Lehman Bros. Richard Fuld, $40 million.
Merrill Lynchs Stanley ONeal, $46 million.
Bear Stearns' James Cayne, $40 million.
Freddie Macs Richard Syron, just shy of $20 million.
Fannie Maes Daniel Mudd, $12.2 million.
As the nations financial system was crumbling, the CEOs who were in charge of the most troubled financial firms pocketed fat paychecks during their final full year on the job and that doesnt include the golden parachutes they got when they walked away.
Public outrage over this disconnect has caused Congress to step in and try to do something about skyrocketing executive compensation. But history shows that government attempts have been weak, at best, when it comes to curtailing CEO riches.
Why? Because regulators never go far enough in giving shareholders a true voice. Its difficult to break up entrenched boards of directors that make the decisions on executive compensation.
Even the $700 billion bailout package that is fighting for life on Capitol Hill doesnt have the teeth to put a lid on these financial windfalls, experts say.
Over the past two decades, efforts by government officials to rein in the big payouts, including changes to the tax code and calls for more oversight, have actually contributed to the growth in CEO pay now 275 times the salary of the average working stiff, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Government regulators are notoriously ineffective at reining in pay, and oftentimes the unintended consequences caused greater problems, says Charles Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware.
Lets go back to the mid-1980s when the public also was outraged about executives getting huge payouts as a result of the merger mania at the time. The government and investors wanted to make sure managers were selling companies because it was financially prudent, not because they would walk away with huge severance packages.
These concerns resulted in a 1986 change in the tax code creating a penalty tax on excessive golden parachute payments more than three times an executive's base pay.
What happened after that, says Steve Van Putten, a senior executive pay consultant for Watson Wyatt in Boston, was that companies started paying this penalty tax for executives, a process called grossing up. And the three-times base pay limit became the standard for many parachutes that were once well below that.
In 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced proxy disclosure rules taking information about executive compensation that was once narrative and thin on numerical values, and putting actual numbers out there for all to see.
It became very transparent, and a CEO at one company could see what another was making so theyd say, Hey, I want to be making that, says Van Putten.
The big change one that many compensation experts and shareholder advocates point to as a turning point that led to the obscene CEO paychecks were dealing with today came in 1993 with tax code provision 162(m) that limited tax deductibility for executive pay at $1 million. The exception to the rule was for pay that was considered performance-based compensation, like, you guessed it, stock options.
As a result, stock options have gone crazy, says Mel Fugate, assistant management professor at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Under the rule, for example, a CEO could get $1 million in base pay and $400 million in stock options.
This focus on stock options created a volatile mix, boosting incentives for executives to make risky business moves in order to boost a companys stock price.
Thats exactly what has happened with the subprime mess that led to the downfall of so many old and established Wall Street firms.
Certainly, compensation practices at these companies have been a major contributor to the financial crisis, says Paul Hodgson, a senior analyst at the Corporate Library, an independent governance research organization.
Alas, government intervention thus far has been an unmitigated disaster, adds Alan Johnson, a compensation consultant. I would think if you went back 20 years or so, youd see its enriched consultants like me, lawyers, accountants. It was wasted time and money and didnt reduce pay. It was so poorly designed, so full of loopholes, and so silly.
So, what needs to be done to finally clamp down on CEO pay and incentives that encourage short-term gains, but do little for the long-term health of the nations corporations?
Can wild CEO pay be tamed? Probably not - Economy in Turmoil - MSNBC.com
Merrill Lynchs Stanley ONeal, $46 million.
Bear Stearns' James Cayne, $40 million.
Freddie Macs Richard Syron, just shy of $20 million.
Fannie Maes Daniel Mudd, $12.2 million.
As the nations financial system was crumbling, the CEOs who were in charge of the most troubled financial firms pocketed fat paychecks during their final full year on the job and that doesnt include the golden parachutes they got when they walked away.
Public outrage over this disconnect has caused Congress to step in and try to do something about skyrocketing executive compensation. But history shows that government attempts have been weak, at best, when it comes to curtailing CEO riches.
Why? Because regulators never go far enough in giving shareholders a true voice. Its difficult to break up entrenched boards of directors that make the decisions on executive compensation.
Even the $700 billion bailout package that is fighting for life on Capitol Hill doesnt have the teeth to put a lid on these financial windfalls, experts say.
Over the past two decades, efforts by government officials to rein in the big payouts, including changes to the tax code and calls for more oversight, have actually contributed to the growth in CEO pay now 275 times the salary of the average working stiff, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Government regulators are notoriously ineffective at reining in pay, and oftentimes the unintended consequences caused greater problems, says Charles Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware.
Lets go back to the mid-1980s when the public also was outraged about executives getting huge payouts as a result of the merger mania at the time. The government and investors wanted to make sure managers were selling companies because it was financially prudent, not because they would walk away with huge severance packages.
These concerns resulted in a 1986 change in the tax code creating a penalty tax on excessive golden parachute payments more than three times an executive's base pay.
What happened after that, says Steve Van Putten, a senior executive pay consultant for Watson Wyatt in Boston, was that companies started paying this penalty tax for executives, a process called grossing up. And the three-times base pay limit became the standard for many parachutes that were once well below that.
In 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced proxy disclosure rules taking information about executive compensation that was once narrative and thin on numerical values, and putting actual numbers out there for all to see.
It became very transparent, and a CEO at one company could see what another was making so theyd say, Hey, I want to be making that, says Van Putten.
The big change one that many compensation experts and shareholder advocates point to as a turning point that led to the obscene CEO paychecks were dealing with today came in 1993 with tax code provision 162(m) that limited tax deductibility for executive pay at $1 million. The exception to the rule was for pay that was considered performance-based compensation, like, you guessed it, stock options.
As a result, stock options have gone crazy, says Mel Fugate, assistant management professor at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Under the rule, for example, a CEO could get $1 million in base pay and $400 million in stock options.
This focus on stock options created a volatile mix, boosting incentives for executives to make risky business moves in order to boost a companys stock price.
Thats exactly what has happened with the subprime mess that led to the downfall of so many old and established Wall Street firms.
Certainly, compensation practices at these companies have been a major contributor to the financial crisis, says Paul Hodgson, a senior analyst at the Corporate Library, an independent governance research organization.
Alas, government intervention thus far has been an unmitigated disaster, adds Alan Johnson, a compensation consultant. I would think if you went back 20 years or so, youd see its enriched consultants like me, lawyers, accountants. It was wasted time and money and didnt reduce pay. It was so poorly designed, so full of loopholes, and so silly.
So, what needs to be done to finally clamp down on CEO pay and incentives that encourage short-term gains, but do little for the long-term health of the nations corporations?
Can wild CEO pay be tamed? Probably not - Economy in Turmoil - MSNBC.com
Employees making a lot. You think I have a problem with that? 
Screen Actors Guild. Thank a union! 
