Obama Sets Executive Pay Limits - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 02-09-2009, 09:18 AM

here's some nice excerpts from the oxford english dictionary definition of fraud.
figure out which ones apply for yourself.
it's fun AND it's easy.

Quote:

1. The quality or disposition of being deceitful; faithlessness, insincerity. Now rare.
?a1400 Morte Arth. 3919 Alle for falsede, and frawde. c1430 LYDG. Min. Poems 162 Fle doubilnesse, fraud, and collusioun. 1508 DUNBAR Twa mariit wemen 255, I semyt sober, and sueit, et sempill without fraud. 1599 SHAKES. Much Ado II. iii. 74 The fraud of men was euer so. 1672 MARVELL Corr. Wks. 1872-5 II. 408, I do not believe there is any fraud in him. 1718 HICKES & NELSON J. Kettlewell II. xxvi. 128 A Person of Simplicity without Fraud. 1827 MACAULAY Machiav. Ess. (1854) 36 Vices..which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud and hypocrisy.
personified. 1606 DEKKER Sev. Sinnes II. (Arb.) 21 Frawd (with two faces) is his Daughter. 1790 BURKE Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 88 The discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud, and beggared rapine.

2. a. Criminal deception; the using of false representations to obtain an unjust advantage or to injure the rights or interests of another.
c1330 R. BRUNNE Chron. (1810) 128 In alle manere cause he sought {th}e right in skille, To gile no to fraude wild he neuer tille. 1382 WYCLIF Mark x. 19 Do no fraude, worschipe thi fadir and modir. 1570 B. GOOGE Pop. Kingd. I. (1880) 7 But safely keepes that he hath long, with frawde and lying got. 1667 MILTON P.L. I. 646 To work in close design, by fraud or guile, What force effected not. 1726-7 SWIFT Gulliver I. vi. 67 They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft. 1829 LYTTON Devereux III. iii, Fraud has been practised.

b. in Law. in fraud of, to the fraud of: so as to defraud; also, to the detriment or hindrance of.
[1278 Stat. Glouc. 6 Edw. I, c. 11 Ou par collusiun ou par fraude pur fere le termer perdre sun terme. 1292 BRITTON I. ii. §11 Ne nule manere de fraude.] 1590 SWINBURNE Testaments 151 The condition is reiected, as being made in fraude of mariage. 1596 SPENSER State Irel. Wks. (Globe) 622/2 The same Statutes..are often..wrested to the fraud of the subject. 1845 STEPHEN Comm. Laws Eng. (1874) II. 268 And shall not have deposited or invested in fraud of his creditors. 1848 WHARTON Law Lex., Fraud, all deceitful practices in defrauding or endeavouring to defraud another of his known right, by means of some artful device, contrary to the plain rule of common honesty.

3. a. An act or instance of deception, an artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured, a dishonest trick or stratagem.
c1374 CHAUCER Boeth. I. pr. iv. 9 (Camb. MS.) The iustice Regal hadde whilom demed hem bothe to gon into exil for hir trecheryes and fraudes. c1440 York Myst. xxxiii. 131 If {ygh}e feyne slike frawdis. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 10b, Moo than a thousande wayes he hath by his craftly fraudes to deceyue man. 1691 HARTCLIFFE Virtues 317 The Pharisees..made great shews of Piety, to cover their Frauds and Rapines. 1751 JOHNSON Rambler No. 126 {page}4 Declaiming against the frauds of any employment. 1836 J. GILBERT Chr. Atonem. iii. (1852) 72 The fraud of imputing guilt to a known innocent being. 1852 C. M. YONGE Cameos II. xxix. 312 Most of the Dauphin's followers gloried in their successful fraud and murder.

Cynthetiq · 02-09-2009, 09:34 AM

I see those definitions and understand them, but again, don't see how it is fraud. There is no deceit.

roachboy · 02-09-2009, 09:47 AM

maybe renaming a ceo position in order to avoid caps on compensation can be understood as just manoevering for material advantage, but it can also be understood as an act of deception in itself.

kinda in the way that a corporation passing it's liquidity through a network of offshore accounts in order to manipulate its tax rates or for other purposes is deceptive, even if it's legal.

more generally, you'd think people would recognize the severity of the situation we're in and kinda work within that rather than working out ways to reconfigure job titles in order to keep maximum income flowing to themselves.
but maybe thinking that way is beyond the scope of what one should expect under this form of capitalism from those who benefit from the way the system is organized.
but if that's the case, the problems that organization is moving through are more fundamental that any of us think.

Cynthetiq · 02-09-2009, 10:03 AM

sorry yes the CEO renaming is close to fraud since the spirit of the law would I assume not saw something as pigeon holed as CEO/PRESIDENT or the like.

but the rest of the compensation packages can be generated creatively. I found some editorials overseas interesting that they viewed the current group of people in positions not the savvy tenured financiers but the 2nd and 3rd stringers because the 1st stringers all moved to private hedge funds and equity management firms.

I'm not in agreement to any pay caps normally, but since they are playing with both of our money, I think there's some accountability that is required. This is why I wasn't a fan of the bailout to begin with, the banks should have just failed and a fire sale for their assets ensue.

aceventura3 · 02-09-2009, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

what the wsj is advocating, ace, is fraud.
that's the point.
the explanation for it is an unhinged corporate culture, one in which all that is important is me me me, what's in my interest, what serves my immediate material requirements.

