Most disgusting aspect of this yet another HP scandal is not the disgraceful exit of HP Fuhrer Mark Hurd, but a stinky HP board that appointed this high on testosteron Great Leader after the `all flash' brain dead Carly Fiorina:: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...challenge-of-his-half-finished-expansion.html "Hurd stands to receive $40 million to $50 million before the end of the year, estimates Frank Glassner, CEO of Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants LLC in San Francisco, who analyzed an HP regulatory filing listing Hurdâs options and restricted stock units." Most people did understand long ago where this capitalist pig is headed: http://www.damiansaunders.net/2010/01/30/comment/hps-economic-opportunism-and-greed-one-year-on/ Now, the internally groomed pigs are allegedly in running: (excused herself) Catherine Lesjak, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, earned total compensation of $7,585,775, including over $200,000 in 401k matching, security, and personal use of the HP Corporate Jet. -- Ann Livermore, Executive Vice President, HP Enterprise Business, took home $13,424,406 in including around $184,000 in 401k matching, security and personal use of the corporate jet. -- R. Todd Bradley, Executive Vice President, Personal Systems Group, $12,538,329 in his personal coffers including about $248,000 in 401k matching, relocation expenses, personal use of the company jet, and security. -- Vyomesh I. Joshi, Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, a package of $11,644,691 including $183,000 odd of 401k matching, security services and use of the corporate jet. Reading the HP release wrt Mark's ouster for minor expense reporting irregularities (no sexual harassment, since "I did not have sexual relationships with that woman"), which is a plain Soviet-style insult to investor's intelligence, one may guess that the top henchmen have dumped their Lieben Fuhrer for innerving them wrt their hefty bonuses for doing God's work. Apparently, this outweighed the impact of hefty raises they got from the Fuhrer: http://seekingalpha.com/article/163169-hp-s-executive-comp-is-troubling-in-a-year-of-worker-pay-cuts "Although HP's performance has hit the wall in the past two years, Hurd's pay -- and the pay of his management team members -- has dramatically increased. For 2008, Hurd's total compensation reached $43 million, which made him the fourth highest paid CEO in America for 2008. Hurd's total compensation increased 73% from his $25 million in 2007, even though HP's stock price declined 29% in 2008. On his senior management team, the sharp compensation increases in 2008 were also noteworthy. -- CIO Randy Mott's total compensation went up 400% last year to $28 million. -- Imaging EVP VJ Joshi's total compensation jumped 83% to $22 million. -- Personal Systems EVP Todd Bradley's total compensation jumped 263% to $21 million. -- Technology Solutions' EVP Ann Livermore enjoyed a 31% bump in total compensation to $21 million. -- And CFO Catherine Lesjak got a 49% increase in total compensation to a more modest $6 million. What also raises eyebrows about these sharp executive raises, aside from it happening in the face of a sharp stock price drop for the year (and the general market uncertainty which remained at the end of the year), is that 2008 was also a year in which these same leaders imposed mandatory 10% pay cuts for other executives and 5% cuts for the rest of HP's workforce. It hardly seems like this select group is shouldering the pain like the rest of the employees." Closer look at Todd Bradley, one of the front-runners. From the same article by Eric Johnson in Seeking Alpha: "Perhaps the biggest bonus for being an HP senior executive is getting access to the fleet of corporate jets for personal use. Shareholders forked over $136,000 for Mark Hurd's personal use of the aircraft in 2008. Todd Bradley's personal use of the aircraft cost $128,000 in 2008, which was actually down from $327,000 worth of personal travel in 2007. HP explains in its proxy filing that for "purposes of reporting the value of such personal usage in this table, HP uses data provided by an outside firm to calculate the hourly cost of operating each type of aircraft. These costs include the cost of fuel, maintenance, landing and parking fees, crew and catering and supplies." I think it's completely unacceptable for shareholders to pay for this personal use perk. However, this explanation left me with more questions about these numbers. Who is this outside firm that provided this estimated hourly cost? What in fact was the