Golden Parachutes

dihard:

A golden parachute is a clause in an executive’s employment contract that specifies he will receive benefits in the event the company is taken over and the executive is let go. A golden parachute can come in the form of severance pay in cash, stock options, bonuses, etc. The term more loosely refers to an executive’s  severance package - regardless of takeover. Golden parachutes are designed to protect the executive from job loss and to hinder unwanted takeovers.

dihard’s list of parachutes comes out to a little over $500 million. It might seem like chump change compared to, say, a $700 billion bailout, but the real problem is that a group of people that makes up less than 0.001% (one thousanth) of the U.S. population is receiving this wealth. Hooray for trickle-down economic theory.

Source: dihard