Pretty interesting. Some how I get the feeling that there is a view that a CEO or executive can not be worth the money they get paid. In sports, if you have a star performer it is easy to see how and why they can demand the highest compensation, but the same is true in business. There is also a risk. In some cases a corporation might pay too much for a person that under achieves. If this is the case, I suggest that we let the market punish the corporation for the mistake. It seems that Obama and many who support his empty gesture differ. So, "games" have to be come part of the culture. The bottom-line is performance is going to get rewarded and poor performance punished. Just let the system work.

Speaking of games here is another tid-bid I read today related to empty gestures:

Quote:

Outsourcing is another way to get around a pay cap. In 2003 and 2004, managers at Harvard University's giant endowment came under withering fire from the ivory tower for earning upward of $35 million apiece. They soon left to start their own firms, which were promptly hired by the endowment and got paid a percentage of assets under management rather than a cash salary and bonus. That new form of payment stopped the criticism cold -- even though it isn't likely the managers earned any less. Nor did it reduce risk-taking: One spinoff from Harvard Management Co., Jeff Larson's Sowood Capital, blew up in 2007, dealing Harvard a $350 million loss.

Cap Won't Hold Back Street's Big Dogs - WSJ.com

Who is at fault? the managers? Harvard? All parties are adults, if there was fraud it was in the pretense on the part of the critics thinking they could get what the Harvard thought were top tier money managers on the "cheap".

And so it goes, Obama wants to play games and some think the market won't respond. Top executives are worth more than $500,000/year and they will get paid.
-----Added 9/2/2009 at 02 : 03 : 42-----

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

maybe renaming a ceo position in order to avoid caps on compensation can be understood as just manoevering for material advantage, but it can also be understood as an act of deception in itself.

Why don't you see the deception in Obama's empty gesture?

Government is in over its head, we discussed this in some other threads on regulation. Regulators will always be behind the the creativity of those who participate in the market. At best all regulators can do is respond and hope they get it right. A simpler and better approach is A) not bailing companies out and B) Full and fair disclosure.

roachboy · 02-09-2009, 11:29 AM

ace--give me a break. if there's a consistent assumption at play in this rather tedious exchange, it is yours, and it is that ceo's are necessarily worth what they're paid. the second one is simpler still--that obama's statements concerning excessive executive compensation in the context of firms that are getting bailout money is somehow "empty"--and you seem to further assume that if you write the phrase "empty gesture" enough times that it will stop referring only to itself and will acquire some kind of weight for people who are not you.

but the facts are not with you on this, as they are not on most things when you try to argue from your rightwing political viewpoint: what prompted obama to say that such levels of compensation are "shameful" is obvious. that you do not think it was shameful has much to do with your sycophantic relation to the imaginary "captains of industry" that seem to dance about in Heroic Conservative Pseudo-accounts of contemporary capitalism and nowhere else.

the cause of these incidents is self-evident as well: no controls built into the first round of tarp money.
to dodge this, you adopted a kind of peculiar limbaugh-esque imaginary history that blames obama for it. fine, whatever.

you operate under the illusion that markets are rational, that bad actors are punished blah blah blah. at this point, i see no reason to take that nonsense seriously any more--i've made an effort to engage you on this and it's clearly a waste of my time.

in order to make this ridiculous a priori viewpoint operational in the present context, you are reduced to wishing away a significant crisis of captialism itself--and in that, you are simply dreaming. dream as you like, ace, but don't expect that your dreaming will be confused with an account of reality.

i'm going to do something that's more interesting than talking with you---i'm thinking that stapling my hand to my desk would be more fun. let's see, shall we?

aceventura3 · 02-09-2009, 11:39 AM

Like Obama you communicate in platitudes; "give me a break", "the facts are not with you", "self evident", "operate under the illusion". There is no reasoned response I can give. You present a lot of words, with little in specifics. Now that I have that off of my chest, I will get back to a focus on my "dreaming".

Derwood · 02-09-2009, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Pretty interesting. Some how I get the feeling that there is a view that a CEO or executive can not be worth the money they get paid. In sports, if you have a star performer it is easy to see how and why they can demand the highest compensation, but the same is true in business. There is also a risk. In some cases a corporation might pay too much for a person that under achieves. If this is the case, I suggest that we let the market punish the corporation for the mistake.

If a corporation of, say, 50,000 employees decides to give their CEO $10,000,000/year (and by this, I mean the Board of Directors decides), and that CEO fails, you suggest that the market should punish the corporation for the mistake. Isn't the end result of such "punishment" a round of low-level employee layoffs and a comfy severance package for the outgoing CEO? In other words, why support a system that punishes the lower level workers for the mistakes of the executives?

Cynthetiq · 02-09-2009, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

If a corporation of, say, 50,000 employees decides to give their CEO $10,000,000/year (and by this, I mean the Board of Directors decides), and that CEO fails, you suggest that the market should punish the corporation for the mistake. Isn't the end result of such "punishment" a round of low-level employee layoffs and a comfy severance package for the outgoing CEO? In other words, why support a system that punishes the lower level workers for the mistakes of the executives?

Actually it is the shareholders that get to punish the company. Shareholders can request the BOD to remove the CEO. The workers SOMETIMES get punished in the harshest of environments and situations, but not always.

Sumner Redstone (majority stock holder) punished Frank Bianci and Tom Freston directly after stock prices didn't respond upwards to the "good moves" they were doing.

