Comments on: Clawing Back at Exec Comp (part II)

By: rknox

rknox — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:18:56 +0000

Maybe we could form the Madam LaFarge Society and start collecting money to buy a guillotine

By: Neil C Denver

Neil C Denver — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:45:58 +0000

I have no problem with exorbitant bonuses. However, bonuses should have a direct relationship with a) the life-cycle of the product or service, and b) the profits derived over that life-cycle. Bonus expenditures would be set aside in an accrual account. If and when profits are not met, the accruals would return to capitalize that company, instead of being blown away in the Hamptons.

By: dunnage

dunnage — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:24:31 +0000

Didn’t the Sec. of the Treasury just finish handing out a few hundred billion to The 9. To say nothing of the Trillions the Fed has sloshing about for the “In” crowd. Of course the rest of the guys expect their bonuses. They even have the current Supreme Court protecting them from shareholders.

What bothers me is Minimum Wage.

By: Lugnut

Lugnut — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:36:22 +0000

Somewhere, Hugo Chavez is laughing his ass off

By: bcasey

bcasey — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:29:47 +0000

Ben22, ConstantNormal,
You don’t get it. Discussing effective compensation packages, moving forward blah blah, is not the point.
there is no moving forward. What happens in a depression is moving backwards. People are lucky to have jobs. Where your experienced people are talking about schemes to maintain their bonuses, I say they have no experience regarding the economic regime we are entering, and so their experience is worthless, Their complete compensation package should be jettisoned at as little cost as possible, sooner rather then later. But they won’t do that, and so they will continue to be a part of all of our problems.

By: Jojo99

Jojo99 — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:44:09 +0000

Most salespeople comp plans have a clause to the effect of “if the customer does not pay the bill, you will be charged back for the compensation paid to you”. Seems something similar tied to fake profits should be in effect for corporate executives.

Also, as someone mentioned above, executives are just managers. It is the people under them who do the real work (gather the information, analyze it, make recommendations and implement the decision). The $$$ that a corporation disburses as salary and bonuses should be reconstituted so that their distribution is more equitably based on work performed. It is said that managers get more dollars because they have ultimate responsibility. But when an initiative fails, it is often the workers who gets the pink slip while the manager says “so sorry” and continues making bad decisions.

By: Vermont Trader

Vermont Trader — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:08:16 +0000

credit markets ripping today.

HYG +7% crawling out of basement… AGG breaking out. not to mention TLT!

bullish

By: sellthekids

sellthekids — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:57:37 +0000

swear i’ve seen this movie…:

@MAL – how educated, smart, and unique are CEOs and their ilk?
Randolph Duke: Pay up, Mortimer. I’ve won the bet.
Mortimer Duke: Here, one dollar.
Randolph Duke: [chuckling] We took a perfectly useless psychopath like Valentine, and turned him into a successful executive. And during the same time, we turned an honest, hard-working man into a violently, deranged, would-be killer![laughs]

@bcasey – what should be done to the current crop of market pariahs?
Billy Ray Valentine: [watches Louis clean his shotgun] You know, you can’t just go around and shoot people in the kneecaps with a double-barreled shotgun ’cause you pissed at ‘em.
Louis Winthorpe III: Why not?
Billy Ray Valentine: ‘Cause it’s called assault with a deadly weapon, you get 20 years for that shit.
Louis Winthorpe III: Listen, do you have any better ideas?
Billy Ray Valentine: Yeah. You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.
Coleman: You have to admit, sir, you didn’t like it yourself a bit.

what a prescient movie!
(i have to admit, i am fond of the shooting part as a singular and easy solution.)

By: Transor Z

Transor Z — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:07:59 +0000

@VennData:
There’s already a way to confiscate property associated with organized crime — RICO. Problem is, forfeited assets seized under RICO go to fund federal law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation. So the FBI, NYPD and SEC could split the value of the necklace. Yessssss!

Maybe off-topic, but I would submit that this corruption pales in comparison to the immorality of pediatric psychiatrists taking kickbacks from Big Pharma to medicate kids unnecessarily.

Should the torches and pitchforks go after the Frankenstein notion of corporation as a legal person instead of after CEOs and politicians? Maybe the left-wing nutters are on to something when they call the corporate person a sociopath. Why should we be surprised when CEOs behave in a sociopathic way? Is more regulation and legislation really going to change human nature?

By: DP

DP — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:06:39 +0000

@jmay: “3. Anger <—– you are here.”

One of the things that is really surprising me in all this is the absence of real anger.

Perhaps it’s because of the administration change, the old administration is already done and people don’t hold the new administration responsible for it.

I think we’ll see one of these clowns taken out before this is all over. Guy loses his job, loses his unemployment, wife leaves then gets a letter that his credit limit has been reduced 90% from the same bank the government just gave 20 billion dollars to.