My perennial near-hero Mark Cuban recently examined the issue of CEO pay, over on his handy soapbox, The Blog Maverick. In his blog post titled "My 2 Cents on CEO Pay," Mr. Cuban outlined his position on the subject and tossed some ideas around. The post makes a good read, and the author makes some good points. Additionally, the 65 or so comments by the readers are well worth the time to cruise them.

I'd like to discuss and expand upon an idea someone presented in addition to those discussed by Mark Cuban. It's actually a reverse scenario to what Mr. Cuban describes as moving chief executive officers into "the cash zone." In the Cuban scenario, the CEO would be paid cash, without additional compensation through stock grants, in order to make their pay more tangible and visible as a business expenditure. Mr. Cuban also asserts that this might more closely align CEO compensation with company performance. It's an admirable idea, but I doubt that it will ever happen.

In this alternate approach, we give the CEO all the stock certificates he or she can swallow. Then we provide an equal number to be divided among all other employees of the company. In this manner of compensation, all employees have their hands on the ball. The concept of laboring to line the pockets of someone else with gold would become extinct. The CEO would suddenly become a real person in the eyes of the rank-and-file laborers. Likewise, the labor force would be inextricably linked to the financial success of the CEO. If labor is to share the risk, they should also share the reward.

A further stop-gap to this scenario would be if upper management deemed that labor cuts were needed to create profitability, or for any reason other than "cause," they and the CEO would be required to surrender share holdings equal to the holdings of the displaced workers. These surrendered shares would then be distributed to the pink-slipped workforce members, with the company paying all applicable taxes on the transfer. Additionally, no party would be allowed to liquidate more than 5% of their holdings in any one year, as long as they were employed by the company, and upper management would be required to maintain holdings at least equal to those of the workforce.

I know it's a lofty scenario, but it sure would beat the heck out of what we have going on now.

Six Sigma Pricing: Improving Pricing Operations to Increase Profits by M. and N. Sodhi should be required reading for everybody in business, whether in finance, sales, or marketing. This is the most accessible, non-jargon-filled explanation of Six Sigma processes I have read. Using case studies, the authors prove that, just as Six Sigma procedures can be used to define, analyze and reduce defects or deviations in manufacturing processes, these same procedures can be applied to the complicated realm of pricing to examine and then reduce "defects" or fluctuations in pricing. Using Six Sigma methodologies company-wide will help everyone involved in setting and abiding by published prices understand that repeated, unnecessary, unauthorized differences between list prices, discount prices, invoice prices, and realized prices have a direct and usually negative impact on a company's bottom line.

Pricing consistency and control is internal to a company to a large extent. Deviations from list prices do happen primarily because different people in different departments have different goals: greatest profit for people in finance, market share for those in marketing, volumes of sales (and sales bonuses) for salespeople. The authors argue that companies need to build cross-functional pricing teams so that representatives of all groups involved with pricing can have input into how and why pricing is set the way it is for maximum company profitability.

Even readers unfamiliar with basic statistics can benefit from this book. Chapter 7 includes a basic nontechnical overview of the statistical tools involved in Six Sigma analysis. The point of this book is not to teach HOW to implement Six Sigma procedures in pricing processes, though Chapter 6 provides enough basic information to get a team started. Rather, the authors prove WHY companies should implement Six Sigma methodologies to stem "profit leaks." Numerous graphs, tables, and flow charts provide visual reinforcement of the information in the text. Each chapter contains a brief summary. Chapter 13 provides a useful checklist of steps to take, and in what order, to deploy Six Sigma thinking across nonmanufacturing processes in order to better control the outcome.

Investors make mistakes every day. If they didn't we'd all be as rich as Warren Buffett and we're not.

Here's a list of six such mistakes:

• Follow hot tips. As a blogger on AOL's BloggingStocks, I know that some of the most popular posts are the ones that repeat what Jim Cramer said on his TV show five minutes before the post appears on the blog. The reason these posts are so popular is because lots of people are Cramer Ditto Heads (CDHs). He tells them what to do and they do it. While some use Cramer as a starting point for further research, many are too willing to be led and are not inclined to do their own research.
• Don't know how to research fundamentals. One of the reasons people don't do their own research is because they don't know how. Specifically, one kind of research many people don't know how to do is understanding how a company -- whose stock someone wants to buy -- fits within its industry. Many people would not know how to begin answering fundamental questions such as: Is the industry profitable? Why? How is that profitability likely to evolve? What is the company's market share? If it's a leader, can it sustain that leadership? If it's behind can it catch up? What kind of cash flow does the business generate? How much cash flow is it likely to sustain in the future? Does the market recognize these future cash flows in its price?
• Don't know how to analyze technicals. Many times fundamentals have nothing to do with how a stock performs. For example, in December 2003, Martha Stewart Omnimedia Inc. (NYSE: MSO) stock started going up from $9 when its Home & Garden Television (HGTV) show was taken off the air to $36 in February 2005 when Martha Stewart got out of jail. During that time the company saw its revenues shrink 20% a year and its losses skyrocket. The reason the stock went up is a mystery. But I thought people who were loyal Martha Stewart Ditto Heads (MSDHs) bought MSO as a show of support. Many investors do not know how to analyze money flows that would provide clues to what is driving a stock up or down. This can cause them to buy when they should be selling, or sell when they should be buying.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. If this post convinces you that Ford can make a comeback, cast your vote.

Recently I wrote a blog post about some of the nice things Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) is doing. It was just an overview and the article was cursory at best. A member of our excellent editing staff suggested that I might have readers who want a bit more explanation of just what has happened with Ford's stock market value over the last year. I think that for an even better perspective, I'll need to take you back ... way, way back....

Ford Motor Company's stock value entered this decade at $29.30 (the actual per share value was $53.51 but there's a split adjustment factored in). By the end of 2000 Ford stock had slipped to $23.44. One year later the shares had deflated to $15.95 and by the end of 2002 investors were viewing in amazement a stock value of just $9.58. In 2003 Ford took an upswing and shares ended that year at $16.18. But 2004 ended at $14.80, 2005 nearly halved that value to $7.90, and 2006 is shaping up to finish with Ford Motor Company shares close to today's ending price of $8.13. Two factors that must be considered when viewing this historical trend are: In 2000 Ford's daily share trading volume was in the range of 3,300,000, whereas yesterday's trading volume for Ford was over ten times that much at 30,530,400 shares. How do total share availability and volume traded affect the overall price? I'll honestly tell you, that information is just plain "over my head."