Note that many PRIVATE companies don't have the same monetary performance requirements but still compensate their CEOs with million dollar salaries.

roachboy · 02-09-2009, 12:27 PM

cyn--what that builds into corporate governance is one and only one feedback loop--the only responsibility a ceo has institutionally is to increase shareholder value. in most european countries, there are a variety of such institutionalized loops, some of which link the ceo to labor (at least in theory) by way of production councils (i can't remember the exact name for them at the moment--comité d'enterprise in french)--you'd think that multiplying these institutions would make corporations less despotic (except with reference to shareholder profits)...more later maybe,

Cynthetiq · 02-09-2009, 12:42 PM

I'm be happy to pay European prices for goods and services... if those same kinds of controls are in place. I don't think everyone else is willing to pay that high a price for goods and services.

In this respect, how do you create different loops since the bank is nationalized at this point?

I'm with Ace, good CEOs are like superstars. They have a knack or talent to get people motivated and excited about their company, this goes for workers, consumers, bankers, manufacturers, etc...

powerclown · 02-09-2009, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Pretty interesting. Some how I get the feeling that there is a view that a CEO or executive can not be worth the money they get paid. In sports, if you have a star performer it is easy to see how and why they can demand the highest compensation, but the same is true in business. There is also a risk. In some cases a corporation might pay too much for a person that under achieves. If this is the case, I suggest that we let the market punish the corporation for the mistake. It seems that Obama and many who support his empty gesture differ. So, "games" have to be come part of the culture. The bottom-line is performance is going to get rewarded and poor performance punished. Just let the system work.

Makes sense to me. Also, it's not just CEOs who are making over $500k in these companies, either. Sometimes there are thousands of employees in large multinational companies making over $500k, so while what Obama is talking about might sound reasonable and responsible on the eve of a $800 billion economic stimulus package, it really has no basis in reality.

roachboy · 02-09-2009, 02:46 PM

conservatives and their information phobia...there should be a drug that can be taken to deal with that disorder.

you might want to check this out.

http://www.faireconomy.org/files/exe...xcess_2008.pdf

the report has a particularly interesting spin which points out the amount of money taxpayers--you know, those folk the right likes to pretend it defends--end up losing as a function of the tax code which effectively subsidizes these pay levels.

personally, i look at this as an insane skewing in the distribution of resources and cannot for the life of me figure out how it is exactly that the populist right was persuaded that defending this sort of nonsense was in any way in their economic interest. but there are greater mysteries in the world, ones that do not lead toward total cynicism in thinking about the way this one does.

Seaver · 02-09-2009, 07:18 PM

Quote:

personally, i look at this as an insane skewing in the distribution of resources and cannot for the life of me figure out how it is exactly that the populist right was persuaded that defending this sort of nonsense was in any way in their economic interest. but there are greater mysteries in the world, ones that do not lead toward total cynicism in thinking about the way this one does.

Maybe because a lot of us in the populist movement realize historical fact when we see it. That in no society in history has everyone held an equal share, and they never will so long as we're human?

My reasoning has nothing to do with CEO's being paid well, it has to do with CEO's that failed miserably being paid well. People are paid by how difficult they are to replace. If a manager is integral to a company's success, he should be compensated as such. If a manager is worthless he should be paid as such. The CEO's who need bailouts failed in their duty, so if they need a bailout they should not get a windfall.

This is not a failure of the capitalist system no matter how you try to force that square into the circle. This is a failure of the people in charge keeping a lid on lending to those who can repay, and a failure of those keeping a lid on corporate expenses vs. international competition.

roachboy · 02-09-2009, 07:56 PM

the alternative is not either exactly the way things are (minus the requisite "bad apples") or absolutely flat income for all--the alternative is more an entirely skewed distribution of resources as over against one that is less so, more functional and equitable. read the report, if you haven't. the data in it is surprising, particularly the comparisons between ceo income levels and the average salary of working people in america--you know, wage laborers, regular folk.

imagine the research and development that might take place were this system less entirely geared around shareholder profits detached from any possible linkage of production to a social totality. imagine the jobs that might be created if a significant percentage of the money paid to the upper ends of corporations were instead plowed back into long-term investments.

i don't think this populist movement has thought real hard about any of this. that movement sure hasn't gathered much information, if the only option on the table is A or the complete opposite of A.

aceventura3 · 02-10-2009, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

If a corporation of, say, 50,000 employees decides to give their CEO $10,000,000/year (and by this, I mean the Board of Directors decides), and that CEO fails, you suggest that the market should punish the corporation for the mistake. Isn't the end result of such "punishment" a round of low-level employee layoffs and a comfy severance package for the outgoing CEO? In other words, why support a system that punishes the lower level workers for the mistakes of the executives?

The employees of failed companies go to work for successful companies.
-----Added 10/2/2009 at 11 : 35 : 58-----

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

--the only responsibility a ceo has institutionally is to increase shareholder value.

Your use of the word "only" is misleading. A CEO of a publicly traded corporations has legal and fiduciary responsibilities responsibilities to constituents other than shareholders.
-----Added 10/2/2009 at 11 : 41 : 59-----

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

conservatives and their information phobia...there should be a drug that can be taken to deal with that disorder.

you might want to check this out.

http://www.faireconomy.org/files/exe...xcess_2008.pdf

In the Key Findings section:

Quote:

Average U.S. taxpayers subsidize
excessive executive compensation — by more than $20 billion per year — via a
variety of tax and accounting loopholes.

The problem is not with the CEO but with the convoluted tax code. Taxation based on consumption would tax people based on lifestyle rather than "income" which can be manipulated very easily. If a person lives like a billionaire they should be taxed accordingly, we should not tax labor, savings and investments.

