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Cynthetiq · 07-29-2008, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

I didn't say it was right. I just said it wasn't causal. Things that happen at the same time aren't necessarily causal of one another, they can each be caused by independent causes. You can't show that NWA would have had no layoffs or even smaller layoffs if the management had not gotten a raise. I've done plenty of chapter 11 work and there is pretty much ALWAYS a spate of layoffs. That's one of the ways companies survive bankrupties, is by restructuring.

and one of the ways that CEOs get compensated is by accomlishing such tasks and making such decisions. It's not an easy decision to fire someone. You are directly affecting someone's life negatively. You are removing the ability for them to have an income. Maybe if they are lucky they get a severence.

I've had to lay people off before, it's not an easy decision to make which ones, let alone have to send down to the rank and file cost cuts and head count cuts across the board. You work day to day with some of these people and I expect to be paid more because when the time comes I have to do such stomach churning things.

Now looking at a CEO I knew personally and was friendly with is Tom Freston. Why did he get fired from Viacom? Because after a year all the achievements he'd done for 20 years at MTV amounted to squat because he couldn't move the stock price with any of the decisions he made. Yes he had a golden parachute, $20M payout. Stock is still floundering... even after laying off 250 people including some long time executives.

MTV Layoffs Include Execs
-----Added 29/7/2008 at 02 : 43 : 40-----

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

Will, I don't think there is any CEO out there who cuts little people's salaries for the purpose of freeing up money so he can buy a second yacht. That's a cartoon, that's not reality.

What's going on with CEO salaries is, as I said, similar to movie star or sports star salaries. There are a tiny number of people who are qualified for them and the competition to attract the talent is intense. It's a high-risk, high reward job, and there are lots of flameouts. I'm really amazed at why people find this to be so mysterious. The rewards of being at the very top of one's game are enormous relative to the second tier - and this is true not just for CEOs but for any similar kind of endeavor where the talent pool is shallow and the stakes are high. If CEOs were easy to replace they would be a lot less expensive. But they're not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poppinjay

Al Dunlap. Charles Koch. Ilia Lekach.

Dunlap first slashed Coleman factory workers, then got it into his head that he should have a fancy log cabin headquarters in the Rockies instead of affordable Wichita.

Charles Koch's family is so dysfunctional, it makes the Bundys look like the Waltons. His HQ looks, I'm not making this up, eerily similar to The Legion of Doom HQ. He and his brother brow beat employees into making conservative campaign donations.

Ilia Lekach is just an egotistical pink silk underwear fuckup.

Not only is that against many compensation rules, it definitely is now against Sarbanes Oxley rules.

Even Steve Ballmer could not get an XBox 360 because of SOX compliance.