LEAVE A DAY EARLY. A HOTEL IS CHEAPER THAN A PRIVATE JET

I seriously doubt that many if any of thesemanagement guys are actually worth a million dllars per year. Most managment involves delegation of most of the work; management merely makes the final decisions and selections . . . they do not have the inclination nor the time to do much of anything else. They even have subordinates who read, digest, and condense the volumes of information that are "supposedly behind the decisions".

"Making decisions on the golf course" is not that difficult. As a self employed consultant, I put in numerous 12 - 16 hr. and even 18 -20 hr. days fairly frequently. I seriously doubt that the CEOs and upper managment do that. Granted that their decisions are more far reaching; but look at the results of what they have chosen to do during the last eight years . . . ending in this economic melt down of our economy, and disasters for our corporations.

That certainly does NOT warrant million dollar "plus" salaries for any of these guys, especially the CEOs of the failed/failing corporations. No CEO, CFO, etc. should be paid more than 3 or 4 times what the President of the USA is paid. Every CEO should have to FULLY justify the value of their salaries and compensations.

Our corporate business models have simply become too grossly skewed when it comes to managment compensation. It is time for the pendulem to "swing the other way' . . . and quickly too.

Sure there are start up periods, and other market conditions that minimize the RoI to investors (who own the companies); but the norm should be that the stockholders should be first in line for the profits of the corporations, not the CEOs.

It's easy for corporations to adjust the "salaries/wages to work production" for the middle and lower class employees by simply laying off workers and increasing the work load on the remaining employees. The same needs to be done with managment. The preferrable option is to simply implement pay reductions and to reduce the number of layoffs.

The inherent problem in all of this is that peoples standard of living and endebtedness has been established by their prior salaries; so it is difficult to change. It will create hardships for those with pay reductions versus creating a financial hell for those who are laid off during a recession and who cannot find employment.

American corporate managment, especially in the financial institutions and stock markets, has greatly contributed in creating this ecpmp,oc debacle. They should be FIRED and replaced with management with substantial reductions in their pay and compensations.

All of the "old glory dogs of yesterdays" CEO have lost their luster . . . they have become the bums of the industry. It's time for new management.

BREATHES THERE A MAN WITH SOUL SO DEAD HE HAS LOOKED ON DONALD TRUMP AND NOT SAID ; " I'D LIKE TO KICK HIM SQUARE IN THE NUTS ..."

The public's perception of the lifestyles of these CEO's is tainted by stories of frivilous flights for pleasure, a lot of which were true. Now that these guys have begged for and received money from a lot of us common folk their discrecinary spending habits can be questioned by anyone who pays taxes.

If these CEO's are so brilliant and worth all that dough they ought to be smart enough to know that their bailout comes with this kind of scrutiny.

They are big boys. They will just have to adjust like the rest of us poor folks do every day. Did they think we would not care how they spent our hard earned money?

It's kind of hard to believe any of this claptrap. A webcam costs about 30 bucks. A Learjet costs about 4 million, and 1 mil. annually for upkeep. Maybe they should go back to grade school, and learn basic math.

Did their phones stop working? I don't understand the need to look at the person I'm doing business with. If they have to look deep into each others eyes, throw down the 25 bucks for a web conference....

I agree with the web cam thought. GO TO MEETING has been very helpful to our company. As for the CEO bums, I thought they were the best minds in the business. How is it that they could not schedule a flight on a commercial carrier which go to almost every city and town in the industrial world, in time for some BS meeting. Is it because they are incompetant? Maybe they need to sit next to someone in coach and get a reality check of how things really are out there. As for high salaries, NO one is worth millions a year. NO ONE !

Ken said: It's kind of hard to believe any of this claptrap. A webcam costs about 30 bucks. A Learjet costs about 4 million, and 1 mil. annually for upkeep. Maybe they should go back to grade school, and learn basic math.

Ken: backslapping and palm greasing are kinda hard to do by webcam. Gotta be there in person to do those things!

Wow, some real brains are on this message board. All that I think has been said. Once a company goes on the stock exchange to get share holder's money, the company has an obligation to perform with wisdom. What is wise in driving a company into bankruptcy with outlandish personal spending and salaries that are more than they are worth.

12-30-2008 @ 6:20AM

al coholic said...

"If these CEO's are so brilliant and worth all that dough they ought to be smart enough to know that their bailout comes with this kind of scrutiny."

===== > And if these guys are so "brilliant" and truly "earning" their salaries (and bonuses and other compensations) then they certainly would not have allowed their corporations to wind up in such dire straights, right?

And NONE of them deserve a MILLION dollar salary a year for the situations that they have "managed" their corporations into. These guys are still receiving excessively exorbitant compensations for TOTALLY INCOMPETENT PERFORMANCES.

These guys care more about getting their "compensations" than they cared about handling the business for the corporations. It is past time to dramatically slash their compensations . . actually, they should be FIRED and replaced. Their "name recognition" does not overcome or compensate for their previous failed performances . . . if they were in lower management positions, they would have been summarially fired long ago.

It is time for major changes in upper management . . . and the compensation plans for such positions.

It's time to set things straight in all of this economic debacle.

CEOs are nothing more than "employees", they just happen to be the "highest positioned employee in the corporate structure . . . BUT they are STILL EMPLOYEES.

During the last several decades, they (the CEOs) have "gamed' their positions and compensations into excessively exorbitant levels. During expanding prosperous times, or the illusion of such, everyone (the Board of Directors, stock holders, etc.) just accepted the notion that it was due to the supposedly superior performance of these CEOs.

When the "bubble burst", the truth was revealed that the CEOs were "riding the waves" versus providing "brilliant astute leadership". These guys manipulated and took advantage of the situations to milk the system dry without regard to the rights of the stock holders RoI.

This is another case of "The Kings not having any clothes on . . ." In many cases, the previous "paper profits" were substantially based on fraud and deceptions . . . assets that were not worth the posted book values, illegally designating some issues as being "off- the-books, etc.

It is time for the USA to purge the old corporate elite CEOs who have a demonstrated past of FAILED PERFORMANCE. And it is time to totally restructure the compensation plans for CEOs and other upper management personnel. It is totally unconcionable to force drastic economic changes on the midlle class and lower classes, and allow the upper class to hold onto these exorbitant and excessive compensation plans . . . THEY ARE THE ONES WHO CREATED THIS ECONOMIC DEBALCE.

Management inefficiency..... Yea right. Looks like they'll be playing a few less rounds of golf.

Ever heard of teleconferencing.

Have these CEOs ever heard of teleconferece? I watched in our business and I'd estimate that about 60% of "flying" to somewhere wasn't necessary.

I am CEO of my own company and would never consider owning a private jet (though I can afford one or two). Web conferences are the way to go IF you have to see the people on the other end. I do 99.9% of my business on the phone or by e-mail. Travel wastes time and money. Period. The only reason I would ever go to another site is to sign sales papers with the other party then notarized.