Derwood · 02-10-2009, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

The employees of failed companies go to work for successful companies.

yeah? a lot of companies hiring these days? do tell

aceventura3 · 02-10-2009, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

yeah? a lot of companies hiring these days? do tell

There are companies hiring. There is unemployment compensation. There is a concept called saving for a rainy day. There are educational and job re-training opportunities. There is taking your skills and starting your own business. There is Ebay. And let's not forget the government is going to be hiring.

Notice how lately many are talking about the acceleration in job losses in the past three months. By chance could this be correlated to Obama's election and his continued negativity? We don't need our President continually telling us that this is the worst economic environment since the Depression. It wasn't three months ago when he said it and it is not now, but if he keeps saying it - it will become truth.

Cynthetiq · 02-10-2009, 09:13 AM

Gordon Brown already said it.

BBC NEWS | Politics | World depression claim 'a slip'

"We should agree as a world on a monetary and fiscal stimulus that will take the world out of r... depression."

roachboy · 02-10-2009, 09:13 AM

that's absurd, ace.

the reasons for job loss have everything to do with demand collapse on the one side and the consequences of the ongoing credit freeze on the other, which in turn has to do with structural problems within neoliberal-style capitalism as a whole. and this is a global phenomenon. it doesn't matter whether you agree with this or not--it's simply an empirical fact that you can choose to either wrap your head around or not.

since you provide no factual support for your various pollyanna claims that everything is basically normal and such problems as there are follow from bad people who say negative things, i really don't see why your position should be taken seriously unless you start providing some basis for them beyond your vague pronouncements about the state of things.

aceventura3 · 02-10-2009, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

that's absurd, ace.

the reasons for job loss have everything to do with demand collapse on the one side and the consequences of the ongoing credit freeze on the other, which in turn has to do with structural problems within neoliberal-style capitalism as a whole. and this is a global phenomenon. it doesn't matter whether you agree with this or not--it's simply an empirical fact that you can choose to either wrap your head around or not.

since you provide no factual support for your various pollyanna claims that everything is basically normal and such problems as there are follow from bad people who say negative things, i really don't see why your position should be taken seriously unless you start providing some basis for them beyond your vague pronouncements about the state of things.

First I simply presented a question on commonly available information, ie. job loss, Obama's election and Obama's comments.

Second, there is market psychology that has an impact on consumer spending - this is commonly known as well.

So there you have the basis of my "non-factual based" question.

Your response seems odd to me. I am a very curious person, and I get pleasure from questioning conventional wisdom. I get the feeling that at one point you got enjoyment out of questioning conventional wisdom and had a high level of intellectual curiosity, in reading your responses to my posts, I get the feeling you have lost that and that and now you just go with the flow of what you believe and have believed for years and won't challenge your views any longer. Saying things like I should not be taken seriously add no value. I don't care. My behavior won't change based on such comments. And I actual take comments like that as a sign of a person not willing to engage or respond in a reasoned manner. If my comments are not worthy of engagement or a reasoned response I would think they would be ignored.

guyy · 02-10-2009, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I am a very curious person, and I get pleasure from questioning conventional wisdom.

If your -- ahem -- "wisdom" is no longer conventional, it's because most, even conservatives & capitains of industry have moved on.

roachboy · 02-10-2009, 10:22 AM

actually. ace, the contrary is true of me in general.
what i'm losing interest in--and fast--is interacting with you.

you want a more comprehensive indication of my general position on ceo salary levels as a massive misallocation of resources, read the report i posted above.

Derwood · 02-10-2009, 10:52 AM

Here's the market "punishing" executives for failure again:

Circuit City wants to pay execs bonuses | InsideNova.com

Quote:

Circuit City Stores Inc., now liquidating the last 567 of its 721 stores, says incentive bonuses are needed to dissuade 154 executives and other workers from leaving before the company is dissolved.

Bloomberg News reported today that the Henrico County-based Circuit City’s proposal came in a motion filed in federal bankruptcy court in Richmond.

Circuit City proposed that 16 executives would split $2.3 million if they all achieve their targets, and the remaining non-managerial workers would be in line for $1.62 million if the bankruptcy judge goes along with the idea at a Feb. 25 hearing.

Circuit City also wants an additional $750,000 to distribute as discretionary bonuses to the non-management workers and others who aren’t covered by the program.

Circuit City was the second-largest electronics retailer in the U.S. when it filed under Chapter 11 in November. The final going-out-of-business sales were approved in January.

In all, the company will cut about 34,000 employees by the time the liquidation process ends by the first of April. A skeleton crew will stay on for as long as two years to finish winding-down operations.

Circuit City’s bankruptcy petition listed assets of $3.4 billion and debt totaling $2.3 billion as of Aug. 31. Papers show $898 million owing to the secured revolving credit lenders. Unsecured trade suppliers are owed another $650 million, the company said in a court filing.

—Bloomberg News

so yeah, that's $2.3 million split 16 ways if the executives who mis-managed the company into non-existence "meet their goals" (HA HA HA) while the remaining $750k will be split among the other 34,000 employees.

Viva the Free Market Economy!

aceventura3 · 02-11-2009, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

you want a more comprehensive indication of my general position on ceo salary levels as a massive misallocation of resources, read the report i posted above.

How about a little further definition of context by answering a couple of questions. How do you define "a massive misallocation of resources?" Who determines if resources are misallocated? Where is the threshold for "a massive misallocation of resources?"

Never mind about answering the questions related to a topic, why not tell me more about me and my failings. Since you are not really interested but continually tell us how you are not interested...

