CEOs want you -- to fix the debt

[n2doc]

By Scott Klinger
December 1, 2013

Many of the nation's top CEOs have joined forces to "fix the debt." They want to achieve this goal, in part, by reducing Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age to 70.

One of the chief executive officers, David Cote, runs Honeywell. "As an American, I couldn't know about this problem and not try to do something about it," Cote told Wall Street Journal TV. Cote has $134 million in his Honeywell retirement account, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and he has worked there only 11 years. That amount could provide him a monthly retirement check of $795,134 once he turns 65. The Social Security retirees whose checks he wants to reduce receive, on average, $1,237 a month.

Cote is not alone among those with lavish private retirement benefits to be calling for major cuts in Social Security. He is one of 200 large-company CEOs who belong to the Business Roundtable, a powerful lobbying club that represents the interests of America's corporate leaders. Roundtable is a leading voice calling for replacing the current formula used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living increases with a less generous one. The change it suggests would steadily chip away at retiree benefits each year until, after 20 years, Social Security checks would be about $100 less than if the current formula was retained.

The Business Roundtable also advocates raising the retirement age to receive full Social Security benefits to 70, which would give the U.S. the dubious distinction of requiring workers to wait longer than any other developed nation to receive their public pensions.

Like Cote, many of the CEOs on the Business Roundtable have corporate retirement benefits that ordinary Americans would find unimaginable: an average of $14.5 million, enough to garner monthly retirement checks of $86,043, according to a new report, "Platinum-Plated Pensions," published by the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies.

more

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-klinger-ceo-retirement-20131201,0,4800278.story

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Boy they can't stand that they can't have our insurance money. It's just sitting there. Why can't

they have (steel) it . Oh please they are so needy. We only need it to survive. They have to use to invest so their profit margin grows and they can count their assets and brag to their other 1%'rs.

I really hate the lengths they will go and games they will play to push us down and take out lunch money.

We have the power to say, "no more." I say "no more!" Will you?

[DirkGently]

2. How dare we make non-poverty a national goal?

Every cent that helps someone live independently undermines the ability to exploit them until their dying breath and denigrates the supremacy of the wealthy.

It's like we want everyone to live in dignity -- even if they're not rich!

How dare we.

[WillyT]

3. And The CEOs Can Kiss My Turkey-Fed ASS !!!

& Rec !!!

[Make7]

4. Please CEOs, your country needs you to pay your share.

You can help pay down the debt by having the companies you work for increase their own tax contributions. Thanks in advance, I know we can count on you!

[arikara]

5. Sigh. Obama seems to like him

Dave Cote is a member of the steering committee of the Campaign to Fix Debt, a bi-partisan effort to build support for a comprehensive U.S. debt reduction plan. In 2011, Cote was named Vice Chair of the Business Roundtable (BRT) and Chairs the BRT’s Energy and Environment Committee. In 2010, Cote was named by President Barack Obama to serve on the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform also known as the Simpson-Bowles Commission. Cote was named co-chair of the U.S.-India CEO Forum by President Obama in 2009, and has served on the Forum since July 2005.

http://honeywell.com/About/Honeywellleadership/Pages/david-cote.aspx

[progressoid]

6. Indeed.

[Fla Dem]

7. These are the same guys who kick 25-30 year employess out the door so they can hire

younger cheaper people to replace them. Corporations have been doing that since the early 90's. Forcing career people out at 55-60 and replacing them with less expensive employess. So where do they want these people to work until they're 70? These are greedy SOB's answering to their Wall Street fund managers.

[JDPriestly]

16. You are so right, Fla Dem.

I would like to know how many 70-year-olds these CEOs hire and at what levels. 70-year-old managers seem to be able to choose to stay on. But if your pay-level is below management or lower management, forget it. You're fired.

[shireen]

8. what exactly do CEOs do

to justify such outrageously large salaries?

Do they have superbrains the rest of us mere mortals lack?

[n2doc]

10. They don't need to justify them

They know they can ask for the moon, so long as they reciprocate and agree to the same for their buddies at other corps.

[moondust]

9. Where were they in 2001-2003

when Republicans were handing out the tax cuts and starting the wars that killed the Clinton surpluses that were projected to retire the debt in about a decade?

Where were they then and did they do anything to try to stop the foolishness?

[Curmudgeoness]

11. Are you just trying to piss me off, n2doc?

Of course, the obvious answer to these arrogant CEO's is to tell them to go fuck themselves.

Oh, sorry, that is not what I mean the obvious answer was. They should be advocating progressively higher income tax rates for those who can afford it. You know, like them.

[nikto]

12. What percentage of CEOs do you think ARE NOT cynical, irredeemably immoral, soulless ghouls?

Just a guess...

Maybe 10%?

Or, am I being too generous?

[Brigid]

13. It's no higher than that, I'm sure.

[octoberlib]

14. If they want to fix the debt.

they should pay their damn taxes.

Can you believe:

Since 2001, we've stacked up a whopping $1 trillion in debt from Tax Cuts for the 1%.1
Another $1.3 trillion is from wealthy corporations like GE, Verizon and Bank of America, which pay little or no taxes.2
This corporate tax dodging adds up to $2.3 trillion stolen from the US treasury, and keeps growing by $100 billion a year.3
The combined bill for all this? Way more than the $1.6 trillion in cuts that Congress is debating.
The fact is we wouldn’t have to make these cuts, and we could invest in putting America back to work, if only they paid their fair share. So we say, rather than ‘fix the debt’, let’s ‘flip the debt’ and put responsibility where it belongs.

Hey 1%! Pay your damn taxes.

http://www.flipthedebt.org/

[Blaukraut]

15. If the entire western world hadn't been in a race to the bottom in corporate tax rates

trying to get corporations to open shop in their country, there wouldn't be this much debt. But now that the deed is done, and the debt needs to be paid, who else gets milked but the little guy. They hold still while the wealthy and the corporations evade even the pathetic single digit percent they are required to pay.