From the category archives:

CEO Compensation

Outrage of the Week: Super-paid CEOs Who Were Not Supermen After All

January 15, 2010

Never in the history of modern business leadership have CEOs been paid so much to achieve so little at such cost to so many. At the opening hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission held in Washington this week, key players in the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression admitted they did not see [...]

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Godman Sachs?

November 10, 2009

One of the dangers of excessive pay is that it tempts CEOs to think that maybe they really are god-like superheroes.  But few have actually boasted about the role like Goldman Sachs’ s Lloyd Blankfein. It has been a consistent view of these pages, and one much longer voiced by its author over some two [...]

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Bonfire of the Insanities: An Essay on AIG and Wall Street’s Culture of Entitlement

March 21, 2009

AIG’s bonuses have become more than just a tipping point for a long simmering resentment over executive compensation.  They have become an entire gravitational force field of umbrage at the greed, arrogance and now horrifically costly stupidity on the part of these Wall Street masters of the universe, as they preferred to be called in times [...]

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Outrage of the Week: The Faint Gesture of a CEO’s Sacrifice

February 13, 2009

When bank CEOs tried to fall into line before an outraged Congressional committee, they were a little disingenuous about the true extent of the sacrifice they are bearing. It is widely held that in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, an absence of meaningful transparency has been a major culprit. Too much in [...]

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John Mack’s Bonus Reality Check

February 11, 2009

We love what we do.  If you gave me no bonus in the best years, I would still be here.  John Mack,  CEO of Morgan Stanley, in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, February 11, 2009 When Mr. Mack rejoined Morgan Stanley in June 2005, he was awarded stock worth $26 million on day-one, [...]

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Brazil Interview on CEO Pay

December 22, 2008

My interview with AE Investimentos in Brazil on the hot topic of CEO pay is carried in its December issue. Executive remuneration and the role it has played in promoting the excessive risks and leverage that helped give birth to the current economic crisis are placing boards and pay rewards under a microscope as never [...]

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What If Citigroup Had a Real Board? Part 2

November 21, 2008

There is a reason why the bank’s board appears little more than a bystander to the destruction of shareholder wealth.  A good part of it has to do with its discredited governance structure. Watching Citigroup’s shares crash through the 10 dollar level, then nine, then eight, seven, six -like some kind of inexorable countdown leading [...]

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Outrage of the Week: Bankers Binging on the Bush Bailout Bonanza

October 25, 2008

Even in the face of their debacles of historic proportion, many of these institutions persist in acting in a manner more resembling an economic sociopath than a responsible steward of the public interest, whose salvation has essentially been made possible and underwritten by the American taxpayer. Reminiscent of another major Bush administration blunder where what [...]

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Did AIG’s Board Finally See the Flashing Lights in its Rearview Mirror?

October 16, 2008

The law has finally caught up with the stumbling insurance giant’s out-of-control compensation and highflying junkets. It took the sight of flashing red and blue lights in their rearview mirror before the visionless directors of AIG finally got the message about their failures and shortcomings.  Last week, we commented on the excesses in executive compensation and [...]

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