hourly cost? How do shareholders know that the hourly cost was a fair market rate? Finally, what were these personal trips? I'm not even sure how it's possible for Todd Bradley to have racked up $327,000 worth of personal travel in 2007. Did he have time to show up for work that year? Call me a conspiracy theorist but isn't it possible that this outside firm vastly under-stated the actual (fair market) hourly cost of using these aircraft for personal use? How will shareholders actually know unless the company releases the flight logs and numbers? Dell and his senior executives charged no personal use of their aircraft to its shareholders." In view of this legitimised misuse of company assets (looting, to be precise) the HP explanation for firing Mark for some minor expense report 'mistakes' is beyond ridiculous. One should also mind the engineers of the HP compensation that assures that the next HP fuhrer will have full assurance of soft landing no matter the outrageous and/or criminal acts s/he commits while in office and fully protected by 6'5" bodyguards from annoying employees in corporate bldg. on Hannover Str. After all, this is the HP Way version -2.0. Investors should know those compensation engineers from HP board of untouchable geniuses: http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-govCommittee&Committee=4843 Lawrence T. Babbio, Jr. Rajiv L. Gupta John H. Hammergren Joel Z. Hyatt Lucille S. Salhany Thank you, Mr. Babbio, for supporting Carly's exit for $21M, and Mark's exit for a much larger amount, close to $50M. You and your accomplices did more for exposing the American plutocracy than anyone else. I guess that we can now rest assured that the HP board will select a scumbag #3 to lead HP. Surely, the capitalist pigs on the board will appoint one of their own breed to squeeze out what's left of this company. And why not? - this is precisely where the banksters lead this quickly degenerating plutocracy.
Another example of a group of THIEVES running US major corporation. Why the American system is rotting. The crooks keep on stealing with no consequences whatsoever.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/business/14nocera.html?src=busln Real Reason for Ousting H.P.âs Chief By JOE NOCERA The consensus in Silicon Valley is that Mr. Hurd was despised at H.P., not just by the rank and file, but even by H.P.âs top executives. (Perhaps this explains why Ms. Lesjak was so quick to denigrate him once she took over.) âHe was a cost-cutter who indulged himself,â was one description I heard. His combined compensation for just his last two years was more than $72 million â a number that absolutely outraged employees since their jobs were the ones being cut. Rob Enderle, a well-known technology consultant, noted that in recent internal surveys, nearly two-thirds of H.P. employees said they would leave if they got an offer from another company â a staggering number. âHe didnât have the support of his people,â Mr. Enderle said. Although he was good at âholding executivesâ feet to the fire, he seemed to be the only one benefiting from H.P.âs success,â Mr. Hurd was systematically destroying what had always made H.P. great. The way H.P. made its numbers, Mr. House said, was not just cutting any old costs, but by âchopping R.&D.,â which had always been sacred at H.P. The research and development budget used to be 9 percent of revenue, Mr. House told me; now it was closer to 2 percent. âIn the personal computer group, it is seven-tenths of 1 percent,â he added. âThatâs why H.P. had no response to the iPad.â http://hpphenom.blogspot.com/2010/08/holy-mackeral.html This guy was a thug, nicknamed Mark Turd by ex-HPites who worked directly for him -- stories that have circulated in the Valley for three years. He raped HP employees (figuratively, without violating the sexual conduct code at HP) by eliminating the sixty-five year concept of profit sharing, preferring to move to obscene bonuses for himself and his five top minions -- a mere $113 million payout for them in a year he chopped everyone else's pay by 5% plus profit-sharing. These were raises for some of the five people by as much as 400% -- a tidy uptick. He was profane, a bully, autocratic, threatening, demeaning, vindictive, and rude. Blogs over the weekend by current employees said "Hooray, the tyrant is gone!" I couldn't contain my glee on the 11pm news -- best news for HP in a very long time! http://hpphenom.blogspot.com/2010/08/boy-they-are-very-well-paid.html n the 'good year comparison', Hurd and team made 700%, 266%, 1790%, and 1920% more money for CEO, CFO, PC Chief, and