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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (53674)	7/11/2002 10:17:58 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Cubicle Crimes By SCOTT ADAMS Editorial / Op-Ed The New York Times July 11, 2002 DANVILLE, Calif. — Apparently, without anyone's noticing, our entire universe collapsed into a black hole and emerged in another dimension where everything is backward: Bill Gates (who used to be evil) is spending billions to vaccinate children in third-world countries, while the Catholic Church (which used to be good) is defending priests accused of molesting children. The stock market (which used to go up) now only drifts downward. And the surest way to lose respect is to mention you started a dot-com. But here's the strangest backwardism of all: People seem surprised that captains of industry are stealing vast amounts of money at every opportunity. Back in our old dimension everyone assumed that C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s were weasels. Now it's big news. I think it's useful to put these corporate scandals in perspective. Every employee I ever worked with in my old cubicle-dwelling days was pillaging the company on a regular basis, too. But the quantity of loot was rarely newsworthy. My weasel co-workers were pocketing office supplies, fudging expense reports, using sick days as vacation and engaging in a wide array of work-avoidance techniques. Most people rationalize this kind of behavior by saying that corporations are evil and so the weasel employees deserve a little extra. The C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s aren't less ethical than employees and stockholders; they're just more effective. They're getting a higher quality of loot than the rank and file, and for that they must be punished. I have some friends in law enforcement who say the only crooks that get caught are the stupid ones. Assuming this holds true for C.E.O.'s, it's bad news for the economy. I have to think that at least a few of the executives who are running billion-dollar companies are smart, so we might be seeing the tip of the weasel's tail here. The typical C.E.O. legal defense — and it's a good one — is to place the blame on plain old massive incompetence, not on evil. If I end up on the jury for one of those trials, I'll be torn. On the one hand, I'm predisposed to believing that executives are indeed clueless. But on the other, I'm enough of a weasel to vote guilty just to watch a C.E.O. cry. I lost a lot of money on Enron, Tyco and WorldCom. (Yes, I owned stock in all three.) So I might enjoy being a juror on one of those cases. I might even volunteer. And when I sign in to the jury room each morning, I'll steal the pen, because frankly, I deserve it. ____________________________________________________ Scott Adams, a cartoonist, is the author of the forthcoming "Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel." nytimes.com

To: lurqer who wrote (53674)	7/11/2002 11:44:24 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Give it back. kansascity.com Posted on Thu, Jul. 11, 2002 It's time CEOs paid a return By DIANE STAFFORD Columnist It's time CEOs paid a return Give it back. Angst about how to restore big-business credibility could be eased by a financial penalty for executives who were irrationally and exuberantly compensated while their corporate ships sank. Make them return their stock options, their bonuses and maybe even some of their 7- and 8-digit salaries. Make them hand over their multimillion-dollar vacation homes and extra luxury cars. The law goes after drug dealers by confiscating their ill-gotten gains. Why not do the same for top-level executives who cost workers their jobs and/or savings? Now that just about everyone's pocketbook has been hit in some way by the Enron-WorldCom-Arthur Andersen-Tyco-Merrill Lynch-Global Crossing-ImClone-Adelphia-etc. messes, people are paying closer attention to voices in the economic wilderness. Groups like United for a Fair Economy and the AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch have been pointing out for years the growing pay gap between the C-level guys (CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, COOs, etc.) and everybody else. The groups' annual reports about bonuses and options granted to CEOs -- who pared work forces while maximizing short-term profit increases and enriching themselves -- have been criticized as socialist and whining. Proven C-level talent is paid what the free market says it is worth, said critics of the pay gap reports. They deserve it. You're just jealous, they said. Now, many of those critics are shoulder to shoulder with President Bush, who is shocked -- shocked -- that some of America's corporate shepherds may have been foxes in disguise. Those who wonder at, say, the Green brothers' compensation while Aquila was falling apart, aren't arguing that many executives have business skills and responsibilities that merit better pay than those they supervise. But how much better? And why should they be allowed, legally or morally, to escape with wealth when their business decisions or failures to act hurt so many workers' livelihoods? Those aerial photographs of WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan's multimillion-dollar Florida estate are fueling worker bee wrath, which is only somewhat mollified by WorldCom's demand that he pay back last year's $10 million bonus ("earned" while the company under his watch was improperly accounting for nearly $4 billion in expenses). Laid-off workers, some of whom are losing their modest homes because they can't pay their mortgages, are buzzing, and the buzz is this: Greed is not good. There is such a thing as wretched excess. Calls are growing for blue-ribbon corporate boards -- which supposedly would oversee operations better than the director cronies who populate many boardrooms. So too are demands for compensation committees that hold the line on executive pay and tie bonuses to true performance. So too are pleas for stricter policing of accounting practices as well as hefty fines and jail time for business leaders who perpetrate or allow scandals to foment. Each of those remedies would salve some ethical wounds. Meanwhile, nice or not, plenty of workers want revenge. And they want it delivered with this message: You didn't earn it. You shouldn't keep it. Diane Stafford's workplace column appears on Thursdays. To reach her, write the business desk at 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108, send e-mail to stafford@kcstar.com or call 816-234-4359.