A few lucky executives at Citigroup (C) received base pay raises this year, but CEO Vikram Pandit isn't among them. The bank announced that it will compensate Pandit exactly $1 for his services, with no stock salary. Last year, the chief executive collected a modest salary (by Wall Street standards) of $958,333.

Meanwhile, Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach's base compensation was hiked from $400,000 to $500,000 effective Nov. 1. James Forese, co-head of global markets, enjoyed an even heftier pay raise -- his base salary jumped from $225,000 to $475,000.

So you've been on the job for three years but the boss won't cut you a raise. Is that your problem, friend? Perhaps the solution to your problem rests in your own hands. If you can prove you're deserving of a raise in salary and you take the appropriate steps to get one, an increase in taxable income just might be in your future. Take a look at the following informative video to gain some insight on effective paycheck building strategy. If you employ the tactics discussed in this video, and you still can't get a raise, it might be time to seek a new employer. I believe that you have every right to expect appropriate compensation for exemplary job performance, even if that means getting it from a new company.

A number of high-profile CEOs must not have provided enough information on their compensation packages. The SEC is sending them letters asking for a little more detail. The agency has already sent out about 300 letters.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the heads of very large companies, including GE (NYSE: GE) and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) are being asked to provide more information about how they are paid [subscription required].

Among the things that interest the SEC is how pay consultants make calculations for corporate boards. The Journal quotes the SEC's director of corporation finance, John White, saying, "We're seeing a lot of really vague disclosure" about individual performance goals and targets.

The issue can't really be that hard to resolve, especially at very big companies. They know full well how their CEO's pay is set, who is involved, who is consulted from outside the company, and what the final comp numbers are. It is not rocket science.

It is, however, another area of friction between the SEC and big companies.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Shareholders of British grocer Tesco are none-too-pleased with the proposed bonus package for Sir Terry Leahy, which would pay him as much as £11.5 million, or $23.1 million, in addition to his regular salary. 17% of shareholders declined to support the pay package. According to TimesOnline, "Sir Terry, who received £4.62 million in cash and shares last year, would pocket up to 2.5 million shares under the New Business Incentive Plan if Tesco cracks the US market. The shares would gradually vest between 2011 and 2014. The scheme only applies to the chief executive."

Now there's an incentive for global expansion!

While the pay package certainly seems excessive, it's a relative pittance compared to the amount that Tesco is wagering on a successful foray into key U.S. markets including Las Vegas and Phoenix. The company will be investing over half-a-billion dollars per year in the effort, so why not offer Sir Terry a big chunk of change if all goes well?

Compared to some of the pay packages CEOs here are receiving, it just doesn't seem that bad. The gradual vesting of the restricted stock means he will only stand to get really really rich if the company grows well. If it does, shareholders will have little to complain about.

In light of an unprecedented level of criticism being leveled at executive pay packages, companies are coming forward with greater disclosures about how they pay their executives. But according to the Sunday New York Times's terrific look at executive pay, it may be too much, and yet not enough:

Inclusion of new data, like the value of retirement benefits and potential severance payouts, was supposed to paint a fuller picture of everything that an executive could make. Disclosure of such things as the performance criteria used to award lucrative bonuses was supposed to make the pay-setting process clearer. And the addition of a single headline number that tallied up all the elements of annual compensation was supposed to make different executive pay packages easier to compare. But while all the new disclosure rules have resulted in far more information, analysts say they still do not necessarily offer greater insight.

If you're hoping to earn more money at your job (Who isn't?), then you cannot afford to miss the New York Times piece on using the internet to gain leverage in your salary negotiation. This is the most important paragraph from the article:

New Internet technologies are providing information that has never been available to the average person and transforming the way they sell homes or buy airline tickets. It could have the same effect on the 47 million people who look for new jobs each month and the countless others who think they are underpaid at the ones they have.

What sites like Salary.com and PayScale.com are doing is establishing a more efficient marketplace. Just a few years ago, you would have had to spend hours on the phone to find the best deal for a plane ticket. Now, you can log-on to a site like Travelocity, and browse rates from all the major airlines. Likewise, access to more information about salaries will provide employees with the information they need to know if they're being paid an amount comparable to what they might earn elsewhere.