Services Chief than the Fiorina team. The next year for each, all took 'cuts' on both teams -- but for 2009, Hurd and team made 1400%, 368%, 970% and 1011% more than the comparable Fiorina team. The employees didn't fare nearly as well. *** The Board did better too, averaging 320% more in 2009 per director than in 2001. Each full-time director, for a few meetings per year, made on average $328,000. Pretty good hourly rate. *** ____________________ What this Board may be looking is the next HP Fuhrer but less paranoid, who will keep a good squeeze on employees (Lesjak already proclaimed that the party line on not giving a dime back to employees robbed by Hurd's junta will stay) but also keep top lieutenants as happy accomplices in sharing the loot. Hurd was too unnerving for the second part. Once the new master is installed by Marc Andreessen and a venerable golden parachutes engineer Babbio, it would be interesting to see what s/he does to top executive brass. "HP Invent" coined by Carly sounds like a bad joke looking at the above drastic cuts in R&D under Hurd, steered by his execs. OK, Marc L. Andreessen, now it's your call. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen HP can keep morphing into a 100% reseller of chinese goodies, and a services provider to barely keep above water, or start doing something original. The former is straightforward and simple and liked by Wall Street, the latter needs some currently absent minimal brains and courage on top. The choice is easy?
The sad shit is, because of greedy pigs like these & 1000's of others, many people will eventually stop supporting these once-great American companies. Why buy an "American" brand if it's actually Chinese made? Why do business with an S&P 500 corporate pig when there are other alternatives? And the bureacracies they create?! Ridiculous!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/technology/17hewlett.html?src=busln "A former H.P. executive said that Mr. Hurdâs meetings were known internally as ârectal examsâ because of the fierce questioning. Stories abound of Mr. Hurdâs slicing into marketing costs and making employees fight for every dollar in the budget (although Mr. Hurd often found marketing money to sponsor tennis events, uniting his love of the sport with H.P.). Nor could they (HP BoD) fathom how Mr. Hurd could authorize more than $75,000 in payments and expenses, including first-class travel and stays in luxury hotels, for Ms. Fisher when the companyâs employees traveled under more austere conditions..." Is this the only thing they could not fathom?.. They all perhaps need a rectal exam from CAL AG, since this is the most likely area where their cortex resides.
Now, HP board did it again... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859204575525863333844740.html?KEYWORDS=apotheker Mr. Apotheker oversaw SAP's first-ever mass layoff, and led a reorganization of the company's engineering department. These moves made him unpopular with SAP's rank and file, which have outsized representation on SAP's board under German securities regulation. In an email to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ellison said the decision to name Mr. Apotheker [expeditiously booted from SAP] CEO left him "speechless" and added that he thought "H-P employees, customers, partners and shareholders will suffer." The lone bright spot is that the internal pigs listed in above posts were not offered anything. One hopes that most of them would leave after screwing HP for far too long. Recruiters may just walk into Stanford campus across a road and pick 100 times better replacements in less than an hour among their grads. Not gonna happen in this brain dead plutocratic corporate web though. And poor HPer are up to deeper and longer rectal treatments prescribed by Mr. apotheker to improve sales. Let's see. "Colorectal cancer, sometimes referred to as colon rectal cancer or colon cancer, is a "silent killer." In this article on colorectal cancer, we provide you with information about colorectal cancer to help you understand this deadly form of cancer. " http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/cancer/facts/colorectal-cancer.htm HP board started a new experiment. And why not? US experimented with syphilis on Guatemalans, to find preventive treatments for the benefit of the public, and HP board does experiments to improve performance of the company. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTc0C_-uc0M&feature=player_embedded Can someone perform the Guatemalan-type experiment on HP board of Untouchables to see if it improves the corporate governance?