One CEO Who Gets It

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What you fail to realize Rick is that the only incentive CEOs have is to commit fraud. Finally, please show me any correlation between CEO compensation and corporate performance. You won't find such correlations because they do not exist. Only with private firms (typically venture-funded) do they exist. This whole myth of CEOs and their incentive is just more propaganda spread by the media as a why to support their sponsors (corporate America); you know, the guys who pay the bills via buying ads and commercials.
Look at the former CEO of Blockbuster, Antioco. This CROOK robbed shareholders by increasing his compensation from $5 to nearly $25 million in 2005(?) just when the company reported massive losses. These guys are criminals plain and simple. And shareholders have NO VOTE because mutual funds have all the votes.
The fact is that over 90% of all CEOs of publicaly traded firms in the USA are USELESS. The larger the firm, the more useless they are. Most of these guys spend time with politicians trying to get legislation passed to favor their industry or company. People, don't believe this myth that these CEOs are special in some way because they are not. They are no more intelligent than most of you and I know they don't work as hard as many of you. The only special thing they have is this boys club which guarantees their dynasty. Once they become a CEO or board memeber, they float from company to company regardless how useless they are. It's similar to how Washington works. In fact, there is not much of a distinction between corporate executives and Washington politicians today. This is why you see so much flip-flopping from politics to corporate American and vice versa. If you haven't figured it out, corporate America controls Washington.
Of course, I am censored by the media despite the fact that I am the leading expert on this crisis, having predicted everything you see today in 2006. I hope you can figure out why. Political and financial agendas. If Americans were to discover the real solutions, this would upset corporate America (via free trade) and the healthcare industry (universal healthcare).
Even now, not one single bank CEO has the slightest clue what is going on with their banks. Not a single person in Washington has a clue either. America has turned into such a joke I am ashamed and disgusted. And the media is just as much to blame for this mess as the financial industry because they censored the real experts like me from warning the people in advance. Instead, they allowed the same useless hacks with terrible track records lie and deny, as they always do. Ultimately, Americans are to blame for allowing this same con game to hit them twice in less than a decade. You people are so ignorant you deserve all the misery that becomes you.

The Leading Expert on the Current Depression of TX 7:52AM February 09, 2009

He's ok because he's new money...the corrupt banksters are pretty much evil incarnate from generations of reptilian, demonic breeding. They need to be extinguished for the Earth to survive happily.

harry mellon of MI 11:29PM February 08, 2009

The problem about percentages is that it's based on a number that can vary. Like one commentator here said, a 50% tax is meaningless in this situation because a CEO making $2 million now will probably manipulate his salary to $6 million next year and take home $3 million after the 50% tax.
We are probably in a depression right now and CEOs should lead the way in terms of fiscal responsibility like the rest of American households. Parents are now scrimping on expenses to keep the family afloat in this crisis. There's no reason why CEOs should not cut down their salaries to $500,000 especially if their companies are asking for taxpayer help.
The CEO of Japan Airlines voluntarily cut his salary because he sympathized with his employees that were let go. He cut his pay so some jobs might be saved. That is an honorable man. Apparently, a lot of CEOs are not honorable men therefore there's no shame in them protesting this proposal to limit CEO pay.

Ric 3:23PM February 08, 2009

CEO's can earn whatever their shareholders are willing to tolerate. HOWEVER. If you've driven your company into the ground and you want the goverment to use the PEOPLE'S money to bail you out, then you have to accept the rules that go along with that. Reduced pay.
These CEO's have plenty of money and can manage just fine on $500,000. All the bonuses they took before will hold them over until they begin to show a profit and pay the PEOPLE back.
I find it mind-boggling that the GOP and idiots like Hastings don't understand this simple thing: if you don't want limits, don't take the PEOPLE's money.
What INCREDIBLE arrogance.

R. Hubbard of CA 2:05PM February 07, 2009

That higher taxes mean that board's just gonna double the pay? I think it's more likely the opposite. You gonna tell shareholders you have to pay $40 million so $20 million can go to IRS? Nah.

Muser of NM 11:31AM February 07, 2009

The fallacy in his thinking is this: so we tax at %50 - it just means
that corporate boards will pay double to their peers. Until corporate
boards truly represent share-holder and employee interests (sometimes
one and the same for companies with ESPP's), nothing will really
change with his idea. The relationship that is most perverse is Wall
Street increasing the value of a given stock in reaction to cutting
jobs.
Imagine that we had a notion of a company's value being raised
as a function of the number of people it keeps productively
employed.

David Bein of MA 9:54PM February 06, 2009

I agree with a previous commenter who points out that CEOs who are receiving public money due to their incompetence should have their pay capped. However, taxing those earning over a million at 50 per cent is not necessarily a viable idea at least until shareholders get a greater say in how companies are run. For the past decade or so, CEOs have stacked their Boards of Directors with individuals beholden to them who will not balk at their increasingly unrealistically astronomical salaries and perks. Until that changes - until Boards of Directors are appointed that can actually be impartial about benefits accruing to CEOs being performance-related - we will continue to see offshoring of low-level jobs and ridiculous earnings increases for top-level jobs - a dangerous trend for an economy that is fueled (at 70 per cent) by consumer spending. Jobless consumers cannot spend what they do not have.

thepoliticalcat of CA 5:41PM February 06, 2009

I read the Times Op-ed, too, and agree that it makes sense to tax higher incomes more. Sounds like stuff I heard Bill Gates's dad campaigning for a dacade or more ago. But I think Hastings misses big time on a couple of points:
1. The cap of $500,000 applies to top executives of companies that are receiving >>public<< funds because of their losses. Since it is the public's money, it is not OK to use it to feather the nests of private individuals (especially since these particular guys got the company into the dire straits to begin with.
2. He sounds like an astronomical salary is entitlement. Very interesting. Corporate america used to struggled with "entitlement" attitudes of the rank and file (who used to think they were entitled to things like regular salary increases, health care coverage, vacation,...). When the shoe is on a different foot, I guess it doesn't feel so good.

bill of MN 5:28PM February 06, 2009

Someone rich and successful has been found who will admit the truth. We need a high marginal rate on astronomical incomes. We "knew" that for decades until Reagan hypnotized us otherwise.
Higher taxes are the antidote to boards lavishing excess pay on CEOs for their "talent" ---a thing which most often was measured by skill at eliminating your's and your coworkers' jobs or moving them to China.

Muser of NM 3:46PM February 06, 2009