>>>When this finally breaks as a media story, it will shake Wall Street,imo<<<
I've said it once and will say it again. There will never be a shakeup in Wall Street until someone goes to jail. Not one person for Enron will go to jail, yet congress and the media has spent months covering that debacle with no punishment handed out. And, all the top officials walk away with zillions just by pleading the 5th. Now even Anderson has backed out of paying retribution to the thousands of employees who have lost everything.
Just saw a piece on PBS that did a very nice piece on CEO salary's and stock options. Many of today's CEO's who are "cheered" by the public for not receiving any bonuses due to pathetic shareholder value for the year, were compensated by receiving millions of options at bargain base prices, not to mention several were given revisions to exchange the worthless ones (higher prices) for even cheaper prices. The CEO for Continental Airlines just received this deal.
Also, a former consultant for CEO executive pay, who quit due to ceo abuse now is fighting the other side for changes, states that CEO compensation has grown from 100 times employee compensation (former norm) to well over 350 times employee compensation. In other words, no matter how bad the company performs salaries continue to grow by form of stock options.
He names a specific case where the former CEO of Global Crossing built what's believed to be the most expensive, elaborate and biggest home in America costing $75 mil provided by all the options he cashed in worth an estimated $750 million.
Guess what? Nothing will ever happen to any of these clowns, including Kenneth Lay. Not one company executive has gone to jail for I can't recall how long, and not will anytime soon. |
