The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

This shouldn't surprise anyone

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation—read: the government—read: us, as we live in a frickin' REPUBLIC—has taken over the Sears Holdings pension fund because, basically, Eddie Lampert has driven it into the ground:

The agency covers individuals’ pensions, up to certain limits, if an insured pension plan shuts down without enough money to pay all benefits. It estimates Sears’ two pension plans are underfunded by about $1.4 billion. As a creditor, the agency could attempt to recover some of that money through the bankruptcy.

Ron Olbrysh, chairman of the National Association of Retired Sears Employees, said the guarantee means retirees aren’t worried about losing pensions, but they do have concerns about other benefits.

“The pensions are secure through Sears or through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.,” he said. “The big impact if Sears does liquidate is that retirees will lose life insurance.”

The Daily Parker has followed the destruction of America's iconic retailer for years, watching the incompetence and self-dealing of Eddie Lampert the whole time. And here we are. Lampert will slide away from Sears with tens, or even hundreds, of millions of dollars, while the people who actually showed up every day to keep the stores open go bankrupt. Ironically, Lampert gets to do this by declaring bankruptcy. And the banks and investors he's stiffing have known this would happen for years. But they'll still show up in Federal court to argue that their claims to Sears' assets trump (no irony there) the employees'.

There seems to me a simple solution to the problem that Lampert's destruction of Sears epitomizes. Let's just change the law slightly to make officers of corporations liable in civil and criminal actions for the behavior of the corporations they represent. It's not a radical idea: corporations already have the right to act as people under the law. This is a simple balancing.

I don't think it's controversial to say that Eddie Lampert should experience all the consequences of his horrible management of Sears, including going down with the sinking ship. Especially because his management of the company was to drill a hole in the keel and then let his managers fight over how to keep the ship afloat.

When the revolution comes, I hope Lampert—and by extension, his adolescent worship of Ayn Rand—will be first against the wall.

Comments are closed