Sharing the type of news you are unlikely to come across in the mainstream media.
Showing posts with label social change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social change. Show all posts
Saturday, 17 October 2020
Saturday, 16 June 2012
Do Not Pay Dozen: 12 CEOs Who Met Shareholder Spring Revolts
By by Pratap Chatterjee
CorpWatch Blog
June 14th, 2012
Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the global ad agency, was defeated Wednesday in his attempt to get shareholders to approve his $20 million (£13 million) a year salary. He was at least the 12th CEO to face a shareholder revolt against excessive compensation this spring.
“Ever since the first revolts erupted in earnest this year, the “shareholder spring” has been searching for its own Hosni Mubarak to rally against,” writes Jonathon Ford in the Financial Times. “Now a suitably pharaonic candidate has emerged in Sir Martin Sorrell.”
WPP began life as Wire and Plastic Products plc in 1971, as a company that manufactured wire shopping baskets, but was bought out in 1985 by Martin Sorrell, former finance director of Saatchi & Saatchi. Today it is one of the most powerful ad agencies in the world, after having bought up some of its most famous rivals like Burson-Marsteller, Grey, Hill & Knowlton, JWT, Ogilvy Group and Young & Rubicam. Sales in 2011 hit £10 billion ($16 billion)
Sorrell defended his salary in a June 5 Financial Times commentary titled "I Act Like The Owner That I Am." "I find the controversy over my compensation deeply disturbing. Some imagine that I wake up every morning and make decisions, including those over compensation, in the shaving mirror ... If the government or institutions believe pay is excessive, tax it. Do not fiddle with the market mechanism. WPP is not a failure, it is a success."
A week later, some 60 percent of shareholders voted against Sorrell’s pay package. The revolt “appeared to stun the board directors as they watched the results appear on TV screens” wrote the Independent. (The directors were meeting on Wednesday in Dublin, where the company is headquartered to avoid taxes)
"People are concerned because there is a recession, they're concerned about inequality, inequality of wealth and incomes,” a suitably chastened Sorrell told a Reuters meeting in Paris on Thursday. “At times of recession people become more concerned about that, you see that politically.”
Here is the CorpWatch list of CEOs who have seen significant shareholder votes against their multimillion dollar salaries so far this spring.
* David Brennan, CEO of AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company, resigned April 26 after shareholders voted against his £9 million pay ($14.4 million)
* Andrew Moss, CEO of Aviva, the top UK insurance company, was forced to resign on May 8 after he lost a vote against his £2.7 million ($4.3 million) pay package
* Sly Bailey, CEO of Trinity Mirror, the UK’s biggest newspaper group, decided to step down May 3 after shareholders voted against her £1.7 million ($2.7 million) pay
* Vikram Pandit, Citibank’s CEO, faced a revolt against his proposed salary of $15 million from some 55 percent of shareholders
* Bill Gammell, founder of Cairn Energy, lost share options worth £2.5 million ($4 million) after 67 percent of shareholders voted against his pay package
* Andrew Sukawaty, the executive chairman of Inmarsat, the satellite phone company, saw a shareholder revolt against his £2.66 million salary ($4.25 million)
* Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill, a major UK betting company, saw 49.9 percent of shareholders vote against his £1.2 million ($1.92 million) pay package
Friday, 18 May 2012
VANDANA SHIVA: Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Living
An Interview with Dr Vandana Shiva, one of the world's foremost environmentalist, anti-GM activist and an advocate of ecological farming and sustainable agriculture as a solution to climate change, food security, hunger and peace. The interview was taken on 16th March 2011, during "Grandmonther's University" a three day course at Navdanya Biodiversity Farm at Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India which Dr. Vandana Shiva founded in 1987 to help save traditional seeds. The farm also undertakes research and training, along with the important role of distributing native seeds to farmers in the region.
Please see the full article at http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2011/03/31/vandana-shiva-traditional-knowl...
The interview was conducted by Geraldine, Emiliano and Bhavani. Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ecowalkthetalk
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Friday, 30 September 2011
The Zeitgeist Movement: Response to "Occupy Wall Street"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT: RESPONSE TO "OCCUPY WALL STREET"
On Sept 17th 2011, a grassroots expression of contempt was launched in
the heart of the world's financial center in lower Manhattan of New York
City, also commonly known to the world as the institution of "Wall
Street". As of Sept 26th, there have been over 80 arrests and many
recorded instances of what appears to be violence and abuse coming from
the police and security forces there. However, the protesters remain
vigilant in what could very well be a landmark event that will resonate
for some time to come.
The Zeitgeist Movement would like to extend its public support to this
basic expression.
As the world awakens to a failing financial system with growing civil
unrest emerging without the bias of sovereignty, religion or political
loyalty, a new, unifying perspective is slowly taking hold which
transcends the framework many of us falsely assume as empirical to our
way of life.
