Executive compensation

My Compensation: One CEO's internal monologue

Oh, goody! Look at my package... so big and shiny! The New York Times and Wall Street Journal just put me in the top 50 big earners of the year in their annual blockbuster overviews of executive compensation.  They say I made more than $50 million last year! Hooray!

Except wait a minute. Hm. I'm looking at my bank account and it doesn't look so hot. If I'm so rich, how come I MORE

Hard times on half a million

Oh, the whining over fine dining that's been heard in the all-but empty bistros of Manhattan as the last expense account executives cut into their exquisitely tender veal and complain about the Obama salary cap!

Sure, a limit on comp will change the make-up of the individuals who surface for the top slots in banking and industry. And that's a bad thing why? If a company needs a bailout -- hey, MORE

Puttin' on the pay cap

First of all, let me say that I'm supportive of President Obama's measures to limit executive pay in companies that accept new bailout money. There are loopholes that I'm sure smart guys will be able to finesse a bit, but for the most part it limits the comp of senior executives working in such firms to $500,000. Now, this may seem like a lot of money to people who do MORE

Mogul madness in paradise

There's no center in LA, and until you get it, you think that's a bummer. What it really means is that, like a giant beehive, every little cell in the honeycomb is just as potentially hot as the next. So improbably, where you are right then is just possibly where you ought to be. And the Hilton, right now, is no exception, particularly if you don't mind the slight sensation that the specter of Norma Desmond just brushed by your elbow.

My New Year's resolutions

I've read in a number of places recently that New Year's resolutions are tedious and passe and pretty much purely the province of journalists, bloggers and the like. I disagree. I believe that, while smirking about them a bit, at some point during the first few days of a new year everybody secretly takes a little internal inventory and makes a couple of very soft, very tender promises to themselves about MORE

Stan O'Neal's sweet exit package

News comes today of the very likely departure of Stan O'Neal from the top slot at Merrill Lynch (MER). He's out in record time 1) due to the whole subprime situation and 2) because it looks like he approached Wachovia (WB) about a merger without properly informing those who thought they should be informed.

This brings two thoughts to mind:

Do any of you really understand the whole subprime thing? I mean, I kind MORE

Fail big--Win valuable prizes!

I had a fun time reading the Wall Street Journal yesterday. That isn't always the case. I don't know about you, but a lot of the time I find the nuts and guts of business kind of boring. Yeah, yeah. I know it's important. Wake me when it's over.

Not yesterday, though. We had three, count 'em, three juicy pen and ink drawings on the front page, and each featured an MORE

That's why they make the Big Bucks

A rather churlish article in today's New York Times outlines a new trend in executive compensation -- the #1 guy making exponentially more than his immediate subordinates. The immediate reaction, both from those who work for the Big Dog and those who work for the L'il Dogs who work for the bigger mutts who work for the Big Pooch, is to question why, say, the CEO of Omnivore makes $5 MORE