Is their something evil about friendship?
Really? You mean that the board wasn’t voted upon by the shareholders? How curious.
I’m surprised that high level CEO types would socialize with other high level CEO types from their industry. That’s completely unthinkable, why don’t they golf with the janitors? I’m sure the janitor can afford to play at the same posh courses your CEO goes to.
Interesting that people who are skilled executives tend to get nominated for jobs that require executive skills. You’d think that when your CEO nominates someone for a board that he’d pick some random Joe, instead of a guy who he knows and trusts.
It would be presumptuous to think that your CEO socializes with these people because they are brilliant high level executives in his industry (you know, networking…). Obviously, instead, they are high level execs because they socialize with your CEO. :rolleyes:
Bill H., your desperation is beginning to show. You are abusing the
[quote]
operator in attributing statements to me that I never made. Learn some etiquette before you start your next bleat.
Let’s review for a moment, shall we? Burd gets some stock options from Safeway. The options are worth $132 mil at the start of 2002, but only worth $76 mil at the end of the year. The -$56 mil is a paper loss incurred by Burd’s decision not to exercise his options at the beginning of 2002. You are trying to portray this paper loss as Burd’s just deserts for mismanaging Safeway when in reality the two are unrelated.
Also, you say I used the figure $26 mil, which you can easily see I did not by reading my previous posts. You claim to be a big corporate honcho, so one would expect you to have a better eye for detail.
And msmith537, your comment about a $45,000 a year teacher having no standing to discuss politics with his students provides fascinating insight into your mentality.
We live in a world of limited resources, so obviously everyone cannot have everything at the same time. All I’m saying is that these hardnosed CEOs and their apologists suddenly get very softhearted when the market comes down on them. If you want to look at it from an efficiency standpoint, a CEO whose pay plan is rigged to give him millions regardless of what happens to the company can be relied on to eventually run the company into the ground because of poorly thought-out risk taking. After all, there’s no downside. That is, if you don’t count the employees, customers, and the rest of society.
By the way, if you dopes had taken five minutes to do a little research, you could have found that Burd really did get a 40% pay cut last year (his salary, not the options), which would be much more difficult for me to argue against. I find it mildly encouraging that Safeway is actually tying his pay to his performance, even if it is limited to his salary, which is only a few precent of his total compensation over the past few years.
Or there’s always that thing of getting some candidates via other means, interviewing them for the job, picking the best guy based on merit. Well, you’ve probably never heard of it …
When it constitutes an “old school tie” system that provides infinite opportunity for some and excludes others, it has some problems.
Hyperelastic wrote
The problem is that (for a number of reasons) Mr. Burd couldn’t exercise his options at the beginning of 2002. He can cash some in here and there. But if he actually cashed in the full amount, everyone would freak out, the shareholders, the Directors, the employees, everyone. There are likely even contractual and legal reasons he couldn’t cash them all out. That’s his lot in life: He runs the company and gets a percentage of it in return. The company does good, he does good. The company sucks, and he loses $56m.
His stock options are “paper money” in the same sense that cash is paper money, or that your checking account is paper money. He was paid $132m pre-2002. At the end of 2002, instead of the $132m that Mr. Burd had at the beginning, he had $76m. He lost $56m. If you have $10k in your savings right now, and tomorrow you have $6k, you’ve lost $4k. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t in cash under your mattress. You are poorer $4k. Mr. Burd lost 56 million dollars during the year 2002 as a direct result of his employment with Safeway.
Now, you can argue that the initial $132m was undeserved. You can argue that the $1m+ salary is too high. But the math is simple: Mr. Burd lost a shit load of money for the pleasure of being the CEO of Safeway for the year 2002.
Also, while we’re on the subject, you (and our friendly AFL/CIO) attributed $10.9m to Mr. Burd’s income in 2002, when that money was from cashing in stock that he had already earned in previous years. That doesn’t count.
You’ll see I used your quoted number in this post. I don’t think the values are really as relevant as my overall message. I think you’d say the same if you missed a number. As to the “big corporate honcho” part, I’m not that. I’m just an honest working man, doing the best I can.
It may be semantics, Bill, but one could also argue that Mr. Burd merely “failed to gain,” rather than “lost” the $56m. Essentially, the stock options are performance incentives, much like those offered to professional athletes. If Joe Slugger has a $1 million base contract with $1 mil in incentives, then hits .200 with 10 homers, few could argue that he “lost” a million, rather that he “failed to gain” it.
But Duke:
Joe Slugger gets $1m plus an extra $1m if he does good.
Our friend Mr. Burd got $1m plus $132m when he did good pre-2002. Then when he didn’t do so good in 2002, he got $1m minus $56m.
