More Deferred Compensation

Deferred compensation is in the headlines again this week. Last week, of course, it was the $139.5 million in deferred compensation pocketed by Richard Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. That's $139.5 million on top of the $97 million in pay he's earned over the past eight years, not to mention the benefits package that pays for everything right down to his magazine subscriptions, because God knows it's tough to afford magazine subscriptions when you're only making tens of millions per year.

This week, Vice President Dick Cheney's deferred compensation package has been in the news. It seems that Cheney, since becoming Vice President, has received $367,691 in "deferred compensation" from Halliburton, the oil services company of which he was formerly CEO. He is scheduled to receive additional hundreds of thousands of dollars this year and in the next several years as well. Oh, and he also happens to have 433,333 unexercised Halliburton stock options, which entitle him to buy shares at prices below the company's current stock price.

This is the same Dick Cheney who just three days ago declared on a nationwide television appearance on Meet the Press: "And since I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president, I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven’t had now for over three years."

And this is the same Halliburton that under the Bush/Cheney reign has been granted several billion dollars worth of no-bid defense department and reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

They think we're very stupid, you know. This gang in the White House thinks they can rob us blind, fatten their wallets, take away our rights, jeopardize our safety, gut our schools and social services, and ruin our economy, the environment and our international prestige. They think they can get away with it because they think we're so stupid that we can't see through their blatant lies.

Let's show them we're not so stupid as they believe.

(Some previous DebtorsPrison thoughts on Halliburton can be found HERE.)