May 2006 | Hightower Lowdown

War Profits and Bat Mitzvahs

by Jim Hightower

David H. Brooks loves his little girl and, like any good daddy, wanted her to have a memorable Bat Mitzvah. So last November, David booked both floors of New York’s opulent Rainbow Room for her party and sent private jets to fetch such musicians as Aerosmith, Tom Petty, Kenny G, Don Henley, 50 Cent and DJ AM to entertain her and 300 of her best friends, each of whom was also given a little “party favor”—a bag of electronics and other goodies worth $1,000. Total cost of the Bat Mitzvah bash: $10 million.

You could write this off as yet another crass example of the excesses of the superrich, were it not for the source of Brooks’ wealth. He is a war profiteer. David’s company, DHB Industries, got a lucrative Pentagon contract after 9/11 to provide bulletproof vests to our troops in Iraq. Unfortunately, the vests were flawed, and both the marines and army had to recall more than 23,000 of them last year.

Meanwhile, David had used his company’s war windfall to line his own pockets. Prior to the Iraq war, he paid himself $525,000 a year. That’s a nice payday, but in 2004, he jacked up his take to $70 million—a 13,000 percent increase. That’s not all. He also made a massive sell-off of his DHB stock that same year, pocketing another $186 million.

But the sight of the CEO suddenly dumping his own stock spooked other investors, who drove DHB’s stock price from $22 a share to under $7. Brooks is presently under investigation by the SEC for financial wrongdoing, and he faces several lawsuits by investors for fraud and insider trading.

To learn how we can stop such obscene war profiteering and other excesses by greedheaded CEOs, call the Institute for Policy Studies at 202.234.9382 and ask to see its report entitled “Executive Excess 2005.”

©2006 Jim Hightower and Associates. Jim Hightower is a columnist and author. Visit jimhightower.com.

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