Richard D. Wolff

Professor Wolff, I happen to own some CVS stock, so recently I received a half-inch thick (thin paper, small type, dense language) Merger Proposal outlining CVS's purchase of Aetna. Buried in the middle of this document is a section, "Quantification of Potential Payments to Aetna Executive Officers in Connection with the Merger". It lists the compensation to be received by five top Aetna executives as severance. Between the five of them, they will walk away with over 80 million dollars in cash, equity, and benefits. Not for performing anything, or adding any value, but for walking away. It was a sobering experience to read it right there in the actual document, as opposed to in a news report. That's a lot of money to just leak out of the system like that. All the best, David Baldwin Cranston, RI