Group calls out CEOs 'paid for failure' Executives got $1.26 billion while firms lost $330 billion

[Omaha Steve]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/314745_ceopay08.html

Group calls out CEOs 'paid for failure'
Executives got $1.26 billion while firms lost $330 billion

By YALMAN ONARAN
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Dell Inc. and Ford Motor Co. are among 12 major U.S. companies that "pay for failure" by compensating chief executive officers more than rivals even as company shares lag behind, according to a new study.

The report by the Corporate Library, an independent group that monitors companies' governance policies, said the CEOs it singled out received $1.26 billion over five years while presiding over a loss of $330 billion in shareholder value.

"Far too much executive compensation is delivered without any link to performance," said Paul Hodgson, the study's author, in an e-mailed statement.

The report by the Portland, Maine-based group aimed to highlight "bad decisions made by compensation committees," he said.

CEO pay in the U.S. tripled from 1990 to 2004, compared with an 87 percent increase in corporate earnings, leading to investor lawsuits and calls to curb executive pay. The Securities and Exchange Commission enacted rules last year intended to make it easier for investors to understand and restrain compensation packages given to top company officials.

The Corporate Library named members of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index that paid CEOs in excess of $15 million while their share price declined in the past five years and lagged their peer group.

FULL story at link.

[burrowowl]

1. K&R

DUH!

[hvn_nbr_2]

2. 2nd thread in 2 days that I gave R#5. I hardly ever do that. nt

[maxrandb]

3. If it wasn't for the CEO, they may have have lost 500,000,000,000

That's how they'll spin it.

Why is it that only the wealthy and the politically connected are rewarded for failure?

If Joe Six-Pack performed like these CEO's he'd be passing out smiley-face-stickers at Walmart quicker than you could say "do you want fries with that".

In this Bizarro World we live in, you can:

- Fuck up the intelligence that leads to a devastating war? Get a Medal of Freedom
- Be wrong about every conceivable thing you predicted after the fall of Baghdad? Get a raise and a new job at the World Bank
- Shoot someone in the face on a hunting trip? The person you shot apologizes to you.
- Get caught sucking the toes of a hooker and letting her listen in on your conversations with the president? Get a fat paying job as a Fox News contributer.
- Fuck up the VA system to the point it's about to collapse. Provide shoddy treatment and services to troops wounded in war? Get a $33K bonus for your "good work".
- Land a cushy job in the Air National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam, fail to complete your obligation to the guard, fail to remain physically qualified to fly after the country had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train you? Become the "Commander Guy"

I swear, it's enough to make you want to puke.

[Jacobin]

4. There's not any difference between these guys and the mafia

[abburdlen]

5. Except

I don't think the mafia pays THAT good.

Brings to ming Sen Webb's op-ed from a few months back...

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

[raccoon]

6. K&R. nt

[gratuitous]

7. Well, I'm sure new hero Ron Paul can explain it all for us

I'll just sit here and whittle on a stick waitin'.

[electprogdems]

8. I love how these guys worship the Market, except when it applies to them

eom