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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (65683)	7/2/2004 11:12:50 AM
From: Amy J	Respond to of 77400

mindmeld, RE: "It's like the U.S. senators. They don't care about fixing social security because they have their own plan that's separate." Good post. On a related note, since the stock market is perceived to be in a funk, it has suddenly become evident to the work force how much someone at the top makes. When everyone was doing good, no one noticed nor cared. It's further exasperated by offshoring some of the entry to mid level positions, while labor at the top still remains tight (at the moment). The top remains tight in part, because a substantial number of successful people retire half-way through, rather than continuing on to the next thing. Hightech has the appearances of evolving into a bit more of two-tier model, somewhat more typical of a mature industry. And BODs (being more analytical than sensitive) created some visibility issues in the timing of their comp packages, which has impacted some of the work forces, e.g. a lot of rumblings from HP employees, etc. Ultimately, it could create high turnover. If companies don't move their stocks soon, we're going to see a lot of musical chairs in the Valley, which simply comes at the cost of shareholder profits. BODs don't realize there's a cost to shareholders when compensation packages create a moral issue that could result in higher turnover rates. You don't hear any complaints from Cisco's employees over Chambers comp package, but there's a lot of rumbling at HP over Carly's. (One might argue that Carly doesn't make that much money, relatively speaking, but the timing of her gains were absolutely horrible - smack in the middle of wage freezes and cuts.) Some BODs lack common sense on how to handle comp so it doesn't create visibility issues, and that will come at the cost of higher turnover rates, which will impact shareholder profits. They should have had a higher comp for her in the earlier years (where her salary was basically frozen during the boom years) and then a much lower one during the hard years. They did exactly the opposite. Anyway, the key here is that stocks start moving and new innovation starts to bring in more new jobs at the mid to entry levels here to ease the current blow. Regards, Amy J