Corporate shenanigans affect our way of life
By Nick Ellerbrock
Political Opinion Column, Nov. 13, 2003
Have you ever heard of Dead Peasants Insurance? No? Well, let me tell you about it.
If you’ve ever been employed as a low-level employee for corporations such as Wal-Mart or Disney, the company may have a life insurance policy on you, with the corporation named as the beneficiary.
It doesn’t matter how long you worked there; upon your death the company would receive a settlement. And what do they do with the money? Most put it in a fund for “executive bonuses,” such as new cars or vacations. This means that when you die you have essentially bought the CEO a new BMW. And, you guessed it, they call it “Dead Peasants Insurance.”
Sadly, this story, which was uncovered by Ellen Schultz and Theo Francis from the “Wall Street Journal,” isn’t the only instance of corporate scams. Michael Moore and others have found that in the late 1990s, when the stock market was flourishing, top executives for corporations such as AOL TimeWarner and the infamous Enron began selling their shares of stock, knowing that the market would soon fall. So what’s wrong with this?
At the same time they were encouraging lower employees to purchase more stock. Many of these employees had their entire retirement savings invested in the company. These people’s livelihoods were destroyed while the executives made off with millions.
Some corporate shenanigans could almost be seen as comical if they weren’t so horribly immoral. Take for instance what’s come to be known as the McLibel Trial. According to Naomi Klein in her book ”No Logo,” McDonalds, an $11 billion corporation, sued, “an unemployed postal worker and a community gardener” for libel. These two were handing out pamphlets explaining some little known facts about McDonald’s, such as how they are responsible for some of the rain forest depletion in South America to make room for cattle ranches. After a 313-day trial, the judge found many of the accusations to be true, including rain forest depletion, employees receiving poverty-level wages and serious health problems resulting from regular visits to the establishment. Their excessive waste was also brought to attention, and Ed Oakley, a McDonald’s executive, actually defended this by saying their waste is “a benefit; otherwise you will end up with lots of vast empty gravel pits all over the country.”
Other corporations are also guilty of trying to defend actions with a logic that can only be described as ridiculous. Greg Palast gives an example of this in his book, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” In 1992, the CEO of Wal-Mart,
David Glass, was asked about pictures that showed “14 year old children locked in his Bangladesh factories.” He responded by saying, “Your definition of children may be different from mine.”
So why do we rarely see these stories in the mainstream media? Because the mainstream media networks ARE corporations. Not only this, but much of their income is from advertising, so these corporations depend on other corporations for their survival. Why would a corporation intentionally lose millions of dollars by exposing the wrongdoings of one of their contributors? They wouldn’t, and they don’t.
So what about the government? Why aren’t they doing anything about this? Because, like the media, much of their support comes from corporations. And I’m not just talking about Republicans; Democrats are just as guilty. Just take a look at the 2000 presidential election. Microsoft contributed about $754,000 to Bush’s campaign while contributing about $568,000 to Gore’s. Lockheed Martin contributed $151,000 to Bush while giving $120,000 to Gore, and the list goes on and on. These corporations give to both parties so they win no matter what the outcome. Sometimes, as with Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton (which, by the way, had two known dealings with Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War when Cheney was CEO), top executives are even placed in positions of high power in the government.
There is a need for serious reform in Corporate America, but it will only happen if people know and understand why there is such a need. As Ursula Franklin, a professor at the University of Toronto, stated, “I picture the reality in which we live in terms of military occupation. We are occupied the way the French and Norwegians were occupied… but this time by an army of marketers. We have to reclaim our country from those who occupy it.”