Differences:
a) For the CEO, the salary is peanuts. It’s all about the bonus.
b) For the CEO, he doesn’t just risk this year’s bonus if he sucks. He risks previous years bonuses, which is money he’s already earned and been paid.
possible non-sequitor alert::::::
The SoCal Metropolitan Transit Authority is taking heat during the drivers and mechanics strike for paying the top exec a LOT more than the top executives of the Chicago and New York MTA’s. Even though, as you know, Chicago and New York both service twice as many public transportaion riders.
The SoCal MTA’s staement was “we HAVE to offer that kind of salary to attract the top talent”. Which is kinda like saying the guys in New York and Chicago ain’t the top talent and nobody would be inticed by a very well paid job with a lot of challenge in the fun-in-the-sun, hot babe (or hot guy) capitol of the world. No, they would have to overpay to get somebody good…
Really? I’m glad I’m not your “friend”.
“…our educational opppertinities are based almost soley on class…”
Has some corporation licensed this as a sig line yet? If not, I foresee a moneymaking opppertinity. 
NYT Classifieds:
Wanted - Board Member for $10B grocery conglomerate. Must have good people skills, knowledge of the grocery industry, and a 4 yr college degree.
Or… you can use the contacts you have in the industry to pick out a person you (as a grocery bigshot) already know is qualified, or interview from a group of people you know are good. There are a limited number of people qualified for these jobs, most of them are well known already to people in the industry.
We’re not talking about picking up a mid-level manager, these are board members and CEO’s, you don’t just decide via a 1 hour interview.
Maybe the CEOs would do better in their jobs if the job selection process were more open. Maybe they wouldn’t. But no one would have grounds for suspecting that the “selection process” was just a matter of mutual back-scratching, as is clearly the case now.
Ah, I get that now. Sorry 'bout that.
Do you have evidence of this?
In an earlier post, you offered three cites:
Your first cite reveals board members that sit on boards of multiple companies. While I agree that raises the spectre of conflict of interest for corporate decisions, it’s utterly silent on the point of CEO compensation or selection.
Your second cite defies your position utterly, except as pertains to mutual funds. It inveighs against the practice of mutual fund directors being hamstrubg by corporate ties instead of responsive to investor concerns, but it acknowledges, in its very first paragraph, that (now, at least) corporate boards are standing up for investors and taking a hard line against executive greed.
Your third cite discusses Dick Grasso’s compensation as head of the NYSE. Nowhere in it can be found even the slightest whiff that Grasso was selected improperly. The entire thrust of the article is that nothing improper was done as regards Grasso’s selection or compensation. Grasso is painted as a victim of the CEO compensation hysteria even though he did nothing wrong.
What possible support do any of those citations have for your position that CEOs are chosen improperly, based on “old school” or golf course associations, rather than on merit?
- Rick
Evil Captor, you’re about as fucking stupid as fucking stupid gets. However, because I care, I will deign to bestow some knowledge upon your ignorant ass:
(1) Here’s how a corporation works: shareholders vote for the board of directors, and the board of directors picks the CEO. The board of directors have a duty to do what’s best for the company, so if they pick a shitty CEO simply because he’s a golfing buddy, then the shareholders can sue the board and win damages.
(2) Just because a CEO gets paid a lot of money in one year and during that same year the company’s performance takes a nosedive doesn’t mean that the CEO is an overpaid loser who doesn’t know how to run a company. The CEO must decide which risks to take and how to position the company to do best, and sometimes, despite the CEO’s best efforts, shit just doesn’t work right. Now, if a company underperforms its competitors year after year, this could be used as evidence that the CEO sucks and needs to go, but you can’t just say “CEO X made a billion dollars in 200X while his company went bankrupt! I could do that! Waah!”
(3) There’s no magic relationship that must exist between how much CEOs make and how much the other workers in the company make. Each group is competing for a job in a totally different market, and each group has different skill sets and different sacrifices it will make for the corporation. Just because CEOs make a billion (or 250 or 12 or 0.4) times the salary a factory worker makes doesn’t mean shit.
(4) Earlier you said that American CEOs make much more than CEOs in other countries, and you somehow think this is a bad thing for America. Have you had a chance to take a look at the similarities and differences between the economy in America and the economy in most other countries? Here’s a start: we’re doing pretty damn well over here.
(5) It sounds like at its core your position is based on your hurt and resentment stemming from you experiences at one company. Maybe it would be better if you based your opinions on facts and sound theory and such instead of your animosity an paranoia.
(6) Why has even sven abandoned us? Maybe she’s actually learned something?
