Sir Fred Goodwin is the UK pariah of the moment. I sincerely hope he gets his come uppance and that they take all of that nonsense pension off him. As they said yesterday, it’s not a pension, it’s severance pay. Very generous pay too. I wonder how he has the gall even to think that he deserves that vast amount of money?
There is an excellent article in the Washington Post that’s well worth a read, URL below. A couple of points of interest from that article.
Note the comments about John Thain … a couple of months ago, Wall St Wallahs were saying that Thain deserved his $10 million bonus but the wind has changed now:
Take the now infamous example of the recently ousted Merrill Lynch chief John Thain, who not only splurged on his office decor but also had the audacity to propose a $10 million bonus for himself. In recognition of what? A year's work in which the company continued to make bad business decisions, lost about 80 percent of its value, sold itself to Bank of America to stave off possible collapse and appears to have seriously damaged its buyer's franchise? After a less than heroic performance, Thain's grasping for $10 million, presumably because he thought it could be had, represents what has come to be expected from America's business leaders.
The author makes two more good points worthy of note:
In 1960, the ratio of CEO pay at large companies to that of the President of the United States was about 2 to 1. In 2007, it was more than 20 to 1. In 1980, executives at large companies made about 40 times what the average worker made. Last year, CEOs made about 360 times more than the average worker.
And maybe here is the most telling statistic that possibly underlies everything that has happened in the financial world and at the C level in many companies:
On the NYSE today, the average share is held for less than a year, as compared to about five years in 1960 and two years in 1990.
There’s more, in this well written article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020602794.html
DW
1 comment:
As the American spit venom at these fat cats and the UK ask them to move along please, you are probably thinking that these thieves have learned their lesson and stopped thinking about appropriating their companies' profits for themselves.
Well, you'd be wrong, as an article in the FT demonstrates:
"Société Générale bowed to political and public pressure over executive pay at the weekend as it cancelled a plan to award discounted stock options to four directors, including Daniel Bouton, non executive chairman, and Frédéric Oudéa, chief executive.
"In a letter to be sent to employees on Monday, the bank admits that its plan to award 150,000 options to Mr Oudéa and 70,000 to Mr Bouton had sparked “strong indignation” among the public and “incomprehension” from its own clients and staff. Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, on Friday called it a “scandal” that the bank’s directors could receive such incentives after accepting funds from the state’s financial aid programme.
See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/889ccb58-178d-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html?ftcamp=rss
See? These bleeders thought they had the right to take these options for all the good work they have done. The fact they had received mind boggling amounts of State aid already and are looking for even more seems to have passed them by completely.
Dear Sirs, you are spongers and should cease and desist forthwith. OK? Thank you.
DW
Post a Comment