Originally distributed via email on Fri Apr 9, 2004
RANTS & RAVES
Applause for Our Corporate Leaders
Or: Be Glad You Don't Live in Zaire, Where Cappuccinos are Extremely Rare
It's time to feel good about our business leaders. You know, those likable fat guys who could kiss the ass of a stone statue and leave it glowing with a pinkish hue of adoration for them, not realizing their arm's been chunked off with a sledgehammer? People who wouldn't wipe their butt with the dress shirts you wear and, in fact, are hoping to find an illegal alien willing to earn a living wiping theirs? Who wear three-piece suits more expensive than your car -- your dream car -- and own yachts five times bigger than my apartment? Who drink wines more expensive than everything in your kitchen -- including the appliances?Hasn't it been long enough that we have waited for some kind of grin-provoking movie ending to the Tyco, Adelphia, Enron, and other corporate scandals? It's become as disappointing and -- for those who like their news to be, uh, new -- boring as J-Lo & latest-boyfriend/husband/fiancé tracking, rap-artist-gunshot-wound counting, sports players' crime/violence/sexual assault sprees -- that's pro/college/high school players, I sadly emphasize. Let's not leave out the amazing half-life of the story of Janet Jackson's boob showing up on live TV for less than a half-second.
Let's take the feature characters of just two scandals: Enron's Ken Lay [died prior to his trial], first. What's he doing these days? Figuring out which palace to stay in this weekend, of all those he bought with his employees' retirement benefits, with his wife the world's most eloquent yard sale hostess? Where's his comeuppance? Second, a big story just this week, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco -- this guy's from my neck of the woods, as Tyco is based in South Florida -- gets off in a long-awaited trial. He earned $170 million in ten years, we're told it was mostly illegally obtained, and somehow there's doubt he did anything wrong. Hmmm. I can't really say what was going through the minds of those involved beyond the defense table, but I wonder if there's going to be a new reality program, America's Stupidest High-Profile Criminal Trials, born from this.
Despite all the irritating lack of damning conclusions to these stories of business leaders who were something more like aluminum siding salesmen, there's some good news. These guys are, on the world stage of egomaniacal greed-driven vampires sucking civilization of its financial stability, merely a pack of bald-headed, poker-faced, fast-walking-past-the-TV-cameras amateurs.
How is that possible? I'm glad you asked. According to Transparency International's Global Corruption Report 2004, Mohamed Suharto, the president of Indonesia from 1967-1998, apparently embezzled $15 billion to $35 billion from his quiet little Asian country. GDP per capita: $695. Compare the amount he took against the gross domestic product per capita (a way of saying "what each person is worth to the economy in the country") to what these amateurs in America took considering the U.S. GDP per capita, which is a bit more (by bit more I meant a helluva lot higher) than in Indonesia, and the difference will make Kozlowski's take disappear on a pie chart. Or, that's what an economist might tell you.
Here's how I relate them: "Kozlowski's take" is to "Suharto's take" like "borrowing a pen to write a long letter" is to "stealing all of Bic/Gillette." I mean stealing everything the company ever made.
Kozlowski = borrowing pen to write Aunt Minerva
Suharto = Bic/Gillette's entire production of writing instruments since the company first startedAs you can see, there's reason to feel good about the corporate scandals here in America, the "land of the free... loaders." So cheer up! It could be incredibly worse. You could be living in Zaire: Bilked of $5 billion (say it: "B - b - b - billion") by it's leader from 1965-97 -- a cheery-looking dude named Mobutu Sese Seko -- the per capita GDP in Zaire is $99. A hundred bucks won't even pay for a decent-sized round of cappuccinos at a Starbuck's here, will it?
Go to the Forbes magazine link below (or copy/paste into browser), and click the picture after the first paragraph, to read the list of the best of the best of world leadership -- in heavy bilking.
http://www.forbes.com/2004/03/29/cx_vc_0329corruption.htmlIt'll make you feel good great about corporate America once you've seen what some world leaders have done to, or with, their countries' money. Or, you'll want to put together a militia of your own to go after the ten folks listed. Either way, you're bound to feel better eventually.
If you get ahold of their checkbooks, you'll call me, right?