Or, how about some infotainment from one of my biased sources of information. This one is interesting:

Quote:

Strip-Club Chief Is What Obama Could Afford With Bank-Pay Limit
Email | Print | A A A

By Tom Randall, Alex Nussbaum and Peter Robison

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Eric Langan could run a U.S. bank, based on his $494,713 salary last year, according to President Barack Obama. Langan would rather stay in his job, overseeing 18 strip clubs as chief executive officer of Rick’s Cabaret International Inc.

“A bank? No. I’m not interested in working for a bank,” Langan said in a telephone interview from his office in Houston. Besides, he just got a raise to $600,000, putting him $100,000 over Obama’s cap for a top official of a financial institution receiving federal bailout funds.

A half-million dollars may not buy a seasoned executive for a major U.S. financial institution, said James Reda, managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consultant in New York. Linda McMahon, whose World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. produces the syndicated television show “WWE Friday Night Smackdown,” would make the cut, as would CEOs of a cafeteria company and discount online retailer.

On Wall Street, “$500,000 will get you someone five years out of Harvard Business School or a sixth-year associate at a major law firm,” Reda said. “It’s not going to get you a lot.”

Just 14 CEOs in the Fortune 1000 and five from the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index make under the $500,000 bar, according to Equilar Inc., which analyzes compensation data. Many of those are founders or major shareholders, such as Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs, who gets a $1 annual salary and owns about $550 million in stock.

CEOs coming in under the Obama ceiling managed companies with a median market value of $182.6 million and sales of $152.6 million in 2007, Redwood Shores, California-based Equilar said.

‘So Complicated’

The heads of the five biggest Wall Street firms took home more than $1 billion in the five years through 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bank of America Corp., the nation’s largest lender that purchased broker Merrill Lynch & Co., was worth $35.4 billon yesterday.

“These mega-banks just live in a different universe,” said Tony Gorrell, chief financial officer of closely held Sutton Bank of Attica, Ohio, which has nine branches. His salary is “not even close” to reaching the half-million mark, Gorrell said.

“I think Citibank’s so complicated that you’d need a lot more than that to run it,” he said.

Citigroup Inc. had 323,000 employees at the end of last year and 200 million customer accounts in more than 100 countries. The company hasn’t released CEO Vikram S. Pandit’s 2008 salary.

Pandit, who took the job in December 2007, got 1 million shares as part of a “sign-on” bonus in January 2008 in addition to a $2.5 million “retention equity award,” Citigroup said.

Restricted Shares Allowed

Pandit also received $165 million in 2007 when he sold Old Lane Partners LP, the New York hedge fund he co-founded. Citigroup closed Old Lane in June and took a $202 million writedown on its $800 million investment.

Pandit’s predecessor, Charles O. “Chuck” Prince, earned $15.1 million in 2007.

The $500,000 rule applies to banks that receive capital injections under the program outlined by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday, and not to the 361 financial institutions that already received Troubled Asset Relief Program aid. They paid their CEOS an average $3.65 million annually, Equilar said. Those with assets above $10 billion gave their chiefs an average $11 million, the firm said.

The rules announced by Obama on Feb. 4 limit total compensation, including salary, bonus and stock. Awards of restricted shares, which can’t be sold until taxpayers are paid back with interest, are allowed. Perks including country club memberships and use of corporate jets aren’t banned, according to the Treasury Department.

‘Obscene Bonuses’

For many top officers, “base pay is the smallest part of their compensation, at the largest companies anyway,” said Vineeta Anand, chief research analyst at the AFL-CIO, a Washington-based labor federation that supports pay limits.

Restricted stock would give a CEO a shot at a big payday, said Jonathan Johnson, who made $250,000 last year as president of Overstock.com Inc., a discount online retailer based in Salt Lake City. A $500,000 maximum seems reasonable given some Wall Street executives’ “obscene bonuses,” Johnson said.

A corporate leader grossing $500,000 would earn about $300,000 after taxes, said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a New York-based market researcher.

The executive might afford a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in Manhattan worth about $1.5 million, rather than a multimillion-dollar suburban mansion, he said.

“Instead of having several maids, they’re going to have one,” Pedraza said.

A $770,000 Median

The U.S. government has limited compensation before. In October, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson barred tax deductions on salaries greater than $500,000 a year at companies receiving TARP assistance. In 1993, Congress outlawed writing off more than $1 million.

Compensation went up anyway, said Carola Frydman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology finance professor who studies compensation.

Median yearly pay was about $770,000 for executives at the largest U.S. companies in the 1950s, Frydman said in a telephone interview from her office in Cambridge. The median jumped to $2.36 million in the 1990s and $4.08 million in the first half of this decade.

CEOs with paychecks of less than $500,000 a year include McMahon of Stamford, Connecticut-based World Wrestling Entertainment and Christopher Pappas, who runs Luby’s Inc., a cafeteria-style restaurant chain in Houston.

A Pay Cut

McMahon, who made $498,227 in 2007, has been nominated to the Connecticut Board of Education and is too busy to answer questions, said her spokesman, Robert Zimmerman. Pappas, who gets a $400,000 annual salary, also declined to comment, said spokesman Rick Black.

Brookdale Senior Living Inc. CEO Bill Sheriff would have qualified, until the Brentwood, Tennessee-based network of 550 assisted-living centers and retirement communities boosted his $200,000 salary to $600,000 on Jan. 1. The increase made up for a drop in dividends, spokesman Ross Roadman said.

John Dicus, CEO of Capitol Federal Financial in Topeka, Kansas, made about $835,000 last year running the holding company for the 40-branch Capital Federal Savings Bank and isn’t interested in taking a pay cut to head a Fortune 500 bank, he said.

