CEOs "cashed out" prior to economic crisis

News Type: Event — Seeded on Sun Nov 30, 2008 4:12 PM EST

Article Source: WSWS

business, wall-street, finance, crash, stock-market, ceo, lehman-brothers, bear-stearns, crooks, richard-fuld, got-out-early, james-cayne

Seeded by MinnieApolis

CEOs at major US financial and real estate firms converted tens of millions of dollars of overvalued stock into cash prior to the eruption of the current financial crisis, even as many of their corporations approached the precipice.
These included Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, who transformed his firm's stock into well over $100 million in cash. When added to his salary and bonuses, Fuld pocketed nearly $185 million in the five years before 2008, even as he guided his 150-year-old investment bank to ruin. James Cayne of Bear Stearns did nearly as well at his investment bank, collecting over $163.2 million.

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MinnieApolis

You are welcome to verbally slice and dice the executives mentioned in the story. However, no death threats or other gross violations of the Code of Honor. So watch your mouth.

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#1 - Sun Nov 30, 2008 4:16 PM EST

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MinnieApolis

The closing paragraph:

In any event, the criminal methods of these CEOs, who have led their companies and American capitalism as a whole to the brink of ruin, do not derive from personal greed alone. In their criminality and nearsightedness the CEOs reflect, instead, the narrowing horizon and historical decline of US capitalism, in which the accumulation of extreme wealth long ago lost whatever connection it had to the creation of real value.

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#2 - Sun Nov 30, 2008 4:17 PM EST

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MINNIEAPOLIS

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CEOs "cashed out" prior to economic crisis

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