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A shill from everyone's favorite Big Coal front group ABEC wanders the streets of D.C. asking totally unbiased questions:
Next up: Do random passers-by prefer ponies and puppy dogs, or will they side with the environmentalists' effort to kick the nation's little old ladies in the shins?
David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.
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Another coal plant bites the dust
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
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Sean Casten Posted 11:34 am
25 Jun 2008
Then, regardless of what they say, let's use it to blast those damned scientists who think they know better.
Cold comfort, perhaps, but if this is the best ACCCE can muster, us good guys are in better shape than we thought.
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mrweatherbee Posted 2:29 am
26 Jun 2008
When these "normal folk" say things like "We can do it" and "We are smart," they are clearly referring to the royal we, as "they" did not strike me as smart, capable or even barely informed regarding anything energy-related. When our garrulous host said "We learned a lot," I don't know who the hell he was referring to. I learned nothing, and if he learned something his baseline of understanding must have been abyssmal.
This video was honestly a little surprising, since it didn't seem all that favorable for their cause. Call Big Coal what you want, but they are commonly not dumb. This was an exception to that rule.
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MAD MAC Posted 2:50 am
26 Jun 2008
Victory in Pattani
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Angelsnecropolis Posted 9:15 am
28 Jun 2008
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MAD MAC Posted 7:43 pm
29 Jun 2008
You guys use the word "big" as if it's synonymous with being bad. Not that that matters at all. All you folks do here is talk out your collective asses. You don't DO anything big. Just talk trash about everyone else. You spend all your time talking about what other people should do, but you don't spend your time producing things that will make a difference.
Victory in Pattani
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 2:27 am
30 Jun 2008
There is plenty of evidence to indicate that we had better pay attention here and now to BIG COAL, BIG OIL, BIG TOBACCO and BIG TRAVEL (ie, FAT-CATS in PRIVATE JETS)
At the Height of an Energy Crisis, Fat-Cat CEOs Still Litter the Skies with Private Jets
By Chuck Collins and Sarah Anderson, AlterNet. Posted June 28, 2008.
If shareholders, corporate watchdogs and consumer groups would like to know just how weak the oversight of corporate management is in America, they need to check out the abuse of corporate jets.
The private jet industry has more than doubled its sales in the past five years, and corporate executives form the backbone of its clientele. In addition to legitimate business trips, many executives and their families have access to the company jet for personal use, an expense picked up by their companies' other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. And the rest of us pay a price in diminished air quality as a result of these heavily polluting jets.
Private jet owners probably have noticed that wholesale fuel prices have increased 418 percent over the past five years, adding $5,000 to a Gulfstream jet flight between New York and Los Angeles. But this is small potatoes for a high-flier who shelled out 10,000 times that amount or more to buy the plane in the first place. At a time when both major-party presidential candidates are vowing to give shareholders greater influence over executive compensation, the private-jet perk deserves special attention.
Stakeholders now can get a better look at jet usage among corporate titans, because new rules require the disclosure of all perks valued at more than $10,000. Personal use of corporate jets was the most common perk among 386 of the largest companies on Standard & Poor's 500. A Corporate Library study found that more than half of the 215 companies surveyed allowed or required executives to use company aircraft on personal trips, with a median cost to shareholders of $182,929.
The companies with the highest fliers include Abercrombie & Fitch, which gave CEO Mike Jeffries $1.4 million worth of corporate jet time over the past two years, and Starwood Hotels, which spent $866,178 in 2006 flying CEO Steven Heyer back and forth between his Atlanta home and corporate headquarters in New York.
Sometimes it's the CEOs' relatives who benefit. Tyson Foods Chairman John Tyson is allotted 120 hours per year of corporate jet time, which he can parcel out to friends and family whether or not he accompanies them on the trip. In 2007, Qwest Communications ponied up several hundred thousand dollars so that new CEO Edward Mueller's wife and stepdaughter could use the corporate jet to commute between Qwest's Denver headquarters and a home in California.
It's the norm these days for the largest firms to require CEOs to use private jets for all travel, including personal vacations, citing concerns for their executives' security. New York University School of Business professor David Yermack says this arrangement "is like telling the CEO: `We insist that you eat at a five-star restaurant for your own nutrition, and we insist that you drink $800 champagne for your health.'"
When corporate boards are approving such outrageous perks, you have to wonder what else they might be signing off on. Indeed, in virtually every recent case of corporate corruption, private jets have played a role. Countrywide Financial's Angelo Mozilo, under investigation for his role in the subprime mortgage meltdown, threatened to resign in 2007 unless the company let his wife fly with him and cover his personal taxes for the perk.
The private-jet perk is -- literally and figuratively -- a high-profile sign of an executive reward system out of control. It's time for corporate stakeholders, including institutional investors, to intervene to help CEOs break the habit.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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