It's bad when steve gets upset. When steve gets upset, it's worth taking a little time to find out if things are as bad as they seem. While I would argue that people ought to be able to use thier money as they please, I am disappointed at the idea that anyone would choose to direct money toward already wealthy people and not toward comparatively less wealthy people. An executive bonus seems unseemly while laying off staff. Mr. Reich provides his source from Reuters: On eve of bankruptcy, U.S. firms shower execs with bonuses That's not really a loophole. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 PDF added a "limitation on retention bonuses, severance pay, and certain other payments" to Chapter 11 for firms that had already filed for bankruptcy. Corporations are free to hand out bonuses and severance pay to employees before filing, but not after. J.C. Penney is the first corporation mentioned by Reuters, presumably the most egregious example. The company news release indicates that they provided some severance benefits to former employees. Without numbers, it's hard to know how valuable these benefits are, and whether they apply to furloughed employees who don't come back or just those being laid off now. It's hard times for mall retail; the future was not bright for J.C. Penney before the pandemic arrived. After an all time high of $80 in 2007, Penney became a penny stock in January, trading below a dollar. But still, if money is so tight, why the executive bonus? The SEC filing explains in two paragraphs. • A "2019 Long-Term Incentive Plan" promised an executive bonus to be paid after the end of fiscal 2021, based on goals set for 2019, 2020 and 2021. The 2019 portion of the promised bonus is being paid now ($2.4 million in total), and the 2020 and 2021 bonuses are cancelled. The 2019 bonus must be returned to the company if the executive quits before January 31, 2022. • A "Pre-Paid Compensation Plan" bonus is paid immediately ($4.5M for CEO Jill Soltau and a million each for three VPs). If any of them is fired or quits before January 31, 2021, they must return 80% of the bonus, and the other 20% is conditional on meeting performance targets. It's bad for everyone at the company if executives lose hope and quit. At this point it's far from certain that the company will even exist in in 2021, so the board has to give the execs a reason to stick around. The law forbids the board from creating retention bonus incentives after declaring bankruptcy, so they had to use the "loophole" and do so before filing. What happens to bonus money that an executive forfeits by quitting or failing to meet a performance target? The executives have to earn it, but former employees get free handouts? Harsh capitalism for the rich, socialism for everyone else! There is a lot of wiggle room in the fine print, but it seems to me that the board is in a very difficult situation, trying to do what is best for the entire company, including regular employees. The creditors are not happy; $10 million is peanuts compared to $3.72 billion the company holds in long-term debt. A bankruptcy court judge approved a last-minute deal before a July 15 "toggle" event would have sent the company into liquidation.Under a 2005 bankruptcy law, companies are banned, with few exceptions, from paying executives retention bonuses while in bankruptcy. But the firms seized on a loophole by granting payouts before filing.
J.C. Penney - forced to temporarily close its 846 department stores and furlough about 78,000 of its 85,000 employees as the pandemic spread - approved nearly $10 million in payouts just before its May 15 filing. On Wednesday, the company said it would permanently close 152 stores and lay off 1,000 employees.
JCPenney is providing a comprehensive benefits package for its departing associates, including severance for eligible associates, healthcare coverage through COBRA for those enrolled in benefits, outplacement support, compensation for unused paid time off, and extended associate discount benefits.
To the extent any participating officer repays all or any portion of the milestone-based portion of his or her PCP award, the Company will segregate such repaid funds to be used for the sole purpose of paying severance to employees who were not granted PCP awards and who incur a qualifying termination of employment.
“In a perfect world, this financing package would be highly objectionable,” Jones said. “There’s a lot I don’t like, but I recognize that this investment may not be in a black hole. It’s a murky hole.”
If I understand correctly, about a quarter of the nearly ten million dollars in bonus money is to cash out the first year of the three-year incentive deal that was agreed on in 2019. The rest is to provide a replacement to the executives who probably could not expect much from the performance-based incentive deal now that all the stores are closed and the company is declaring bankruptcy. J.C. Penney annual revenue: CEO bonus: I can imagine that keeping a good CEO motivated could be worth a billion dollars to a company. That bonus is less than half a percent of a billion dollars. There's no guarantee she can deliver, so the bonus is conditional on performance. What about that makes you unhappy? $11,167,000,000 $4,500,000
Pretending like things wouldn't be at least marginally better under sleepy Joe isn't doing yourself any favors, bro. We can figure things out over the next four years. edit: maybe.
I'm familiar with the statement, but there might be other benefits to not having a moronic narcissist psychopath in the white house which should convince you to vote against Trump. We'll solve the stated problem later. Vote.
Thanks, yo. I cast my ballot a week ago. Got up at 7 AM (that means this is a BIG deal), was there just after the place opened, and I was both delighted ('cuz covid) and appalled ('cuz peeps should vote) how few people there were. It was a huge room with maybe 50 election workers, my wife, myself, and one other guy :(.
In Texas, it's illegal for me to vote by mail without declaring a disability. Why? Because voter fuckin' suppression.
There remained enough ambiguity that I decided to just go and do it in-person. No regerts. The latest Texas GOP stunt is attempting to throw out 125,000 votes from Houston (read: mostly Democrat votes) because they were cast at drive-thru polling sites. Their argument was, in a nutshell, "we don't like it and didn't agree to it". Pathetic to behold.
For the pandemic, yes. I actually think he has a point vis-a-vis corporate waste welfare though. Robert Reich was all about the party line when he was a Clinton cabinet member, then miraculously got religion once he wasn't in a position of power any longer. They all know what to say, but none will ever do anything. Biting the hand and all that. Not as if too big to jail Obama ever was hard on any corporate bosses. As far as I can tell preet bahrara was the only government official who ever even tried to hold anyone accountable any the courts basically told him to stop being such a big meanie.
So we should elect Joe, take care of covid, and then riot. Agree.
Yang would've been great. Not sure he could've beaten Trump, 'cuz he's "just a kid" to the overwhelming majority of 'Boomers. I loved the "MATH" hat though.