I’m sorry, I’m on my fourth job interview this week and fifth day of eating nothing but oatmeal and beans.
Honestly I don’t care what the view looks like from the top. Nor am I concerned about $400.00 hammers. CEOs can make whatever they want. My concerns are that:
[list=1]
[li]It sucks that education, and the oppertunities that go with that, are based largely on the economic and social status of the family you happen to be born into- to the point that many people do not have a good honest chance of making much of themselves in their work life.[/li][li]Working conditions on the lowest (and most populated) levels at most corporations suck. At-will employment, high turnover (with no attempt to retain or train employees), purposefully dead-end jobs, an aversion to hiring full-time employees, lack of benefits, insulting statues and a general but huge lack of respect permeates these positions. A worker at Wall*Mart is not getting ahead. She will likely stay on for three months, quit because she cannot afford to exist on her wages (which, as she is likely a part time employee, can be cut but as much as 75% on any given week just by scheduling her less hours) and is sick of knowing that she’s not getting anywhere. Because she is in a minimal training position, her next job will not be a better one. This can continue forever. And that sucks.[/li][li]There is impovrishment and suffering in America. This is not usually the fault of the impoverished sufferer (although I don’t think it’s cool to let people sit around impoverished and suffering even if it is their fault). People go hungry. People raise their families on their friend’s couches. People die because they cannot afford to visit the doctor to figure out what that unexplained pain is. People’s teeth fall out and bones rot. They cannot change locations, they cannot afford school or training. They may be sinking into debt just to keep gas in the car that they live in. And these are not just a couple people. This is the standard of living afforded by the people who serve us every day in their service sector jobs. In a prosperous society, this is not cool.[/li][li]Businesses have obligations to their employees- just like the have obligations to their shareholders and customers. In a prosperation nation of human beings, we cannot just say “tough luck” to the people who must subsist at the bottom of the barrell.[/li][li]Labor unions help to keep businesses up on those obligations. The whole grocery union is an example of that! Their employees can afford to live! Do you know how much they make in non-union grocery stores? At or just above minimum wage. Although they are not perfect organizations, unions represent the only leverage many of these people will have in their employment for their entire lives. In that capacity, it’s cruel to purposfully cross picket lines. Even today labor unions still keep things in check. Theres nothing keeping everything from going all to hell just because things are vaguely okay now. Anyway, workers have a right to organize and it is generally to their collective benefit that they do. And if we cannot as individuals see how our actions affect us collectively, we’re fucked as a race.[/li][li]And, most importantly, when a bunch of folks in office jobs where they have enough freedom and free time to surf the Internet all day sit down and talk about how workers have it great and everything is peechy keen nowdays, if only they’d stop whining and having their annoying protests they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become CEOs as well, it’s condenscending and insulting. And the comments along the lines of “I’d go out of my way to cross a picket line” is not only insulting, it’s enraging- hence the pit.[/li][/list=1]
Okay, get back to talking about CEOs
Here we go, point by point (although Og knows why I’m bothering with you):
-
As I said in about the fourth or fifth post in this thread, I’d like to see some evidence of this. I believe you are wrong and that the socioeconomic status of one’s parents has much less to do with the education level of thier children than you believe. It’s really sad that you take a position on something and then stick to it despite the lack of evidence. You don’t even look for evidence to support your position, you just think something up and then spout off about it.
-
The working conditions are as good as the employees want them to be, and, no, I don’t expect you to understand what this means and why it’s correct. Also, just because you think working conditions suck doesn’t mean it’s incumbent on the world to do something about it.
-
Again, I’m sure there are some people dying on their friend’s couches and all the crap you say, but (1) you don’t provide any evidence of how many people are so bad off in this way, (2) for some reason you both refuse to believe that people have any responsibility for their own actions and you think that people that disagree with you think that people are 100% responsible for every little thing that happens in their life. So, you’re kinda focusing on the negative here (the very very small minority) without any evidence, setting up strawmen, and there’s some kind of persecution complex in their too. Also, what’s the solution and how does this have to do with what else we’re talking abou? Do you think that all corporations should stop making money at once because there’s one poor person in America?
-
A business’s obligations to their employees are spelled out in each individual employment contract with each individual employee (whether such contract is written or not). For the employer to give an employee any more than is spelled out in that employment contract is just as unfair as the employee getting paid less than they agreed. Again, you fail to see the big picture here.
-
Yeah, I’m out on this debate.
-
I now see why you are having trouble getting a job. You are not a very smart person.
God, I’m really being a mean son-of-a-bitch today for some reason. It’s just that the whole “corporations are evil” bit that Evil Captor and even sven do just drives me up the fucking wall.