Corporate Integrity Project

NLPC seeks to promote integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners and customers. In doing so, NLPC places special emphasis on:

* Asserting that the social responsibility of the corporation is to defend and advance the interests of the people who own the company, the shareholders. True responsibility is fidelity to one’s own mission, not someone else’s, or someone else’s political agenda.

* Exposing the seeking of influence on public officials by corporations, which is the inevitable result of high levels of government spending and intervention in the marketplace.

* Combating practices that undermine the free enterprise system, including philanthropic giving to groups hostile to a free economy.

Rangel Wants 90% Tax Rate for Wall Street; 0% for Himself

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) would seem an unlikely point man for the legislation passed by the House yesterday imposing a 90% tax on any bonuses given to employees with family incomes of more than $250,000 at firms that received more than $5 billion in bailout funds.

As exposed by NLPC, Rangel failed to pay federal income tax on rent received from his beachfront home in the Dominican Republic, and cheated on his D.C. property tax by improperly claiming a homestead exemption. Also, Rangel led a Citigroup-funded Caribbean junket last November that violated House rules.

After the 328-93 vote, the indignant Rangel warned,  “Don’t dare try to take a bonus and get away with it.”

In a CNBC interview, Rangel was challenged on his moral authority to lead the floor fight for the bill. Strangely, Rangel seemed to deny the “false” reports about his own tax evasion, even though he admitted … Read More ➡

Where Was Congress on Bonuses in 2004?

Posted on by NLPC Staff

obama/rainesNLPC issued a press release on December 29, 2004 that began:

Peter Flaherty today expressed surprise and disgust at the current attempt by fired Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines to walk away with millions of dollars despite his central role in the accounting scandal rocking the company.

According to Flaherty, “At the time, I remember having very little luck in drumming up interest in this issue. I was a guest on a couple of local radio shows, but that was it. I made a round of calls to Capitol Hill but nobody wanted to do anything.”

The release continued:

Flaherty said, “Let me get this straight. Raines apparently cooks the books, brings disgrace to the company, and imperils Fannie Mae’s standing with regulators, the Congress and administration. So for his punishment he is made wealthy for the rest of his life?”

According to a December 27 Form 8-K

… Read More ➡

Why Won’t Obama Stop AIG Bonuses?

Posted on by NLPC Staff

AIG logoBarack Obama has shown no hesitation to wield the power of the state, but he claims that he’s unable to stop these outrageous AIG bonuses, even though taxpayers now own 80% of AIG.

Obama wants the government to dominate the health care and energy economies. He’s proposed huge new taxes to help finance expansion of the federal government. More to the point, he would allow bankruptcy judges to abrogate contracts as part of his mortgage bailout. His automaker bailout contemplates the setting aside or revision of UAW contracts.

It is astonishing that these bonuses will be paid to executives at AIG’s financial products division, the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps. AIG placed bets on derivative trades that it could not possibly pay off if it lost. This is called fraud. These bad bets were big enough to bring down the financial system.

Instead of claiming … Read More ➡

Will Bailed-Out Companies Shell Out for Sharpton?

Posted on by NLPC Staff

GM logThe 11th annual convention of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) will take place April 1-4 in New York City. Last year’s event in Memphis had heavy corporate sponsorship. Of course, a lot has changed since then. Sponsors like Citigroup, Chrysler and General Motors have gone broke, kept alive by billions in taxpayer funds.

Healthier 2008 sponsors include Abbott Laboratories, Allstate, American Honda, Anheuser-Busch (since acquired by InBev), Chase Foundation, Colgate-Palmolive, Continental Airlines, Entergy, FedEx, Ford, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, Pfizer, UPS Foundation and Wal-Mart.

At the event, Colgate-Palmolive accepted a “corporate excellence” award, prompting NLPC to ask the company to give it back. In a letter to Reuben Mark, the company’s Chairman, NLPC President Peter Flaherty called the award “a dubious honor indeed.”

In an April 22 letter defending the award, Mark asserted that the NAN convention was “broadly attended by a number of elected officials and … Read More ➡

Obama Should Focus on Bank Crisis Rather Than “Fake Populism”

Posted on by NLPC Staff

NLPC President Peter Flaherty said today, “Excessive executive pay and perks are indeed a problem, as NLPC sought to highlight way before the financial meltdown. But the real scandal now is bank bailouts without end.

Citi logo

Instead of engaging in fake populism by trashing corporate travel to Las Vegas or the Super Bowl, Obama should produce a plan to deal with the banking crisis. Throwing more taxpayer money at AIG and Citigroup as they lurch from crisis to crisis is not a plan.  I am worried that by the time Obama and Timothy Geithner come up with a strategy, there will be no money left.

The tally for AIG is now $175 billion with no end in sight. AIG placed bets on derivative trades that it could not possibly pay off if it lost. This is called fraud. These bad bets were big enough to bring down the financial system. Obama … Read More ➡