White House opposes executive pay bill

[cal04]

Source: AP Business Writer

The Bush administration is opposing a bill before the House, pushed by Democrats, to give shareholders at public companies a formal say in executives' compensation packages.

The legislation, written by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, comes at a time of growing public and shareholder anger over lavish compensation for executives unrelated to their performance. It would give shareholders a chance to cast an advisory vote on executive pay plans, allowing them to show their approval or disapproval of them.

Investor advocates, union pension funds and shareholder groups have been pushing for such "say on pay" votes as the chasm between executives' salaries and the pay of rank-and-file employees continues to widen.

With Democrats in the majority in the chamber, the bill is expected to pass the House in a vote on Friday. No comparable measure has yet been put forward in the Senate.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_go_co/congress_executive_pay

[DavidDvorkin]

1. I'm shocked!

No, wait, I'm not.

[Fresh_Start]

2. what the hell is the objection to the stockholders

having a say in executive compensation.

Stockholders are the owners.

[Sherman A1]

9. Precisely

We just bought some shares of the company where my wife has worked for 18 years. The annual report shows the CEO makes 465 times her salary and yesterday her division boss told them just how proud he was of them increasing business last year by 30% (the division has grown significantly, every year for at least the last 10 years) with with no increase in the number of people on staff. (we of course hope he got a good bonus). The managers are barely able to keep up with the turnover in the job positions as people are leaving for greener pastures the moment they get the chance, but the boss is proud because they grew by 30%.

These "Gentlemen" just don't seem to GET IT......

:argh:

[LiberalFighter]

3. There should be a max PERIOD

[jgraz]

4. Excuse me while I die of NOT SURPRISE

:puke:

[ozymandius]

5. Of course Bush opposes this. Pay linked to performance?

At this point that Executive's salary would be in the negative digits.

[DemoTex]

6. WH poster-boy (or poster-pig?) for humane treatment of CEOs: Lee Raymond.

[Igel]

7. Don't like it. No, sir, I don't like it at all.

I've been a boardmember on a non-profit organization that had many thousands of stakeholders. I had fights over "CEO" compensation; the "business" was losing money, and we gave the CEO a raise.

"Freepers" had an easier time; they usually got it, since they hoped to be making at least that much as their starting salary. The worst were "progressives" who believed that the students that the organization employed should make $20/hr, while the management in the non-hierarchical structure they preferred should make $30k a year, on principle--they did nothing useful, just "business". They couldn't understand that they had neither the financial savvy or managerial skills necessary to evaluate the CEO or do her job--contrary to what they claimed, that anybody could be CEO and do a better job. They refused to believe that the board had looked at hundreds of resumes before interviewing a dozen people--and that was the *second* time, the first search simply crashed. We simply didn't want to lose the CEO we had, with the disruption that would cause, even though the organization was hemorrhaging money--not through anything she had done. Moreover, in spite of losses, she was doing a hell of a job. It's just that without going through spreadsheets and revealing personal information it was hard to justify.

It took 4 years; in year 4 we were in the black (way in the black by the accounting standards we used in year "-1"), and the CEO breathed a sigh of relief. She told us it wasn't easy staying in the black, but reversing losses of over a million a year on sales of $80 million was hell. She cut back to working 50 hours a week instead of 70.

I *do* believe that there should be a cap on CEO and top-tier managerial salary. I don't know whether I want it to be a multiple of the average wage paid to employees or some percentage of gross sales or something else. Both have problems. There should also be some requirement that boards outline justification for their wage decisions using other than boilerplate language.

[grannylib]

8. Well of COURSE they do! Money is for people who already HAVE money

How DARE any of the lesser beings (who make obscene salaries for executives possible) think they should have ANY right to say ANYTHING about the topofthetotempole very special people and their salary and stock options and bonuses and insurance and pensions and the millions in severance pay they'll get if they get sacked for mismanagement??? They're ENTITLED to that!! It's HARD WORK ripping off your employees and investors!! :sarcasm:

How the fuck do these people sleep at night??

OH yeah...THEY don't lie awake worrying about HOW TO PAY THE FUCKING BILLS.

[truthisfreedom]

10. The shareholders OWN the fucking corporations. Without them, the corporations would be NOTHING.

ANYTHING the shareholders say is corporate LAW.

End of story.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Ahhh, but there is the rub. It is the institutional investors that own the corporations

The small shareholders are merely given the illusion that they have a share in ownership.

[thinkbridge]

12. King Bush, don't be so obvious

Corp. execs are the new Aristocracy, and the Bush administration are the new royalty. Did we say it's time to take back our democracy before it's too late and impeach Bush? It's our Constitutional duty!

[HughBeaumont]

13. Plutocracy, anyone?