Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Give everyone in Green Bay the Lehman CEO's 2007 bonus

For the price of the Iraq War, we could give everyone in Green Bay a bonus of the size that Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld earned in 2007.

In 2007, Lehman Brothers Chairman and CEO Richard Fuld earned a bonus of $22 million. Because of bad investments in mortgage-backed securities, Lehman Brothers' stock price has fallen from over $80 in early 2007 to 18 cents per share as it filed for bankruptcy yesterday. Previously, Mr. Fuld had earned $354 million over a 5-year period. There are 100,781 residents of Green Bay, so giving them a bonus equal to what Fuld earned in 2007 would take $2.22 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.