i guess there must be a whole new meaning to the word COMMITTMENT as what is now in my ol trusty websters. btw, was the 10s of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions given to the mayor of boston and the governor of the commonwealth part of that COMMITTMENT. or was that just your plain ol form of bribery or extortion aka theft of honest services being practiced? ma

This practice: "Liberty Mutual spokesman John Cusolito said the company also provides the CEO and board members with extra money to cover income taxes they might face related to the trips." is called "grossing up". I think it's very appropriate. The whole idea of paying someone on the basis of the value of "ghost stock" is also pretty gross too. The money still comes out of the "mutual" owner's till. I am glad Liberty Mutual is not our insurance company.

Clearly Kelly and the Liberty Mutual management team is incapable of truly understanding the situation. Their entire world is so insular that they have totally lost touch with the broader world. Their response is a classic example of, "Here's the game we were playing. Within the context of the game, the numbers were justifiable." --It's the whole game that is unacceptable.-- The numbers are the indicators of the game. Whether it's stock options with legal names to avoid taxes, accounting gimmicks to avoid a number one year and move it to another, or any other arcane game, this situation is putrid. The insurance industry is a bastion of greed. Prey upon the fear of disaster, and seduce people into paying billions of dollars in premiums. Create endless legal gimmicks with armies of lawyers to avoid paying on promises people thought they understood, but didn't. Deal out the spoils to management and board. Then deal out more of the spoils to poker players in the stock market, some of whom are the previously mentioned management and board members. Thieves with fountain pens are far more disgusting than thieves who lift an electronic gadget from the big box store.

Clueless.

The 'accounting issue' was that he was highly compensated. The wonderful thing about this campaign season is that we are finally getting a look at all the perfectly legal things that captains of industry can do to extract vast quantities of money from, ultimately, ordinary people. The London _Economist_ magazine, whose primary editorial position is pro free trade, recently classified finance along with oil and mineral companies as an 'extractive' industry. Every so often these industries suck the egg dry - see: S&L crisis, tech bubble, mortgage crisis. I wasn't born a socialist, but I think they should be charged more for the privilege of exploitation. Certainly they shouldn't be getting tax breaks.

So when and where is Liberty Mutual going to schedule their Annual Meeting? Edmund F. "Ted'' Kelly at the age of 65 years and 13 years as an Administrator at Liberty Mutual, plus the assistance of the incestuous Liberty Mutual Board of Directors got himself a pile of money for life. All the while the customers of Liberty Mutual Insurance policies witnessed their annual costs rise each year. The policy holders ought to attend this meeting. I don't have insurance with Liberty Mutual - or else I would certainly make every effort to be there.

As a Liberty Mutual customer for almost 40 years who now carries four different kinds of policies with this company, I am not in the least surprised by any of this news. It's old news to me. When I was young, I avoided dating Harvard Business types - I am sorry, but I found them to be repulsive sleaze balls in the making. (Apologies to the minority of HBS grads who are not.) Don't you love their TV ads all over the place asking US if we put a sense "responsibility" into our lives? Ha ha!

Oh come on! Is this the best LM's PR flacks can do? Pathetic. The fact remains that huge amounts of money went to Kelly (and other LM execs) when a responsible board of directors would have dedicated most of it to the policy owners and put a reasonable cap on what Kelly (and others) could make regardless of LM's success. These people make me sick.

I love when the Boyos turn on each other. Brian's Jihad against Teddy is classic Boston.