GM boss in cash grab

As General Motors slashes jobs, closes plants and battles to avoid bankruptcy, the company’s CEO has set up a retirement plan that will pay him at least $4.6 million a year – nearly twice his current salary.

G. Richard Wagoner, who the New York Post calls "the greediest, most undeserving CEO since Chainsaw Al Dunlap," was named GM’s chief financial officer in 1992, when the company had a global payroll of 750,000 employees.

Under Wagoner’s command as CFO and, since 2000, CEO, the carmaker has seen its employees dwindle to 324,000.

Now the company has announced plans to cut 30,000 more jobs and close 12 North American plants, and Wagoner is denying rampant rumors that GM is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection. The carmaker’s pension fund is under-funded by more than $45 billion, according to the Post. But Wagoner has nothing to worry about. He has a Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan, which allows a company to use after-tax dollars "that rightly belong to shareholders to shower riches on the CEO instead," the Post reports.

Best of all for Wagoner, this payout comes from funds that are separate from those underpinning the retirement programs of ordinary workers, which means he’ll pocket his $4.6 million-plus a year even if GM files for bankruptcy. More at NewsMax.com