America's Corporate Executives At Work

By C.P. Pandya

The absurdly narrow perspective with which America's corporate executives view the economy and, more importantly, the people who make it up, is at times staggering. This isn't news, correct. But revisiting this topic from time to time is painstakingly necessary, especially in the wake of the U.S.'s recent return to what many are calling a more substantial economic "recovery."

Many of America's executives have slyly inserted into the public mindset the notion that corporations have nothing to do with the people they profit from. These executives have drawn an imaginary line of distinction between the direct socio-economic implications their corporate pricing and production policies have on their workers and people who use their products and the money they receive for these policies and practices. As low and middle-income people in the U.S. face an increasingly depressed economic situation, such statements deserve special scrutiny.

Take, for example, the comments of Universal Health Services Chairman and Chief Executive Alan Miller during the company's annual shareholder meeting in May: "People are unemployed, and people who are unemployed do not use hospital services as much," he said.

Astute observation Alan. But by leaving out the specifics of the unemployment and insurance crises in the U.S., you are able to make a widespread socio-economic problem in this country - and one that your company could conceivably alleviate - seem like a company-specific problem that has no impact on wider American life.

Miller might have mentioned, while complaining about the dent in profits this problem is causing, that over 44 million people in the U.S. are uninsured, 8.5 million of them being children. Fewer people are coming in for hospital treatment even though they are no less sick because they simply cannot afford healthcare, in part because companies like Millers' overprice their services. When these people do go into hospitals for medical care, they rack up huge amounts of debt that subsequently discourage them from going in for care in the future. And in millions of homes across the country, this cycle continues unabated as executives like Miller complain and place blame on uninsured Americans and the impact they have on his company's performance.

Miller laments that if only the U.S. job market would pick up, then Universal Health Services' (what an ironic name for such an exclusive service) profits would pick up too.

Perhaps the executive would be comforted to know that recently, 100 of his cohorts, who were surveyed about their confidence in the economy, said they have more faith in today's economic conditions than they have in the past 20 years!

Yes, in the wake of soaring numbers of uninsured people, millions of unemployed and underemployed workers facing soaring housing costs and bleak prospects for social mobility, the economy - whose primary component is its people - is quite healthy, according to these CEOs.

In its quarterly CEO Confidence Survey, which polls 100 chief executives from various industries, the Conference Board found that because of this overwhelming confidence in the economy, most CEOs believe they will soon begin wide-spread hiring. Ostensibly, this optimism is supposed to be good for the unemployed and underemployed population that has struggled through a three-year hiring slumber.

Too bad CEOs, in line with the Bush administration, have been touting the same line of rhetoric since the recession "ended" in November 2001. While the past two months of a strong rise in job creation is being paraded and lauded by corporate America and the White House (one and the same) as evidence of the end of the "jobless recovery," two months does not a trend make.

So as the "bulls" on Wall Street commend all the hiring they are doing and about to do, perhaps they feel it convenient to omit some of the harsher statistics coming out of the latest governmental jobs report. During the first two and a half years of the Bush presidency, the economy lost 2.7 million jobs, net. The last time an American president presided over an economy where there was a net loss of jobs, Herbert Hoover was in office. But it seems the U.S.'s chief executives feel they must stand by their CEO, George Bush, and celebrate the strength of the economy and in particular, job creation.

As the November election nears, the Bush campaign (and its corporate sugar daddies on Wall Street) have touted the fact that 1.1 million jobs have been created since last August. But even this figure, which admittedly does provide some relief to the unemployed, is weak in comparison to historical data. For example, payroll employment in April 2000 (also an election year) was 2.3 million higher than in August 1999.

More importantly, millions in the U.S. will remain unemployed and underemployed even after the economy reaches "full employment." And, to laud such figures without at all giving credence to work-quality, treatment, benefits, security or retirement-planning opportunities is highly misleading. So what does confidence in the economy mean if these tangible variables are ignored?

Perhaps this has less to do with the primary component of any economy -- again, its people -- and more to do with confidence in corporate profits. Corporate profits last year rose 29% over 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. That was the biggest quarterly increase in profits since the first quarter of 1984, when pretax profits jumped 36%.