“I’m sure some people will do it,” Dicus said. “If you put too many strings on the banks, they might not be successful.”

Langan, CEO of Rick’s Cabaret, said he doubts any of the dancers at his Rick’s Cabaret, Club Onyx, XTC Cabaret or Tootsie’s night clubs would seek new careers in finance.

“I’ve got girls making over a quarter of a million a year in New York,” he said.

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

You have to admit, that's some funny stuff.

-----Added 11/2/2009 at 11 : 03 : 24-----

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

Here's the market "punishing" executives for failure again:

Circuit City wants to pay execs bonuses | InsideNova.com

so yeah, that's $2.3 million split 16 ways if the executives who mis-managed the company into non-existence "meet their goals" (HA HA HA) while the remaining $750k will be split among the other 34,000 employees.

Viva the Free Market Economy!

They should have unionized, or got into management.

Derwood · 02-11-2009, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

They should have unionized, or got into management.

you've not addressed the point with either of these answers.

unionization is a red herring argument, and we both know that you can't run a company with all managers an no workers.

but it's unsurprising that a Republican would turn his nose up at the little guys and blame them for their own financial shortcomings. If only they'd worked harder, right?

roachboy · 02-11-2009, 10:34 AM

as usual, ace, you seem to operate in a private universe.

this is a much more accurate assessment of the overall situation we are moving through, from the cognitive problems that the leadership of the country are collectively performing before our collective eyes, but which passes without being named by a media apparatus locked inside the same problem (compounded by the need to maintain a certain ideological continuity with the obsolete mode of thinking that is neoliberalism, if only to avoid questions of "if this is as stupid an ideology as is now apparent, how exactly did it become the lingua franca for relaying infotainment?).....the persistence of a highly skewed model of wealth distribution in a context of arbitrary regulation that would have been unthinkable without neoliberalism as a figleaf....a problem of growing public anger, which threatens all of the existing arrangement if it becomes focused at any point (an eventuality that the press has every interest in preventing, as it owes its advertising revenue to the existing order and so by definition affirms whatever the existing order is, even as it functions as "loyal opposition" within it)....

there are serious problems to be addressed, but neoliberals cannot even begin to do it, and the residuum of 35 years of neoliberal hegemony is such that incoherence caused by it dances all of us toward the edge...

Surtout ne changez rien ! - Les blogs du Diplo

it's in french.

guyy · 02-11-2009, 11:32 AM

Advertising revenues are way down in print media. This is immediately apparent when you pick up the newspapers. They're very thin these days. For one, papers don't have many writers anymore. The Chicago Tribune cut staff and has compensated by reducing the physical size of the paper while increasing the size and numbers of pictures. (Of course superCEO Sam Zell is rewarding himself handsomely for making a foolish decision and then running "his" purchase into the ground. Staff gets fired, Zell gets a load of cash -- even with his heavily, leveraged, doomed-from the start deal paid for mostly with other people's money and TribCo in bankruptcy.) The other reason the papers are thinner is because there are a lot fewer ads. There is talk of running papers as public services. That is interesting because it means that the system is not capable of reproducing its ideology and providing information, at least when it comes to print media. (Obviously, tv & radio are more functional as organs of the ideological reproduction of the status quo. ) So, either print media withers away, or it survives as something else. There is a possibility that print media could become something more critical. It has to change, because the system has effectively decided it doesn't need print. That's the optimistic take on it, anyway.

aceventura3 · 02-12-2009, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

you've not addressed the point with either of these answers.

unionization is a red herring argument, and we both know that you can't run a company with all managers an no workers.

but it's unsurprising that a Republican would turn his nose up at the little guys and blame them for their own financial shortcomings. If only they'd worked harder, right?

I will admit to being cold and heartless, if you admit to wanting others to do your "heavy lifting". To me it seems that there are millions of people who share your view. If a few of you got together and bought Circuit City or started your own store, you could run it the way you want paying the janitor the same as the CEO, and not worry about profits. If all your friends bought from that store you can drive all the other "irresponsible" folks out of business. So, my point is - stop complaining about stuff in your control. If hourly workers are under paid, they should do something about it.

And please don't tell me it can not be done. there are mutual insurance companies, owned by policyholders. There are credit unions owned by depositors, etc, and the funny thing is often these companies struggle to get members who think like you do.

Derwood · 02-12-2009, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I will admit to being cold and heartless, if you admit to wanting others to do your "heavy lifting". To me it seems that there are millions of people who share your view. If a few of you got together and bought Circuit City or started your own store, you could run it the way you want paying the janitor the same as the CEO, and not worry about profits. If all your friends bought from that store you can drive all the other "irresponsible" folks out of business. So, my point is - stop complaining about stuff in your control. If hourly workers are under paid, they should do something about it.

And please don't tell me it can not be done. there are mutual insurance companies, owned by policyholders. There are credit unions owned by depositors, etc, and the funny thing is often these companies struggle to get members who think like you do.

you misunderstand me (or are creating strawmen, you tell me). I'm not suggesting CEO's and janitors get paid the same. I'm suggesting that paying out bonuses to 16 executives at Circuit City as a reward for running the company into the ground makes no sense to me. Frankly, none of them should get bonuses.

aceventura3 · 02-12-2009, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

you misunderstand me (or are creating strawmen, you tell me). I'm not suggesting CEO's and janitors get paid the same. I'm suggesting that paying out bonuses to 16 executives at Circuit City as a reward for running the company into the ground makes no sense to me. Frankly, none of them should get bonuses.

