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The perks given to retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch have made headlines across the country. And while no one denies that Mr. Welch did great things for GE, his contention that the outrage over the revelations of the perks is unfair -- saying that only now, "post-Enron", are they being "misportrayed as an excessive retirement package" rings a little defensive, to our ears.

Just because the public -- and shareholders -- have only now found out what's been going on at the highest levels of corporate power doesn't mean it's been right. It just means they've found out.

The New York Times, among others, is reporting that:

General Electric said today that it had agreed to cooperate with a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into a compensation agreement with its former chief executive, John F. Welch Jr., and that the company had acceded to a request by Mr. Welch to reduce the compensation he receives.

Mr. Welch, who has come under widespread public criticism over the perks he has been receiving from the company, said in a column in The Wall Street Journal today that he would pay an estimated $2 million to $2.5 million a year for the use of company planes and an apartment.

Exactly what were the perks that GE shareholders are paying for?

...there were all those Yankees, Knicks, Red Sox, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and opera tickets to which Mr. Welch presumably had first dibs. In addition, G.E. provides its former chief executive with the use of the company Boeing 737, four country-club memberships, satellite TV at his four homes and all the costs of maintaining his G.E.-owned Manhattan apartment — from the servants to the food, wine and toiletries.

Mr. Welch...even gets free flowers and toiletries in the $15 million apartment that G.E. maintains for him in Manhattan.

And it's not just that this is all being paid by the shareholders. Again, from The New York Times:

The $2.5 million that Mr. Welch estimated he would pay annually may be far less than the actual cost to G.E. to provide those services because of government rules on how to value perks. For example, under federal rules, it would cost an executive less than $500 to take a corporate jet from New York to Paris on vacation, but the flight would actually cost shareholders at least $15,000.

So what else has GE been doing with their money? Being very generous to Republicans, for one thing. From The Center for Responsive Politics:

General Electric
PAC Summary Data:

2002 election (so far):

Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates $613,300 (41% to Democrats, 59% to Republicans)

2000 election:

Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates $879,050 (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans)

1998 Election:

Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates $663,000 (42% to Democrats, 58% to Republicans)

General Electric's Soft-money donations 1999-2002: $521,702

To Dems: $175,500
To Republicans: $346,202

Meanwhile, GE's stock price has fallen from a 52-week high of $41.84 to $26.75.