With the slow grind down of the global workforce as machine automation
continues to replace human labor for the benefit of corporate cost
efficiency, simultaneously reducing purchasing power and hence
inevitably stifling so called “Economic Growth”; with the ever
expanding Debt Crisis born out of the Fractional Reserve Lending System
and the simple reality that money is created out of debt and sold as a
commodity in exchange for Interest - Interest that can only again come
onto existence through more loan sales; with the looming military
programs growing in virtually all major powers as the financial crisis,
coupled with a pending hydrocarbon energy crisis, begins to suggest a
stage of global conflict possibly never before seen; along with the
market psychology of Infinite Growth Consumption that continues to
pervade and distort our values and what it means to live in harmony with
nature on a finite planet...
...it might be time we begin to see that the social problems at hand are
not specific to any general policy, administration, or even so called
"corporate greed". The real problem at hand is actually systematic via
the very core foundation of what defines our Economic System and the
psychology that is supported and rewarded.
The historical illusion that continues to this day is that someone or
some group is explicitly to "blame". Rather than focus on the 400 people
who have more wealth than 150 million in America or the fact that globally
1% of the world's population has more wealth than 40%, let's instead ask
ourselves how such a manifestation is even possible and, more critically,
why we would expect anything less? Think about it.
After all, it's the "Free-Market", isn't it? Contrary to the
statistically void efficiency assumptions made by most Market
Economists, the Free-Market simply means anyone can do whatever they
want and maximize however they want within the confines of legal
legislation; legal legislation which, make no mistake, is also for sale
in the Free-Market as well; as are political officials, regulatory
institutions and whatever social entity you wish to consider.
Nothing but maximizing monetary gain is sacred and anytime a person or
group brings some detrimental social or environmental consequence of
this system to the forefront, pejorative distinctions are usually
branded upon their forehead to stifle such concern and frighten other
detractors – such as being called a “Socialist” or “Communist”.
Furthermore, while people in protest today across the world continue to
condemn monetary influence in social dealings such as the legal reality
of Corporate Lobbying, even using such colorful terms as "Corporatism",
“Crony-Capitalism” and even “Fascism”, they seem to misunderstand what
this system is and always has been.
The Free-Market model of Economics is a haphazard, unscientific anarchy
of organization which assumes that any person or group with
enough money and hence power will be “responsible” in their actions
both socially and environmentally. The problem is that the very
definition of being "financially responsible” actually means to be
socially and environmentally exploitative, manipulative and negligent,
for the main driver of this system is Inefficiency. The more problems in
society in general, the more jobs are created and the more rich the
upper 1% become. There is an empirical decoupling from what actually
supports life and no alteration of the core configuration of the
monetary-market Incentive will likely change that.
On a different level, this system, as an historical evolution, is
actually based on a culturally hegemonic pretense. Once economic
advantage is obtained, it will likely be kept. This is why everything in
the system favors the wealthy by its general structure and inherent
logic. While the public might complain about the fact that top Hedge Fund
Managers bring in over 300 million dollars per year, they often do not find
objection with an Interest system that rewards those with high deposits
and essentially taxes those using credit. While you may buy your home
with a loan, paying thousands in interest a year, a person of wealth can
make a CD Investment and gain free interest income simply because they have
the money to spare.
Class separation and perpetuation and the growing wealth divide is not a
byproduct. It is inevitable. In the Free-Market, one is actually
“free” to take away the liberty of others through the mere economic
pressures generated from the game. You are only as free as the size of
your wallet. The term “Institution Racism” was coined by civil
rights activist Stokely Carmichael in the 1960s referring to how often
unnoticed underlying policies and structures within the social system
undermined African-American prosperity and equality. What we have today
is a mere variation: “Institutional Classicism”.
Wall Street itself, which is the ultimate manifestation of the pursuit
of money as a commodity rather than any form of true creation or social
contribution, is naturally a ripe entity for symbolic objection for, at
a minimum, it shouldn't exist at all and most certainly not have the
grand effect it does on the stability of the global economy today,
regardless of the inherent shortcomings denoted.
However, that stated, it must again be made clear that Wall Street and
the Banking System are not the source of our problems. They are only
symptoms of an Economic System which will continue to fail by the very
gravity of its outdated and false assumptions of human conduct and
environmental relationships.
The question then becomes, what do we put in its place? ~Z
About:
The Zeitgeist Movement is a global sustainability activist group working
to bring the world together for the common goal of species
sustainability before it is too late. It is a social movement, not a
political one, with over 1100 chapters across nearly all countries.
Divisive notions such as nations, governments, races, political parties,
religions, creeds or class are non-operational distinctions in the view
of The Movement. Rather, we recognize the world as one system and the
human species as a singular unit, sharing a common habitat. Our
overarching intent could be summarized as “the application of the
scientific method for social concern.”
To learn more about our work, please visit www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Future by Design
Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project
Resource based economy without monetary systems.
Resource based economy without monetary systems.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Interview with Peter Joseph
Probably millions of people already know who Peter Joseph is. This interview with the founder of Zeitgeist movement is a kind of reminder as the third Zeitgeist film is coming out in January 2011. Watch out for it, it is called "Zeitgeist-Moving Forward".
You can watch the two previous films (Zeitgeist The Movie, Zeitgeist Addendum) here:
If you want to know more about the Venus Project and would like to get involved, click on the link below:
Who is Peter Joseph? from charles robinson on Vimeo.
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