I don't know the circumstances of Circuit City's problems, but what if there were circumstances outside of the control of the executives who got the bonuses but they managed the company above what would have been reasonably expected? what if these executives had contracts? What if the bonuses were for people to stay long enough for an orderly liquidation? I would also think that a bankruptcy judge looked at the compensation and ruled on if the bonuses were appropriate. All I know is that I did not shop at Circuit City, did not invest in circuit City, did not work at Circuit City and don't consider it my business what they paid their people.

Derwood · 02-12-2009, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

All I know is that I did not shop at Circuit City, did not invest in circuit City, did not work at Circuit City and don't consider it my business what they paid their people.

theory doesn't exactly hold true to a lot of other areas in life though, does it?

aceventura3 · 02-12-2009, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

theory doesn't exactly hold true to a lot of other areas in life though, does it?

Principles do. One of my principles is to let others conduct their business as they see fit as long as they don't violate the law and don't engage in fraudulent activities. If the people who own circuit City want to pay some people bonuses to the degree that it harms the company, who am I to say no to that?

Derwood · 02-12-2009, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Principles do. One of my principles is to let others conduct their business as they see fit as long as they don't violate the law and don't engage in fraudulent activities. If the people who own circuit City want to pay some people bonuses to the degree that it harms the company, who am I to say no to that?

that's fine, but the entire reason I brought it up was to refute the notion that executives are punished for bad business decisions

aceventura3 · 02-12-2009, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derwood

that's fine, but the entire reason I brought it up was to refute the notion that executives are punished for bad business decisions

I worked for a corporation that went bankrupt. There were people, executives, that had worked for the company years. They had stock options and used their own money to invest in stock. In a few of these situations the executives were less than a year from planned retirement and lost everything they counted on. So, yes - there may be some who walk away from a failure laughing all the way to the bank, but my gut tells me that is the exception and that executives who go through a failure have to do what everyone else does. Dust off and find another job. The lesson I learned is, lookout for yourself.

02-09-2009, 09:34 AM	#42 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I see those definitions and understand them, but again, don't see how it is fraud. There is no deceit. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

02-09-2009, 09:47 AM	#43 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	maybe renaming a ceo position in order to avoid caps on compensation can be understood as just manoevering for material advantage, but it can also be understood as an act of deception in itself. kinda in the way that a corporation passing it's liquidity through a network of offshore accounts in order to manipulate its tax rates or for other purposes is deceptive, even if it's legal. more generally, you'd think people would recognize the severity of the situation we're in and kinda work within that rather than working out ways to reconfigure job titles in order to keep maximum income flowing to themselves. but maybe thinking that way is beyond the scope of what one should expect under this form of capitalism from those who benefit from the way the system is organized. but if that's the case, the problems that organization is moving through are more fundamental that any of us think. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-09-2009, 10:03 AM	#44 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	sorry yes the CEO renaming is close to fraud since the spirit of the law would I assume not saw something as pigeon holed as CEO/PRESIDENT or the like. but the rest of the compensation packages can be generated creatively. I found some editorials overseas interesting that they viewed the current group of people in positions not the savvy tenured financiers but the 2nd and 3rd stringers because the 1st stringers all moved to private hedge funds and equity management firms. I'm not in agreement to any pay caps normally, but since they are playing with both of our money, I think there's some accountability that is required. This is why I wasn't a fan of the bailout to begin with, the banks should have just failed and a fire sale for their assets ensue. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

02-09-2009, 11:29 AM	#46 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ace--give me a break. if there's a consistent assumption at play in this rather tedious exchange, it is yours, and it is that ceo's are necessarily worth what they're paid. the second one is simpler still--that obama's statements concerning excessive executive compensation in the context of firms that are getting bailout money is somehow "empty"--and you seem to further assume that if you write the phrase "empty gesture" enough times that it will stop referring only to itself and will acquire some kind of weight for people who are not you. but the facts are not with you on this, as they are not on most things when you try to argue from your rightwing political viewpoint: what prompted obama to say that such levels of compensation are "shameful" is obvious. that you do not think it was shameful has much to do with your sycophantic relation to the imaginary "captains of industry" that seem to dance about in Heroic Conservative Pseudo-accounts of contemporary capitalism and nowhere else. the cause of these incidents is self-evident as well: no controls built into the first round of tarp money. to dodge this, you adopted a kind of peculiar limbaugh-esque imaginary history that blames obama for it. fine, whatever. you operate under the illusion that markets are rational, that bad actors are punished blah blah blah. at this point, i see no reason to take that nonsense seriously any more--i've made an effort to engage you on this and it's clearly a waste of my time. in order to make this ridiculous a priori viewpoint operational in the present context, you are reduced to wishing away a significant crisis of captialism itself--and in that, you are simply dreaming. dream as you like, ace, but don't expect that your dreaming will be confused with an account of reality. i'm going to do something that's more interesting than talking with you---i'm thinking that stapling my hand to my desk would be more fun. let's see, shall we? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-09-2009, 11:39 AM	#47 (permalink)
aceventura3 Junkie Location: Ventura County	Like Obama you communicate in platitudes; "give me a break", "the facts are not with you", "self evident", "operate under the illusion". There is no reasoned response I can give. You present a lot of words, with little in specifics. Now that I have that off of my chest, I will get back to a focus on my "dreaming". __________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

