The Most Outrageous Acts of Corporate America

A guy that makes $2500 dollars an hour thinks it's his job to sit around and whine that the guy who makes $17 bucks is overpaid.

Why aren't these companies trying to find cheaper CEO's from India like they do other workers?

They are not private companies. They are publicly traded companies. The shareholder's interests are supposed to be represented by the board of directors but they routinely ignore their fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the shareholders (as noted in Alans post). That is a major problem with the stock market these days. Since most holders of equities are passive (either mutual funds, ETF's or separate account managers) who do not pay attention to corporate governance, the boards and the executives are never held accountable for their actions. Stocks are "rented" rather than "owned" these days. There are far too many traders and far too few actual investors for meaningful change to occur in corporate governance any time soon...

Executives are also robbing private pension plans of the average working person . They raid the pension fund by reducing the non-executive employees benefits and then re-allocate the executive branch with more pension benefits. They do this in the name of tough times.
Sometimes they add more to the pension funds, but they make sure that the average guy still gets less as they reap even more. And it's all legal, often lobbied, or should I say bribed, off of our corrupt politicians on both sides of the isle.

The most outrageous act is shutting down American factories, laying off American workers to set up production in the 3rd world. That way, they don't have to pay decent, middle class wages; they can pay slave wages in China.

HP shareholders should sell their shares and just move on with another company. This company is becoming like Yahoo.

It is one thing for the initial entrepeneur to make multi million, even billions. Bloomberg, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Gates, etc., all built their businesses from their own innovations and initiative. Most CEOs are just managers, even if they are very good managers. They sit on each other's boards and vote themselves obscene sums whatever their performance - then use every trick, some very questionable, to avoid taxes. Even the original entrepeneurs should pay substantial taxes to the country that made it possible.

So many people on here are so lost in what really happens on the exec boards.. these people often appoint each other to their boards and it is a matter of a rigged game at that point. Where the "board" aka. friends and cohorts vote for each others pay and benefits packages.

This would make a great weekly TV show, bringing to light the unbelievable waste of corporate money. That's right folks, that is your investment dollars being squandered by way of the interlocking boards of directors who award these perks to one another. We investors need to demand accountability, just like we should demand accountability from the government. People are people and they will all take advantage when they think that no one is looking. Keep your eyes on them and we will maybe get some honesty.

The common thread throughout Wall St, not just with the banks, but with all large publicly-traded companies, is that these boards/executives are making decisions about how to spend somebody else's money. You never see these types of arrangements in privately held companies of similar size. This OPM mentality is what leached over into the public employee unions over the past two decades and has resulted in ridiculous pension and benefit plans that will bankrupt most states/municipalities over the next decade. The bottom line is flat out greed combined with no accountability - middle class workers in the private sector get hit from both sides as their state and local taxes are raised to cover the public employee crooks, their federal taxes will be raised to cover the economic costs of the banking crisis, and any retirement assets they have flounder under the weight of egregious compensation of corporate executives. We need a middle class party that will fight both ends of this spectrum and protect the workers in the middle.

Hey, my spouse worked at Standard and Poor's. Because wrong conduct was exposed, along with unethical and corrupt behavior, they unleashed their fury and everything else in between. Unbelievable that this kind of rubbish is tolerated in this day and age! Support the Healthy Workplace Bill!

And - there is $17 million annually for CBS paying a news anchor to real a teleprompter for 30 minutes each evening. And - $20 million paid by NY Yankees for an outfielder to play 3 hours a day for 140 games.... It's not just Wall Street Execs with outrageous greed factors.

The right wingers will defend the logic of paying a CEO $20 million per year....and their argument is worthy. However, what is the logic in paying somebody $25 million to FAIL?

These guys are simply not worth the money. Most of these put up results no better or worse than any average mid level manager could obtain. They also get the money up front before there is actual performance.

So these CEOs make a pile of money that may make the shareholders richer, but the merger (they got the money for) may take the competition away making it more expensive for their products. Wheres the common good here

Republicans protect corporate corruption to the death,while Democrats protect government corruption to the death,between both parties corruption does quite well in America,its a shame all those Republicans,and Democrats hopes,and dreams are in the toilette,because of the corruption they protect,and blame the other evil party for its obvious coruption.

Here is what you can do as good citizen...
1. Keep your money with good banks or credit unions.
2. Don't do any business (loans/FDs) with such big banks.
3. Avoid doing business with any individual or institute overpaid.
4. Any time before you spend money see where it gonna end up.

Bank of America derivative move puts US tax payers on the hook for 75 trillion.

The President or CEO's talents can be measured by his skills in inovating new products(like Steve Jobs),Marketing and Promotion of new products,his skills in managing management workers productivity relationship,not merely skills on accouting strategy skills and company stocks price profit margin manipulation strategy.

We hold up corporate executives that slash jobs and send jobs overseas like they are great business people. The Jack Welch types are what ruined this country but no matter how much you pay an idiot like this they think they are worth more. Ruthless is not the key attribute that business leaders need.