CEO earnings continue to increase

In yet another sign of a completely dysfunctional economic system, public company CEO pay has gone up yet again. They will argue that the reason is because profits are up, which is accurate. At the same time, there's a problem when the financial upside is always about the select few. What ever happened to thinking about a company as a whole rather than just the CEO or his close network?

For all of the griping by Baby Boomers about how narcissistic today's youth can be, they should step back and look at this culture of greed and selfishness. The problem has been growing since the Gordon Gekko 1980s Wall Street days. Each decade it gets worse and corporate culture becomes more self-centered and all about greed.

This trend has to stop if we're to have a future. It's not just about a handful of people yet that's what we see year after year from public companies. Why is it so socially acceptable to fire by the thousands (ahem, Meg Whitman) yet when companies keep employees, the executives make less?

There continues to be something profoundly wrong with the modern corporate world. If this is the best modern capitalism can offer, we have no future.

Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs.

The head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data from Equilar, an executive pay research firm.

That was up more than 6 percent from the previous year, and is the second year in a row of increases. The figure is also the highest since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006.

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Sweden's Loreen wins Eurovision song contest

Sweden's Loreen just won the Eurovision song contest. This was her semi-final performance, "Euphoria."



I've never understood dance music, or I think that's what it's called. The way some people feel about disco, I feel about dance. So much of it sounds the same - same sound, and not a very complicated one at that. I have similar feelings about rap. I've always been into rock, progressive (alternative?) especially - the 80s and 90s were very good to me, until the (often drugged up) gay boys started requiring that we all listen to dance music in every bar and club, which pretty much killed my dancing days for a good decade.

But I'm not bitter (okay, perhaps a little). Read the rest of this post...

JPMorgan to make changes with risk team

Gosh, ya think? Read the rest of this post...

Pope's butler arrested for leaking Vatican letters exposing alleged corruption

Will it never end? Will no one high in the Vatican every pay for their crimes?

Note: The arrestee is a whistleblower, not the original (alleged) corruption perps, and the cops making the bust are Vatican, not Italian, police. Of course.

The Guardian:

The pope's butler has been arrested by Vatican police on suspicion of leaking a large number of confidential letters addressed to Benedict XVI which have lifted the lid on alleged corruption and nepotism at the Holy See. ...

The arrest comes a month after the Vatican gave an investigative team led by Cardinal Julian Herranz, a member of Opus dei, a full "pontifical mandate" to join Vatican police in rooting out the perpetrators of what has been dubbed Vatileaks. ...

Among the most serious leaks published this year are in a letter from Carlo Maria Viganò, the deputy governor of Vatican City, denouncing inflated contracts with friendly companies, false invoicing and missing cash.

Further revelations were published this week in a book by a journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who described how an unnamed whistleblower sent emissaries to sound him out before they held secret meetings in an unfurnished, rented flat near the Vatican. "I wore a USB round my neck for six months with the leaked documents on it," Nuzzi told the Guardian. "It was like something out of a film." In the book, the source says he was coming clean because "hypocrisy within the Vatican goes unchallenged and scandals multiply". ...

There's more; this is Ratzinger's Vatican. The list of allegations in the article is stunning.

Inflated contracts? Missing cash? Gay smears? And for good measure, this:

Letters depict collusion between the Berlusconi government and the Vatican over how to avoid EU pressure to make the Catholic church pay tax on its properties.

How ... secular.

UPDATE: Howie Klein adds this, "What Is It With Child Rape And Organized Religion?" at Down With Tyranny. It isn't just Catholics who cover crimes to protect "their own."

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

IMF chief has harsh words for Greece

For starters, I like Christine Lagarde and have a lot of respect for her. Unlike her fellow G8 financial ministers, she was brutally honest when it came to the banking crisis. Lagarde criticized when the others all changed the subject. Appointing her to the IMF following the Strauss-Kahn fiasco was a good move.

Her latest interview with The Guardian though is troubling for me and while she's not completely wrong, there's a lot more to the problem in Greece than just paying taxes. I would imagine Lagarde is also critical of the bankers receiving a pretty good deal on the bailout considering they have a lot to do with the crisis, but I'd like to hear that point restated. The banks need to appreciate that they can't continue clobbering everyone and always getting the best deal for their self made problems.

Also, the Greek government deserves plenty of blame. My former roommate and colleague had to return to Greece for his military service and then decided to try and re-settle in Greece after nearly 10 years in the US. He grew frustrated with the basic corruption at all levels of the system.

You want a phone installed? Bribe someone or wait many months. You want to pay your taxes? Bribe the tax man to accept your tax documents, not even cheat. My friend Nikos couldn't believe how extensive it was and he hated it and eventually left again for the US because of it. Any time I repeated the problems to other Greek friends (who left for similar reasons) they all agreed that it was corrupt to the core. How many people really want to pay into such a system?

So yes, the people of Greece need to pay for the system but let's be honest about that system and it's problems before we take a stick and beat them over the head. Lagarde is one of the smartest out there and I hope that she comes around on this.

Yes, but...

