(Jack Welch lists personal wealth of $456.2 million, which includes the value of his various pension, retirement and deferred-compensation plans, GE stock options and real estate. He says he has $16.7 million in liabilities. He enjoys a monthly income of $1.414 million, and laments expenses of $366,114.)
While on the subject of corporate sovereignty (see below), here's the thing about CEO's with Pharaonic wealth:
In the old, pagan, cruel, pre- or non-Christian societies rotting in the dim night of yore, tribes and nations had heroes, kings, nobles, etc., and rewarded them with vast holdings in land, gold, slaves, cardamum, babes, wampum, dope, etc., just like we do in the god-fearing US of A.
And, just like them, in times of danger we expect our heroes to take the good fight personally into their own hands, defending the poor huddled masses and the great nation that put its confidence and a substantial portion of its money supply in their pockets. We expect them to put their lives on the line, when duty calls. This must be why we now see Welch and Gates and Jobs and Ellison and Buffet and Allen and the Waltons suiting up for intense aerial action over Iran. I can't wait to see feisty Steve Ballmer kick Saddam's sorry ass down the Tigris rapids! Go Steve! Go Brave Bill! Go Warren and Larry and all ye noble Waltons! O my Captains!
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
Go Jack!
The entire creaky mechanism of "corporate charters" warrants a critical look, in concert with Lessig's exploration of intellectual property. There is an unwillingness to upset the de facto sovereignty of corporations over people in the U.S., where we exist within a seamless band of mass-consumed information produced by...corporations. (Weinberger: The opposite of information is trust.)
