The Hard-to-Believe, Cruel Things Corporate Executives Say About Americans Struggling to Get By

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/hard-believe-cruel-things-corporate-executives-say-about-americans-struggling-get




1. Environmental Wisdom from Exxon and Monsanto

Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon, which has used tobacco industry tactics to cast doubt on climate change, summed up the whole environmental issue with his own unique brand of logic: What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?

***SNIP

2. The Art of Delusion: How Business People Fool Themselves

This starts, fittingly, at McDonald's, where a company representative vigorously defended his burgers and nuggets: We don't sell junk food...We sell lots of fruits and veggies at McDonald's...And we are not marketing food to kids.

***SNIP

3. Talking Down to the Down & Out

It's hard to choose the most insensitive and condescending remark from people who seem to lack empathy for the less fortunate. Perhaps hedge fund manager Andy Kessler, who addressed the issue of why these homeless folks aren't also working. Ignoring the National Coalition for the Homeless conclusion that homelessness is caused by (1) a shortage of affordable rental housing, and (2) a lack of job opportunities, Kessler suggests they're homeless because someone is feeding, clothing and, in effect, bathing them.

***SNIP

4. Paying Taxes with Imaginary Money

Tim Cook, the "moral compass" guy from top tax avoider Apple Corporation, blurted, We pay all the taxes we owe - every single dollar. He has a lot of support. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey protested, It's not Apple's faultthat they're seeking to avoid paying taxes. And Rand Paul added, What we need to do is apologize to Apple and compliment them for the job creation they're doing.

[joshdawg]

1. "job creation"?!?

Are you kidding? What effin' job creation?
Rand Paul can go suck eggs!
Better still, let him eat bunny poop. heh

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. Nah

He needs to eat a big steaming pile left by the horses at the Kentucky Derby. Why think small?

[Pakid]

4. In China

[baldguy]

3. What's hard to believe? That they actually said these things, or that they really believe them?

Or maybe it's that they can con other, lesser people into believing them too.

[7962]

5. Considering the site the article comes from, it could be either. nt

[Scuba]

6. Perhaps Andy Kessler didn't see this ...

Or maybe he has seen it and is just an evil, lying cocksucker.

[marmar]

7. k/r

[HughBeaumont]

8. Reminds me of one of my first Journal entries on DU3:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100257582

Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, on #OWS: "Who gives a crap about some imbecile? Are you kidding me?"

Bernie Marcus, on fellow businessmen voting for Democrats and supporting EFCA: "If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys," Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers "should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs."

Bernie Marcus, head of Job Creators Alliance (snicker) on Democrats:"Basically, what they're doing to small business is very similar in this case to what Debbie did to Dallas." (Ironic coming from the founder of HOME DEPOT, one of the worst steamrollers of small businesses their ever was)

Bernie Marcus, generous donor to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on the Employee Free Choice Act: "may be one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life," (from a conference call of a meeting on how to prevent retail workers from organizing . . . conducted the same year Home Depot laid off 7,000 people)

Lee Scott, ex-WalMart CEO, on EFCA: "We like driving the car and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."

Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman, on low-income families and taxing the rich: "You have to have skin in the game I'm not saying how much people should do. But we should all be part of the system." (Funny, most poor people pay far more in overall tax than Schwarzman does with his cushy 15% rate on capital gains)

Rand Paul, with helpful advice to the unemployed: "As bad as it sounds, ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that's less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again."

Ken Langone, funder of Home Depot and others, on weighty issues: "I am a fat cat, I'm not ashamed," he said last week in a telephone interview from a dressing room in his Upper East Side home. "If you mean by fat cat that I've succeeded, yeah, then I'm a fat cat. I stand guilty of being a fat cat."

Tom Golisano, billionaire founder of payroll processer Paychex Inc., on motion sickness: "If I hear a politician use the term 'paying your fair share' one more time, I'm going to vomit"

Grover Norquist, The Most Important Yard Gnome in History: "We're going to crush labor as a political entity."

John A. Allison IV, a director of BB&T Corp, on labels: 'Instead of an attack on the 1 percent, let's call it an attack on the very productive," Allison said. "This attack is destructive."

Jack Welch, retired CEO of GE, on the typical Gore voter: "someone who needs all these goddamned social programs because she's too goddamned dumb to keep her legs crossed and too goddamned lazy to get an abortion." Charming guy.

Funny how most of the bullshit comes from the elderly and very neo-fascist founders of Home Depot.

[xchrom]

9. +1

[abelenkpe]

10. CEOs live in a bubble surrounded by yes men who reinforce their delusions

What I don't understand are upper middle class stay at home mothers like mine who live fortunate lives sneering at the working poor, unemployed and those food stamps.