Execs At Over 20 Companies Agree To Forfeit, Freeze, Or Cut Salaries Or Bonuses Amid Virus Fallout

Believe it or not, corporate executives are reportedly slashing some of their pay as a result of the coronavirus.

Despite what Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would have you believe about the rich, they apparently have at least some sympathy for other human beings: executives and boards at more than 20 companies agreed to cut, freeze or forfeit their salaries or bonuses in recent weeks.

The companies include those who work in travel, airport baggage and jewelry sales, among others, according to Bloomberg.

Some cuts were made as part of broader cuts due to industries like travel collapsing - but other executives cut voluntarily as a show of solidarity with their employees.

Michael Maslansky, CEO of communications advisory firm maslansky + partners said: “Whenever a CEO asks for concessions in times of financial strain, the first question is almost always: ‘Are you feeling the pain, too?’ The only way to make an employee-wide pay cut possible is if management leads by example.”

The most prominent reductions have come from airlines. Thai airways said senior executives would surrender 25% of their salaries for 6 months. El Al Israel Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Australia’s Qantas Airways, U.K.-based Virgin Atlantic, Sweden’s SAS and Cebu Air have all followed suit.

United will see its top two executives give up their salaries until midyear and Southwest's CEO will take a cut of 10%. Robin Hayes of JetBlue will surrender 20% of base pay. Delta's CEO is also reportedly considering a reduction.

The concessions won't have a major impact on each company's financials, nor will they have a profound impact for most executives' quality of life.

Robin Ferracone, CEO of executive-compensation advisory firm Farient Advisors said: “Widespread cuts probably hurt people lower down in the organization more than the people at the top since a significant part of compensation at the top is comprised of incentives, which presumably are not cut.”

And it's not just airlines feeling the pain. Singapore's national post office will cut and freeze pay for upper lever managers and Hong Kong based jeweler Chow Tai Fook is making its directors take a 30% pay cut through April.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/execs-over-20-companies-agree-forfeit-freeze-or-cut-salaries-or-bonuses-amid-virus

"I Apologize" - Money Managers Sorry For Losing Clients' Money Amid Brazilian Bloodbath

While American asset-gatherers and commission-rakers were busy demanding investors 'buy the dip for the long-term' this week as each leg down just went further down (until Friday, of course), Brazilian money-managers were a little more frank with their clients.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/i-apologize-money-managers-sorry-losing-clients-money-amid-brazilian-bloodbath

Central Banking is Socialism

Last week, the Federal Reserve responded to Wall Street’s coronavirus panic with an “emergency” interest rate cut. This emergency cut failed to revive the stock market, leading to predictions that the Fed will again cut rates later this month.

More rate cuts would drive interest rates to near, or even below, zero. Lowering interest rates punishes people for saving, thus encouraging consumers and businesses to spend every penny they make. This may give the economy a short-term boost. But, it inhibits long-term economic growth by depleting the savings necessary for investments in businesses and jobs. The result of this policy will be more pressure on the Fed to indefinitely maintain low interest rates and on the Congress and president to create another explosion of government “stimulus” spending.

Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren has suggested that Congress allow the Federal Reserve to add assets of private companies to the Fed’s already large balance sheet. Allowing the central bank to buy assets of, and thus assume a partial ownership interest in, private companies would give the Federal Reserve even greater influence over the economy. It could also allow the Fed to advance a political agenda by, for example, favoring investment in “green energy” companies over other companies or refusing to purchase assets of retailers who sell firearms or tobacco products.

Mr. Rosengren’s proposal to allow the central bank to “invest,” in private companies seems like something one would hear from democratic socialists like Senator Bernie Sanders. This is not surprising since the entire Federal Reserve system is a textbook example of socialism.

The essence of socialist economics is government allocation of resources either by seizing direct control of the “means of production” or by setting prices business can charge. Federal Reserve manipulation of interest rates is an attempt to set the price of money. Federal Reserve attempts to set interest rates distort the signals sent by the rates to investors and business. This results in a Fed-created boom, which is inevitably followed by a Fed-created bust.

Economic elites benefit when the Federal Reserve pumps new money into the economy because they have access to the money created before there are widespread price increases. Artificially low interest rates also facilitate the growth of the welfare-warfare state.

The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies harm the average American by eroding the dollar’s purchasing power. This forces consumers to rely on credit cards and other forms of debt to maintain their standard of living. Many Americans are unable to afford their own homes because they are saddled with student loan debt that can even exceed their income.

Since the bailouts of 2008, there has been a growing understanding that the current system is rigged in favor of the elites and against the average American. Unfortunately, popular confusion of our system of Keynesian neoliberalism with a free-market economy, combined with a widespread entitlement mentality, has led many Americans to support increasing government control of our economy.

The key to beating back the rising support for socialism on both the left and right is helping more people understand that big government and central banking are the cause of their problems and that free markets in all areas — and especially in money — is the solution. It is important that the liberty movement put pressure on Congress to cut spending and rein in or, better yet, end the Fed.

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/march/09/central-banking-is-socialism/

Nine Years Ago: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind the 2011 “Protest Movement”?

It Started in Daraa on March 17, 2011

Nine years since the beginning of the war on Syria in March 2011, so-called “progressives” have supported the so-called “opposition”, which is largely made up of Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries. A US-NATO led war of aggression is portrayed as a “civil war”.

President Bashar Al Assad is casually described as a dictator who is killing his own people. The millions of deaths resulting from US-NATO led wars are not an object of concern.

The anti-war movement died in the wake of the Iraq war (April 2003). Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and counterterrorism prevail.

The war on Syria started nine years ago in Daraa on the 17th of March 2011.

The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.

It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan.

Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington. This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads?

From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August 14, 2011):

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia the UAE and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.

The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.

Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).

In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad.

In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.

In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.

Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:

“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)

The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.

[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”

More

https://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-who-is-behind-the-protest-movement-fabricating-a-pretext-for-a-us-nato-humanitarian-intervention/24591