Journal Inquirer.com
Posted July 2, 2009
You Kidding Me?
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Here’s a surprise. Gov. Jodi Rell, guardian of Connecticut’s wealthy, Big Insurance and Big Business, and Michael Moore, the irreverent, left-leaning filmmaker, have something in common: their love of CEOs.
Stay with me on this one. Moore is in the final spin stages for his yet untitled new movie to be released October 2, at a theater near you. Last month Moore greeted unsuspecting big-screen viewers in a handful of cinemas asking for donations to help “Save our CEOs.” “The downturn in the economy has hurt many people. People who have had no choice but to go on government assistance, yet our welfare agencies can only do so much,” Moore pleaded. “That’s why I’m asking you to lend a hand. Won’t you please give generously? Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘I already gave at the bailout’, and I know you did. But even if you’ve given in the past, give some more. It’ll make you feel . . . good.”
Our feel-good governor wants to help CEOs too. As Connecticut struggles in difficult economic times, she’s on the small screens, making appeals not to raise taxes. After all, Rell reasons, revenues from income and corporate taxes are down., “and people are losing their jobs and struggling to make ends meet.”

These passionate pleas for mercy are directed at the legislature to be kind to people like Ramani Ayer who will be out of work after December 31, 2009. His $9 million job as Chief Executive Officer at The Hartford Insurance Company will end then and his hard earned $36.2 million nest egg could be at risk.

Mr. Ayer is a victim of the economic downturn. His net worth, a few million less today, poor soul, has declined with the value of The Hartford’s stock – of which he was in charge. His 2007 pay was $23 million. Imagine dropping to only $9 million a year. Will the suffering never end? No wonder Rell is loathe to raise taxes on these poor, unfortunate CEOs. After all, they’re suffering hits just like the rest of us struggling to pay our bills, send our kids to college or pay for prescription drugs we need to survive into old age.
Ayer, like so many CEOs, deserves our sympathy and help. The Hartford, a $25-plus billion company, has been in the top 100 of the Fortune 500. Ayers has led the charge to do all those things good CEOs do to boost profits for shareholders and their own compensation – invested in mortgage securities, trimmed staff, passed on health care costs to employees, outsourced work and such. And he also stood in the long bailout lines holding his empty soup can, waiting his turn for a ladle full of bailout. Friday his effort were rewarded with a hot cup o’ TARP as The Hartford received $3.4 billion in relief from our corporate welfare department in DC.
Now Ayer is not alone in this dark den of economic misery. Rell claims we’re No. 1 in Fortune 500 companies per million population. There’s 11 of them along with another 17 in the Fortune next 500. All run by poor, distraught, pained CEOs who need our kind thoughts, prayers and tax breaks. They’ll be totally devastated if taxes are boosted ever so slightly to help pay for services that could benefit all of Connecticut’s residents, including the people they laid off to recoup their losses.
The AFL-CIO Executive Pay Watch claims Big Biz CEOs were paid, on average, $10.4 million in total compensation in 2008; down about 6% from 2007 - ouch. But, offsetting the pain a tad, their perks grew 12.5% to an average of $336,248—or about nine times the median salary of a full-time worker.
It has been a rough and tumble time for corporate chieftains. It must be difficult and draining to pare down the wait staff, maybe switch to generic croutons at the dinner table, or even skip the leather in the kid’s new Beamer. We should be grateful that the M. Jodi Rell is defending the castle against attacks on CEO pay.

Jodi Rell and Michael Moore, both publicly pleading to help our CEOs weather the economic storm battering all of us…only, with one little difference. Moore is kidding.