Wall Street: Kiss Golden Parachutes—and Talent—Goodbye?

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What talent?? The talents who caused this crash. Where is the brain?? Traders were playing hot potato with ppl's future. This is the so called "Talent".

Kevin 4:16AM October 16, 2008

There was plenty of opinions out there before this mess that you cannot go on borrowing and levagering forever. They were ignored.
If you are a truely "Taleneted" CEO, you would have spotted this and not needed a golden parachute as your comapny collapsed. You would have steered your comapany in a different direction and protected your share holders investment.

Ed of NY 7:16PM October 15, 2008

May some of these smarter people will get work turning around the newspaper industry. Surely not all ideas have been exhausted?

robert ivan of NJ 5:46PM October 15, 2008

Talent and integrity should go hand in hand. However, in our present financial crisis, this seems to be... not the case.
For the CEO's, CFO's, etc. When the people in these positions are fully aware that they are leading the masses to the edge of the cliff and care less (due to their owning their own golden parachutes), their rewards should be breaking the larger rocks into little ones upon their safe landing at the bottom of the crevice. Unfortunately, for the masses that follow them, the financial results are truly devastating. Herd mentality is also dangerous!
I'm sure that check and balances can be put into place in order to protect our future economy, but I always wonder how long it will be before the exec's once again find new ways to circumvent these new safeguards. I hope for the best.

DeJay of WI 3:10PM October 15, 2008

It's a good point. However, there's an argument that some among the truly talented are motivated by more than money -- or should be -- or must be as these institutions retrench and so does the economy. Look at what all the talent has done lately, and the number of "talented" leaders who drove their businesses into the ground and left just about as rich as they would have been if "talent" translated into "any good at their job." With less extreme comp comes less pressure and with less pressure comes cooler thinking, and with cooler thinking comes better decision making. Those who are motivated only by comp SHOULD go and work for a hedge fund (if any of them survive the current and coming redemptions) or other business without caps. Those who are interested in semi-public sector work for a multiple of government pay, who want to actually make a difference in the business of doing business in the US of A can and will be attracted to restricted comp situations. The reality is that if these people super-perform nobody will have a problem super-paying them. It's if they don't that nobody wants to throw good money after bad. The Journal and other observers must, for their own political and philosophical reasons, object to the pay limits. We -- the new shareholders in these institutions -- can be more pragmatic. "Best" and "brightest" are always subjective concepts.

Andrew of CT 2:46PM October 15, 2008