Well, This Might Make Me Want to Occupy Wall Street

The CEO of Gannett, Craig Dubow, is quitting for health reasons, but his golden years will be very comfortable: He stands to collect as much as $37 million in retirement and disability benefits. During his five years as CEO, Gannett's stock price dropped from $72 to $10, and the company laid off hundreds of journalists, including people I know to have been very good journalists. I'm pretty sure that none of the fired journalists received a $37 million retirement package. I'm not even sure if collectively, all the journalists fired by Dubow's company received $37 million.

The Occupy Wall Street protests don't actually move me, in part because the goals of the movement are at once inchoate and ridiculous (as Caroline Baum at Bloomberg View points out); in part because I'm allergic to drumming circles; and in part because I think a regulated capitalist system is more or less a good thing. But news like this makes you despair. Does Craig Dubow actually believe he's worth $37 million? How much does a man need to live comfortably? How much can Craig Dubow eat?

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/well-this-might-make-me-want-to-occupy-wall-street/246329/