Most interesting, PayScale.com offers information on jobs where it's typically hard to find data, including porn star, crossing-guard, or Rabbi.

The title reads: Hello friends! Welcome to Wal-Mart!

I posted an article on Monday January 15, addressing Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and I suggested some ideas for it to consider in pursuit of future growth. I don't honestly think Wal-Mart will hear about my ideas, much less implement them but I have fun writing this stuff anyway. A motivated fellow we'll call Jack sent me some suggestions of his own. I think Jack has some good ideas so I'd like to share them with you.

Color me surprised. Along with the rest of the investing world, I was happily wandering around, lulled to contentness by the belief that the highest-paid CEO was the nice, boring Eugene Isenberg of Nabor Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR). And why wouldn't I believe it?

Well, mostly, because it's not true. IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI), you see, filed the proxy indicating its CEO's pay later than most companies. And the end result? IAC CEO Barry Diller blows poor Eugene out of the water. Eugene? $71.4 million (that's a lot Eugene! congrats!) Barry on the other hand:

$295. Million. Dollars.

What did Barry Diller do for this money (which was mostly stock options)? Well, during 2005, the year covered by the executive pay survey, his company spun off Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), the online travel site, which was -- I suppose -- a useful thing (although the spin-off's stock is down 30% this year). Stock in IACI declined during 2005, 7%, and while operating income improved by almost four times in 2005, it was still a quite-modest $868.2 million.

And, as this article points out: if you add in stock options from Expedia, Barry Diller pulled in $469.7 million.

I think we can slice and dice the numbers however we like, but none of us are ever going to believe that he's worth that much. The Home Shopping Network is a fascinating slice of Americana, a weird, wacky and wild-eyed universe in which Midwestern grandmas discuss their impending purchases of lawn ornaments and appliqued baby sweaters with highly made-up wannabe "Personalities." An unqualified Wall Street success it's not, and I, for one, vow never to buy anything from HSN again.

That doesn't mean I won't watch the scrapbooking marathon ...

Think before you answer.

What would a $200,000 salary get you in New York, and what in Cleveland? Well, let's strip it down:

• What would be your purchasing power after accounting for the cost of living? New York's cost of living, for example, is double the national average.
• What about effective tax rates? The tax rate in New York is 25.4% for the $200K salary vs. a tax rate of 20.4% in Cleveland for the $100K salary.
• Different inflation rates? May annual inflation rate in New York metropolitan area was 4.8%, in Cleveland, the rate was 3%.

All these should be considered before deciding. So, have you changed your answer?

Let's start by saying that if you have that choice (of making a six figure salary), then congratulations are in order. You are part of the 5% of Americans who do (according to 2004 census reports). But the real question is - where do you live?

CNNMoney.com used data from 6FigureJobs.com and TheLadders.com to figure out the equivalent of $100,000 after adjusting for the cost of living in the top cities that have the largest numbers of six figures jobs listings. In New York, a $100,000 equivalent salary would require a salary of over $205,000, in Boston more than $137,000, about $101,000 in Cleveland and less than $89,000 in Houston.

So while many six figure jobs are indeed offered in higher cost of living areas, there are still many cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland and Denver as well as a few others that also have relatively high numbers of six figures jobs to offer. And as if that isn't enough to convince you, sometimes, just to attract talent, companies in those "lesser" cities would offer the same high salaries as in, say, New York.

In a move sure to take cost savings to a newly symbolic level, Yahoo! said today that Terry Semel's salary would be reduced to $1 each year throughout 2008, just like the top management at Google.

[Aside: as someone who's often been responsible for payroll, I've always wondered how these checks were processed; is it paid all at once or split up into bi-monthly amounts of four cents each? And do they withhold FICA?]

In return, Semel received 6 million stock options at an exercise price of $31.59 per share, as well as the opportunity to receive up to 1 million additional stock options each year. Semel has made $429 million in stock rewards, in addition to his $600,000 salary -- so please don't start sending him your leftover cans of garbanzo beans.