It’s the first Monday in September. That means it’s Labor Day. The very first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City way bay in 1882. At least for now, it’s still a national holiday. I don’t hold up a great deal of faith we will continue to celebrate it, since business and the GOP party have been working hard to eliminate union labor at every turn.
Remember what I said yesterday? That these 19 leaders had their own agenda- and not necessarily the one we the stockholders and citizens of the US- want or need for our investments and for the strength of our national economy?
Continue reading Pay for NON-Performance
Remember when those computer companies used to ship out their brand new products to the stores- without having secured the sales? Or, claimed to have a product (hardware or software) to enter the market in days to kill competitor entries? (IBM did this to Osborne and Control Data; Microsoft was adjudicated in a court case headed by Stanley Sporkin [who also dealt with the Home Intensive Care/Health and Human Services (HHS) spat a few years later.) Or, the auto companies who delivered vehicles to their dealers- even though no one had ordered them
Here we go again. It’s annual report time- and we see that CEO’s are getting more and more outrageous increases to their already bloated salaries. Even if those companies are doing poorly.
Continue reading Who’s in Charge?
Unfortunately, my first baseball game of the year was rained out. But, that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about baseball and what it can teach all of us.
Continue reading What’s a manager worth?
I have a good friend who shares dinner with me often. And, we often argue. (No, we don’t fight; there’s a vast difference. We have different politics- and can still learn from one another.) One of the recurring arguments is his belief that when he buys stock in a company, he actually owns a part of it.
Continue reading Do you own that company- or not?
I have already discussed the issues with inflated CEO compensation. One primary cause driving compensation upward is that many firms employ a technique that insures that he (it is typically a he) gets salary increases regardless of the performance at the firm. I have also discussed the problem that executives are paid ridiculous multiples (not 10 to 50, but 250 to 500 times) of the average pay at their firms.
Continue reading CEO Compensation and Corporate Performance
I have been having debates with my friends and colleagues for years over executive pay. You, too, have heard me rail that there is no financial or business reason to allow an executive to receive compensation of 100, 200, or 500 times the average pay of the corporation s/he leads. When I was growing up, executive compensation rarely exceeded 10 times the average pay. I realize I am old- but this inflation is not only ridiculous, it’s as dangerous as that obtaining in pre-World War II Germany!
Continue reading The Myths of CEO compensation