02-09-2009, 12:27 PM	#50 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	cyn--what that builds into corporate governance is one and only one feedback loop--the only responsibility a ceo has institutionally is to increase shareholder value. in most european countries, there are a variety of such institutionalized loops, some of which link the ceo to labor (at least in theory) by way of production councils (i can't remember the exact name for them at the moment--comité d'enterprise in french)--you'd think that multiplying these institutions would make corporations less despotic (except with reference to shareholder profits)...more later maybe, __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-09-2009, 12:42 PM	#51 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I'm be happy to pay European prices for goods and services... if those same kinds of controls are in place. I don't think everyone else is willing to pay that high a price for goods and services. In this respect, how do you create different loops since the bank is nationalized at this point? I'm with Ace, good CEOs are like superstars. They have a knack or talent to get people motivated and excited about their company, this goes for workers, consumers, bankers, manufacturers, etc... __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

02-09-2009, 02:46 PM	#53 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	conservatives and their information phobia...there should be a drug that can be taken to deal with that disorder. you might want to check this out. http://www.faireconomy.org/files/exe...xcess_2008.pdf the report has a particularly interesting spin which points out the amount of money taxpayers--you know, those folk the right likes to pretend it defends--end up losing as a function of the tax code which effectively subsidizes these pay levels. personally, i look at this as an insane skewing in the distribution of resources and cannot for the life of me figure out how it is exactly that the populist right was persuaded that defending this sort of nonsense was in any way in their economic interest. but there are greater mysteries in the world, ones that do not lead toward total cynicism in thinking about the way this one does. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-09-2009, 07:56 PM	#55 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the alternative is not either exactly the way things are (minus the requisite "bad apples") or absolutely flat income for all--the alternative is more an entirely skewed distribution of resources as over against one that is less so, more functional and equitable. read the report, if you haven't. the data in it is surprising, particularly the comparisons between ceo income levels and the average salary of working people in america--you know, wage laborers, regular folk. imagine the research and development that might take place were this system less entirely geared around shareholder profits detached from any possible linkage of production to a social totality. imagine the jobs that might be created if a significant percentage of the money paid to the upper ends of corporations were instead plowed back into long-term investments. i don't think this populist movement has thought real hard about any of this. that movement sure hasn't gathered much information, if the only option on the table is A or the complete opposite of A. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-10-2009, 09:13 AM	#59 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Gordon Brown already said it. BBC NEWS \| Politics \| World depression claim 'a slip' "We should agree as a world on a monetary and fiscal stimulus that will take the world out of r... depression." __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

02-10-2009, 09:13 AM	#60 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	that's absurd, ace. the reasons for job loss have everything to do with demand collapse on the one side and the consequences of the ongoing credit freeze on the other, which in turn has to do with structural problems within neoliberal-style capitalism as a whole. and this is a global phenomenon. it doesn't matter whether you agree with this or not--it's simply an empirical fact that you can choose to either wrap your head around or not. since you provide no factual support for your various pollyanna claims that everything is basically normal and such problems as there are follow from bad people who say negative things, i really don't see why your position should be taken seriously unless you start providing some basis for them beyond your vague pronouncements about the state of things. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 02-10-2009 at 09:15 AM..

02-10-2009, 10:22 AM	#63 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	actually. ace, the contrary is true of me in general. what i'm losing interest in--and fast--is interacting with you. you want a more comprehensive indication of my general position on ceo salary levels as a massive misallocation of resources, read the report i posted above. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-11-2009, 10:34 AM	#67 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	as usual, ace, you seem to operate in a private universe. this is a much more accurate assessment of the overall situation we are moving through, from the cognitive problems that the leadership of the country are collectively performing before our collective eyes, but which passes without being named by a media apparatus locked inside the same problem (compounded by the need to maintain a certain ideological continuity with the obsolete mode of thinking that is neoliberalism, if only to avoid questions of "if this is as stupid an ideology as is now apparent, how exactly did it become the lingua franca for relaying infotainment?).....the persistence of a highly skewed model of wealth distribution in a context of arbitrary regulation that would have been unthinkable without neoliberalism as a figleaf....a problem of growing public anger, which threatens all of the existing arrangement if it becomes focused at any point (an eventuality that the press has every interest in preventing, as it owes its advertising revenue to the existing order and so by definition affirms whatever the existing order is, even as it functions as "loyal opposition" within it).... there are serious problems to be addressed, but neoliberals cannot even begin to do it, and the residuum of 35 years of neoliberal hegemony is such that incoherence caused by it dances all of us toward the edge... Surtout ne changez rien ! - Les blogs du Diplo it's in french. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-11-2009, 11:32 AM	#68 (permalink)
guyy Addict Location: Cottage Grove, Wisconsin	Advertising revenues are way down in print media. This is immediately apparent when you pick up the newspapers. They're very thin these days. For one, papers don't have many writers anymore. The Chicago Tribune cut staff and has compensated by reducing the physical size of the paper while increasing the size and numbers of pictures. (Of course superCEO Sam Zell is rewarding himself handsomely for making a foolish decision and then running "his" purchase into the ground. Staff gets fired, Zell gets a load of cash -- even with his heavily, leveraged, doomed-from the start deal paid for mostly with other people's money and TribCo in bankruptcy.) The other reason the papers are thinner is because there are a lot fewer ads. There is talk of running papers as public services. That is interesting because it means that the system is not capable of reproducing its ideology and providing information, at least when it comes to print media. (Obviously, tv & radio are more functional as organs of the ideological reproduction of the status quo. ) So, either print media withers away, or it survives as something else. There is a possibility that print media could become something more critical. It has to change, because the system has effectively decided it doesn't need print. That's the optimistic take on it, anyway.