I was just talking about the issue of executive compensation in this country today. It has gotten insanely out of hand in terms of the multipliers of what CEOs and CFOs make compared to average employees.
You are incorrect that the outcry is only now. There has long been an awareness of this as a worsening problem. I am hoping that this financial crisis will be the leverage needed to make the changes that should have been made years ago.
Here is the thing. If you are compensating a CEO outlandishly as a way for him or her to participate in the upside, because you contend that they are primarily responsible for the company’s success, then the CEO’s compensation has to be, to some extent, performance-based. Probably it should be a base (plus a reasonable severance if the CEO is not fired for cause) with additional monies or stock dependent on performance. The way things are now, it seems like robbing the shareholders.
The obscenity of passing out executive bonuses as your poor investment decisions drove a more than 100-year-old company into the ground speaks for itself. If I were a sharholder, I would take those executives to court. I think there is every chance that money is recoverable. Beyond that, to do so, when you know you have destroyed the retirement resources of all of your employees is sickenly unethical and immoral and should be illegal.
I have to say, TNH, that I would not want to be on a boat or in a boardroom with you. Further, your support for every man or woman for themselves is so not what being a hippie was about.