A Very Corporate Christmas

Arianna's latest column is just too funny not to post (although I'm more in favor of links, this is short and sweet):

A Very Corporate Christmas: No Need To Ask If They've Been
Naughty Or Nice

By Arianna Huffington

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Actually,
for corporate America, more the latter than the former, what with
all the Congressional investigations, indictments, camera ready
perp walks, SEC fines, multimillion dollar restatements of
earnings, and billion dollar bankruptcies. (Welcome to the club,
Conseco!)

Things have been especially hard on this country's CEOs, who have
undergone the most drastic image shift since MTV transformed Ozzy
Osbourne from a drug-addled satanic rocker, famous for biting the
head off a live bat, into America's cuddliest dad. Gone are the
days when they were treated like American royalty, invited on
talk shows and glorified on the covers of magazines. Their faces
are now more likely to appear in mug shot photos or not very well
concealed behind a raincoat or newspaper as they are being perp
walked to the police station.

I've got a feeling it isn't going to be a very merry Christmas
this year in CEO-land. You can almost picture our corporate
Capones, rolling out of bed in their silk pajamas and excitedly
trundling down the halls of their vacation homes in Aspen,
Greenwich, Gstaad, or St. Barth's on Christmas morning only to
find their diamond-encrusted stockings overflowing with lumps of
coal. It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for them. Naah,
not really.

But this is the holiday season, after all. So in that spirit I
have decided to put my animus aside, at least for one column, and
draw up a list of the gifts I'm planning to give to some of my
not-so-favorite corporate kingpins. (This is no easy task, by the
way. I mean, what do you get for the CEO who has stolen
everything? A box of Harry and David's finest pears just
isn't going to cut it.)

Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow: A warehouse full of
Hallmark's new "Sorry I Gutted Your Life Savings" cards to be
signed and sent to former Enron employees.

Dennis Kozlowski: Something to go with that $6,000 shower curtain
of his. Like a $2,000 toilet brush. No, this is Dennis Kozlowski,
I'll make it an $8,000 toilet brush. Oh, hell, why not go for
the top of the line. I am going to get Dennis Kozlowski a $13,000
toilet brush. And he better use it. Plus, DVDs of those art heist
classics "Topkapi," "Entrapment," and "The Thomas Crown Affair."

The Rigas Clan: Applying the holiday maxim that the best gift is
one that you make yourself, I've had t-shirts printed up for
the Rigas kids that say, "My Dad Looted the Company, and All I
Got Was This Lousy Shirt and an Adjoining Jail Cell!"

Those duplicitous stock analysts at Merrill Lynch: Loads and
loads of this year's hottest gifts. (Actually, it's a bunch of
"crap." But we won't tell them that -- let 'em see how it feels
for a change.)

Martha Stewart: I've got a hunch she'd appreciate something
hand-made rather than store bought. So I've whipped up a paper
trail proving incontrovertibly that she didn't sell her shares of
ImClone because of insider information but because she had a
standing stop-loss order with her broker.

Incoming Treasury Secretary John Snow: A train set for the CSX
CEO. But I'm not paying sales tax on it. Why should I, when CSX
hasn't for three of the four last very profitable years!

Sam Waksal: Forgeries of the art he had to sell to pay off
cheated investors. As a small time fraud himself, Waksal might
appreciate fake art hanging in his cell.

The Bush Economic Team: Since the president seems intent on
loading up on advisors recycled from the Ford Administration, how
about a slightly rusty collection of those ridiculous WIN (Whip
Inflation Now) buttons?

Steve Case, Gerry Levin, Bob Pittman and the gang responsible for
the AOL-Time Warner merger: A paperweight embossed with "Bigger
Isn't Necessarily Better" and a needlepoint "Synergy Is Dead!"
throw pillow.

Eli Lilly: Why bother? The drug-maker already got its gift early,
in the form of that billion-dollar provision tacked on to the
Homeland Security Bill.

Dick Cheney: A framed and mounted chunk of asbestos to
commemorate his time as CEO of Halliburton, especially his
decision to acquire asbestos maker Dresser Industries -- a savvy
business move that culminated last week with the VP's former
company agreeing to cough up $4 billion to settle hundreds of
thousands of asbestos related lawsuits.

Henry Blodget, Mary Meeker, and all the other stock touts who
kept pumping the Wall Street bubble: A super-sized container of
paper towels to help wipe all that egg off their faces.

Jim Cramer: A Valium. A Xanax. And a producer willing to tell him
that it's okay not to yell all the time.

Harvey Pitt: A new position where his never-ending conflicts of
interest won't be such a big liability. I hear Kissinger
Associates is looking for an in-house attorney.

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman-designate William
Donaldson: The phone number of corporate crime fighter Eliot
Spitzer.

Jack Grubman: A copy of "Getting Your Kid Into The Best Schools
Without Getting Yourself Indicted."

The 108th Congress: A reminder that the work of cleaning up
corporate America is far from done.

Jack Welch: To help make up for all those pricey perks he gave
up, three front row tickets to see La Boheme on Broadway -- one
for him, one for his lover, and one for his divorce lawyer. Plus,
a truckload of remaindered copies of his autobiography, "Jack:
Straight From the Gut," for which he got a $7.1 million advance.

The Big Three Accounting Firms: A Learning Annex course in
"Turning A Profit Without Cooking the Books."

Alan Greenspan: Another round of "irrational exuberance" to
caution against. And a smile.