I’m obsessing about this executive pay thing. Truth be told, I’ve been having heart palpitations about this for years, even before the government bailout made it trendy. That CEO I was writing about earlier? The one who cut his $1.5 million base pay as a gesture of sympathy whilst tucking his $48 million bonus in his theoretical bra strap? Just wanted to report that last year his salary went up 68%. And you can’t tell me that his stellar performance at the helm warranted this raise, as shareholder return for the same period of time fell 28%. Trust me kids, even in the best of times [we’re talking the 90s here] us lowly tech workers were thrilled to see anything above 10%. And we’ve been seeing the bottom of 3% ever since.
I know, I know, so what’s new with this, Mary? Nothing, it’s just the trendy bailout thing and the paycut I’ve received and the cynicism of throwing $300K over the fence to show that times are tough all over makes me sick.
And get this: Four of the ten hightest-paid executives on the AP’s list for financial firms have been the biggest bailout recipients. Goldman Sachs guy got $42.9 million, and so did the dude over at American Express. Yeah, that’s right: those two banks got billions [no hyperbole here, really billions] in bailout money.
How am I sposta get up and go when these guys have gone up and went with such gusto?
What do you think?
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He should have reduced his salary to $1.
ReplyDeleteBut I have a much more pressing problem. Do eggs need to be refrigerated? I left some out for the past 8 hours. What do you think?