December’s Highlights (and Lowlights) in Executive Compensation

This won't change as long as the compensation committees for execs are made of up themselves, their cohorts, and their friends. Sort of like congress and other politicians who vote on raising their own wages.

For most of them its a win-win situation. They make out no matter what. If the company does well they do well. If it does poorly too many (certainly not all) continue to get their big compensation or even increases. And if the co. does really poor they get sacked, lots of people get laid off with next to nothing, and the execs go off with millions in parachutes. We've all seen a number of them play this "OK fine, go ahead and sack me" game and lots of other hard working dedicated employees are left holding the empty sack.

Where's the shared sacrifice? What kinds of raises did the rest or the employees get?

This is peanuts compared to what our Congress persons made through insider trading. Their total earnings should also be made public.

Disgraceful. Even worse, there seems to be almost no linkage between the company's performance and the bonuses. Once they are part of an exalted nobility of high corporate officers, they get paid no matter what happens. Does this pervert the entire principles of capitalism and free enterprise? Employees don't work hard because they want to run a great industrial enterprise; they want to get onto the management gravy train where they will not be held accountable.

the standard reply of corp america regarding excessive compensation
'it's needed to attract and keep top talent'

ha ha ha ha ha ha, isn't that funny considering what a f^&*(ed up mess corporate america is??

it applies for all levels of mgmnt in corp america. incompetance gets rewarded.
some CEO runs a company into the ground and is tossed out and they have a job within a week. some grunt gets laid off, never to work again

america..land of a few, for a few, by a few

Can we try "trickle up" economics for a little while. Cause "trickle down" isnt working.

In my experience in the corporate world it,s really the middle managers with much less compensation who keep the place going through thick and thin. The top guys come in with huge entrance compensation, turn the place upside down, lay off a bunch of people and then leave with a huge parachute. Sort of how the middle class somehow keeps things through thick and thin, no matter what, because they have no other option.

It's reports like this that make me want to sell the rest of my stocks. There is too much money in the stock market with little accountability. If someone asked me to invest in their restaurant or small business where they were paying themselves enormous amounts of cash, and the business was losing, I would think they were nuts. Yet public companies have no such problem finding investments.
Stupid money comes from the middle-class entrusting their entire retirement nest egg to Wall Street.

Value starts to evaporate from an item as soon as it's purchased. Unless the labor force has the ability to replace value to the currency that has been lost to this attrition, the economy will eventually fail. No if's, and's or but's.

I used to think that the CEOs should make a lot of money because they shoulder the risk if the company underperforms, but that's just not the case anymore.

Most of these CEOs never fix the problems. Poor performers are well rewarded.
It's impressive to hire leeches that add no value and then pay them millions in pay and bonuses. One day CEO pay will come back to historical norms. Just like housing and education costs will. Inflated by the Federal reserve and cheap money.

And their Social Security contributions stop at what level of compensation? These same CEO's wouldn't spare a french fry for a starving child - that's how they become so rich - pure greed.

But then remember :Reverandglenn, under your taxation system of paying a flat tax on all purchases, suddenly all the poor and middle class who pay nothing in income taxes currently (which is 48% of the population) would be paying a tax of 10% on all purchases. You want to hear whining, it would be deafening. Why do you think these same liberals bashed the 9-9-9 plan? Yet, if the truth was known, and liberals hate it and run from it, our founding fathers did not believe in an income tax, let alone a graduated one, and it only came into existence through an amendment to the Constitution. Thus the poor and the middle class would actually have a tax burden, and how would the liberals in the party of Welfare, the Demoncats, explain that to them? No more big refunds at the end of the year, and what's a poor person to do for his fix? Also, the money collected from a flat, accross the board tax on purchases should and must go to support rebuilding of factories, farmlands and infrastructure, and put Americans back to work instead of lazy, good for nothing loafers, baby factories, druggies and other parasites. Make welfare workfare, as Bill Clinton stated. Good God, they say, did he really mean it? Yes, he really did. Also, support e-verify, and close the borders if you want to help the poor and middle class.

I am a republican leaning towards becoming an indy, but some of this compensation is just plain outrageous. The Republican party can be so foolish when it stands firm against any kind of tax increase for the super wealthy. Yes, I know all the statistics about the upper 1% pays so much in taxes. Yet politically, I think you could squash the left's argument if we just gave in a little and offered say a 2-4% increase on marginal tax rates over 1M and then maybe another percentage or two on some higher number. The argument is always it hurts the small business owner and would hurt job creation. Ok then, exempt the small business owner. Then the issue of fairness comes in. Well, is it fair that a CEO can make 50M a year when sending jobs overseas or that Derek Jeter makes 20M a year for playing baseball?

However, I would not want our federal government to get more revenue when they have no control on their spending habits. A modest tax increase on the wealthy in conjunction with a balanced budget amendment is what we need.

I would also tax stock options at 100% if a company's workforce outside the us is higher in percentage than the company's revenues outside of the US.

so most seem to be most upset about this story but what about the athletes and other "celebrities"? In 2010 Manny Ramirez of the Dodgers had a contract that paid him more than $115,000 for each of the 162 games in the regular season. Now that is disgusting. And... 12 other players made even more than Manny.

Simple solution don't buy stocks in companies that overpay their executives.

Stock options granted to management/directors should be declared illegal. Options began with tech companies when money for salaries was in short supply. Of course huge companies CEO's and directors saw a good thing and began stuffing their pockets. If they want more stock, let them get the shares over the market or through the same stock purchase plan as the janitor on the company floor. You get a salary to DO AN OUTSTANDING JOB. That is your job. Even if a CEO runs the company into the ground or his/her decisions cause a market fall-off in price, the CEO gets stock options and/or a golden parachute witha job loss. This B..sh.t statement in the proxies about attracting and holding top executives gives them license to water down the average stockholders' holdings. Make it illegal under penalty of death.

When the distance between exec compensation and the salaries of the worker bee types was less (as in the 50s) most everyone did better. Unfortunately so many believe the Fox News and tea partier ethic that a very small wealthy group of people at the top is good for a country (just look at many South American countries and European history if you start to believe it).

These poor guys need all the tax cut they can get. Please don't forget to tell the GOP.