Asked whether she is able to block out of her mind the mothers unable to get access to midwives or patients unable to obtain life-saving drugs, Lagarde replies: "I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens."

Lagarde, predicting that the debt crisis has yet to run its course, adds: "Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." She says she thinks "equally" about Greeks deprived of public services and Greek citizens not paying their tax.

"I think they should also help themselves collectively." Asked how, she replies: "By all paying their tax."

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Spain continues downward spiral

Something tells me this latest bailout request won't be the last. There are too many serious problems in Spain to fix overnight. There is no real estate recovery anywhere on the horizon and the unemployment figures won't help either. Then add in a heavy dose of austerity which we now know will brutalize an economy and you have a recipe for an even great financial disaster in Spain.

More on the banking bailout crisis from The Guardian:

The first steps in a major restructuring of Spain's fragile banking sector were put in place on Friday night as the board of Bankia – Spain's fourth biggest bank – asked the country's government for a rescue cash injection of €19bn (£15bn).

With Spanish banks now seen as a serious threat to the euro, taxpayers are likely to end up with 90% of the deeply troubled lender.

The new bailout – taxpayers already own 45% of Bankia – is expected to be just the first part of a growing bill for cleaning up a banking sector that has been refinancing loans on toxic real estate and comes amid signs that regions within Spain are unable to take the strain. The regional government of Catalonia called for financial help from the central government.

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Egyptian elections—Who are the players? What to watch in the run-off

UPDATE: Cole thinks the results are in, and the worse outcome below is assured. More here. Interesting analogy to the rise of law-and-order candidates in post-1960s America.
________

If the Arab Spring matters, the just-held Egyptian elections matter a lot.

So I want to put this on your radar as a reference. You're going to hear a lot about the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood from the straight press* soon, and this should provide some actual context for the actual news.

Who are the players in the Egyptian elections, and what are the alliances? Juan Cole at Informed Comment has an excellent background piece, "Egypt’s Presidential Election: Between Revolution and Counter-Revolution". Please do click over.

A partial read (my emphasis and paragraphing):

Egypt is on a precipice between a relatively smooth transition and a lot of social turmoil, depending on who the front runners are. But news is coming in as the ballots are being counted, and as I write on Friday [May 25], the race is too close to call. For profiles of the candidates, see my report earlier this week ...

Abdel Moneim Abou’l-Futouh, the “Muslim liberal” candidate who had broken with the Muslim Brotherhood, can be counted out. He has conceded, and has thrown his support to the Muslim Brotherhood leader, Muhammad Mursi. [click to read why Abou’l-Futouh faded; it's interesting] ... Abou’l-Futouh also had the effect of splitting the Muslim fundamentalist vote, depriving Mursi of a clear victory and damaging the Brotherhood’s image as a party machine juggernaut. ...

As I write it is mid-afternoon on Friday, and there is a reported surge for the leftist candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi. He is now said to be in second place, ahead of former Aviation Minister and Air Force General Ahmad Shafiq.

Sabahi won big in Alexandria, which had been trending fundamentalist, but which is a modern Mediterranean port city with a big, organized working class, who appear to have swung to him (perhaps along with a lot of government workers and the secular middle class, along with committed revolutionaries). Al-Nil television’s correspondent is reporting as I speak that Sabahi also took Port Said, a smaller port city. ...

With these names in mind — Muhammad Mursi (Muslim Brotherhood), Hamdeen Sabahi (leftist), Ahmad Shafiq ("law-and-order" ex-military) — here's Cole's mid-essay bottom line:

If Sabahi can maintain his narrow lead over Ahmad Shafiq, the resulting run-off will give Egyptians a choice between a leftist secularist and a Muslim fundamentalist, both of them from the opposition to Mubarak.

If Shafiq can pull back ahead of Sabahi, the resulting election would be a huge catastrophe for Egypt....

What to watch as the run-off is announced. If Shafiq gets to a run-off, Cole says there will be riots. Read the rest of the piece — it's fascinating and important.

*"Straight" — not an orientation reference. I'm resurrecting a hippie designation. "Straights" are those who eat what they're fed, buy what they're sold, and believe what they're told to believe. The straight press feeds you the Matrix explanation.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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Marshall Crenshaw - Someday Someway

On Friday I dropped off Sushi at the vet hospital for radioiodine treatment to hopefully cure his hyperthyroidism problem. The poor little guy has lost weight and has not been well. We tried the pills which helped initially and then that stopped. His treatment was yesterday but now he has to be confined for two weeks at the hospital due to the radioactivity. (In the US, I read that the visit is 3 or 4 days and then you need to safeguard the cat litter and hand it over due to the remaining radioactivity.)

Sushi is a bit of the choux choux (OK, a lot of it) around the flat and he loves finding a comfy blanket or soft spot for sleeping away the day. He also is used to me being there with him all day and gets upset when I leave. At the moment he's probably not thrilled with his surroundings but fingers crossed his health improves. It's great that the team at the vet hospital were about as friendly as could be but we will be looking forward to Sushi coming back home. Read the rest of this post...