Monday, March 19, 2012

This is What Kleptocracy Looks LIke

The story of Craig Dubow's disastrous reign over Gannet is pretty well know. Today, it seems, he was given a 32 million dollar severance package.

Much like hedge fund managers Dubow's social utility, which is almost always the argument for these kinds of outrageous payoffs, is near zero. He left the company he ran weaker than when he started; he seriously damaged or destroyed the careers of around 20k living human beings; he engaged in the duplicitous practice of increasing his own and his coterie of wrecker's salaries even as they failed miserably in their jobs.

If someone did this to, say, a house, it would be a case of theft and vandalism; however, because this happened in the "free market," it supposed to be perfectly legal. We're I the owner of any Gannet Stock, I sued everybody on the board and Dubow for theft and vandalism.

Relatedly, over to The New Yorker, there is an article detailing rich peoples comprehensive fraud to avoid paying their fair share. The story begins with a lout who makes several hundred million dollars per year and to avoid paying his taxes he games the system by living in New York City in fact while pretending to live elsewhere. The issues is a technical one when it should be a criminal one: fraud.

It's almost as if the rich are conscienceless swine.

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