Is it lifestyle, greed, or just plain stupidity that causes these high profile CEO’s to think they can do just about anything and everything, and not get caught?

Tom Petters, founder and CEO of Petters Group Worldwide, a Minnesota based firm was charged with a scheme that allegedly raised billions of dollars over more then a decade for the firm.

This seems to be an everyday thing. Part of the need for the 700 billion dollar federal bailout this week was caused by CEO greed. The sad thing is they want payoffs then, when they leave the company, and many of them do get them. It seems like things have only gotten worse since the Enron scandal, a few years back.

Do these high profile executives really think they are invincible? Do they think they can continue to defraud the American public and get by with it? The sad thing is that even though they eventually do get caught, millions of innocent people have already been hurt. They’ve lost their retirement and many investments they once had. Many of them have also lost their jobs, homes, and in many cases their families.

Hardworking individuals who trusted in the American Dream, are now left out in the cold. There’s no money to send children to college, put food on the table, gas in the car, or fuel to heat their home, if they still have one to heat. The CEO, in the meantime, is on board his plane flying all over the world, living the so called good life.

Taxpayers are left holding the bag, most of the time. Who else is going to pay for these bailouts, if not the working American? He’s the one who has those federal and state taxes taken from his paycheck. We all need to pay taxes of course, but shouldn’t the taxes we pay be for something that’s going to benefit the average American, not some executive that defrauded millions for his own selfish interests.

In the case of Tom Petters, employees of an airline the Petters group invested in, were asked to take a 50% reduction through the end of year in their wages because the airline is in financial trouble and their parent company has no money to help them out. The parent company executive, Tom Petters, resigned earlier this week. He’s scheduled to appear in federal court.

Will this roller coaster ever stop? Today it’s a Minnesota based firm, last week it was a number of banks and insurance companies that had to be bailed out, a few years ago it was Enron. Who will it be next?

A number of these CEO’s are eventually caught and sentenced, but not before the American Dream is totally shattered for many of us.

I actually feel sorry for the next president of this great country. How is he going to fix this mess? He isn’t doing it alone, of course, but the mess that’s being inherited is unbelievable. May God bless him. He’s going to need all the help he can get.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 7:32 am.