steal retirement from old people, lie to investors, and fund PNAC. The list goes on.

[Selatius]

5. But Capitalism is all about control over your life, don't you get it?

I've read that in this country the average chief executive is compensated 600 times as well as the lowest full-time employee. Is this capitalism or democracy? Is this pay deserved by merit? No, it's cronyism and theft on a grand scale. To reduce the effect of crime, wouldn't it be more cost-effective and save more lives by just killing all the CEOs? Then there's the advice to kill all the lawyers - I guess these are the people who often justify our madness. Maybe we should just kill everybody to solve our problems - or nobody.

In answer to your first question, yes, this is capitalism. The federal government encourages it everytime it enforces property laws of all kinds. Without the federal government legitimizing their control over vital resources and the means of production by recognizing their claims to such capital through enforcing property law, capitalism as a system would collapse within a few days unless they also had the resources to hire guards to enforce their control over the resources everybody needs in the absence of federal authority.

I can tell you if you are a major stockholder, an owner, in an oil company, you are in a good financial position today. This is capitalism, and this is why you can have somebody making 10,000,000 and far higher in our society. I believe the CEO of Yahoo's total compensation was somewhere just north of 200,000,000, at least according to Forbes' list of top paid CEOs. A fraction of it was actual payroll income. Most of it was in the form of dividends and stock options. It's good to own as far as money is concerned.

In capitalism, you either own, or you are owned.

[paineinthearse]

6. Idjut freeper called CSPAN's Washington Journal yesterday

The discussion was about prisoner abuse torture. She proposed a solution, that in a war no prisoners taken!

:wow:

[shance]

8. When the term "capitalism" is substituted for grand theft.

The men (and women if there are any) who engage in such huge monetary retrievals are the worst of theives and do the most damage to our planet as a whole.

[applegrove]

9. Doensn't matter if it is dressed up in a pin stripe suit or not

- bad is bad. Millions of Americans will die due to lack of adequate health care.