What a coincidence that CEO confidence in the overall economy is tied directly to the amount of money they are making. Perhaps the Conference Board survey should more clearly indicate what it measures: CEO confidence in making money. To equate a company's success with the strength of an economy in such a direct way is baffling, considering the company's "success" doesn't trickle down to its workers. These CEOs and the confidence they are exuding must relate to another economy, because it is certainly not the one most people in the U.S. are living in.

Nicholas Hindman, chief financial officer at Westell Technologies Inc summed up the plight of the U.S. corporation best when, speaking during a recent conference call to discuss the company's quarterly earnings, he said:

"With the diverse business that we have, we have opportunities, or we have situations where we try to take advantage and earn dollars wherever we can.it's based on our opportunistic way we do business. And we look for profits and dollars wherever we can get them."

No subtlety there.

The intellectual and emotional implications of the power, wealth and status corporations lord over the public should not be underestimated. With millions of discouraged workers - 700,000 have out-and-out left the workforce since January 2004 because they can't find a job - and millions more uninsured members of the economy struggling to attend to their immediate needs, much policy-making can happen, with little disruption.

This dismantaling of the time and resources of low and middle-income workers through strictly economic means has been effective over hundreds of years and the pace is quickening. Corporations are legally granted the same rights as an individual; airlines are bailed out of bankruptcy by the government while people default on federal loans for their homes and face homelessness instead of being given debt relief; and generally, corporations continue to consolidate their power, influence and wealth in various industries with congressional and federal regulator help.

Shifting from the economy to the battlefield, callous corporate executive comments abound. In honor of May being Military Appreciation Month (yes!), let us revisit the comments of the chief executive of a company called Taser International Inc. Sound familiar? Perhaps you've even had one of the company's 50,000-volt stun-gun products used on you.

In early April, CBS News reported that 40 people in police custody had died after being stunned by a Taser gun. Earlier, in this commentary, I said "two months does not a trend make," but how about 40-deaths, following use of the Taser gun? That certainly qualifies as a trend to be harped on. But, somehow, Taser's products have largely escaped public scrutiny. Deny a trend, fabricate a trend, anything is possible in CEO bizarro world.

Responding to the CBS News report, CEO Rick Smith in a press release titled: "TASER(R) International, Inc. Responds to Media Sensationalism Regarding Alleged TASER Technology in Custody Deaths" had the following to say: "We continue to be amazed by the premature, unfounded, speculation in the media concerning the unexpected, unforeseen deaths of criminal suspects while in police custody after use of the TASER device."

Fair enough. But when can such a correlation be made? Perhaps after 50 deaths? When can evidence of Taser-related deaths be founded? When the company says so? When does a coroner's testimony that the use of the gun was a factor in the death of someone cease being mere speculation?

Interestingly, CEO Smith in the press release, called the 40 deaths "unexpected" and "unforeseen," yet on April 5, he told CBS News: "If the Taser had not been used, all 40 of those people would still be dead today. In every single case these people would have died anyway."

If they were so unforeseen and unexpected, how could Smith so vehemently have known these people were going to die anyway? Perhaps the families of the dead should issue the following press release: "Families Respond To Taser CEO Sensationalism And Speculation Surrounding Unfounded And Premature Conclusions On Death Of Loved Ones."

Whatever role the Taser guns played in the deaths of these 40 people, it is the strongly-held denial of any wrongdoing, the callousness of the CEO's response, the abdication of any responsibility or even an investigation that merits comment.

On a related note, ruminate on the following, highly-appropriate comments made during a conference on May 12 by airline JetBlue's Chief Financial Officer John Owen about competition at Dulles airport in Washington, DC: "There's going to be a tremendous war at Dulles," he said, predicting a "bloodbath."

Insert these words into the mouth of an airport worker, or passenger, or a person of brown skin and imagine the fallout.

It seems in the privileged world of America's corporate executives, speaking about bloodbaths at airports and product-related deaths is excusable and even acceptable; just as speaking about monetary boons and economic confidence are acceptable and excusable as millions go to sleep hungry and homeless, sick and frustrated.

For persons concerned with economic and social justice, let us never forget the baffling comments of America's executives; instead, let us be fueled by their poison to fight for an another, more equitable world.