What the CEO's made

[CalvinHobbes]

Just goes to show these people are WAY overpaid and always have been.


As Congress considers a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street and the banking sector, there are calls to restrict the pay and severance packages for CEOs at investment houses, banks and mortgage lenders poised to benefit from the plan put forward by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.

Executives from some of the major investment and commercial banks involved in the financial upheaval and bailout earned hefty paychecks last year, according to proxy statements outlining their salaries, bonuses and stock options:

* Lehman Brothers Chairman and CEO Richard Fuld Jr. made $34 million in 2007. Lehman (OTC:LEHMQ) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month.

* Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), which Sunday gained Federal Reserve Bank approval to become a bank holding company, paid its Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein $70 million last year. Co-Chief Operating Officers Gary Cohn and Jon Winkereid were paid $72.5 million and $71 million, respectively.

* Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack earned $1.6 million. Chief Financial Officer Colin Kelleher got a $21 million paycheck in 2007. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) also received approval to become a bank holding company, a shift that allows Morgan and Goldman to bring in bank deposit assets which offer more solid financial footing.

* Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was paid $17 million in salary, bonuses and stock options in 2007. Merrill (NYSE:MER) is being acquired by Bank of America (NYSE:BAC). BofA CEO Kenneth Lewis earned $25 million in 2007.

* JP Morgan Chase & Co. Chairman and CEO James Dimon earned $28 million in 2007. Chase (NYSE:JPM) acquired troubled investment house Bear Stearns earlier this year with the federal government promising to take on as much as $30 billion in Bear assets to help get the deal done.

* Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd received $11.6 million in 2007. His counterpart at Freddie Mac, Richard Syron, brought in $18 million. The federal government announced earlier this month it was taking over the mortgage backers with Herbert Allison to serve as Fannie CEO and David Moffett the new CEO at Freddie.

* Wachovia Corp. Chairman and CEO G. Kennedy Thompson received $21 million in 2007. He was succeeded by Robert Steel as CEO in July. Steel is slated to get a $1 million salary with an opportunity for a $12 million bonus, according to CEO Watch. Wachovia (NYSE:WB) is one of the banks that could be sold in the midst of the financial crisis.

* Seattle-based Washington Mutual (NYSE:WAMU) will pay its new CEO Alan Fishman a salary and incentive package worth more than $20 million through 2009 for taking the helm of the battered bank, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.

* CEOs of large U.S. corporations averaged $10.8 million in total compensation in 2006, more than 364 times the pay of the average U.S. worker, according to the latest survey by United for a Fair Economy. In 2007, the CEO of a Standard & Poor?s 500 company received, on average, $14.2 million in total compensation, according to The Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. The median compensation package received was $8.8 million.

 

[Mursilis]

Sadly, incompetence appears to pay quite well.

 

[Atreus21]

The bad guys don't always lose.

 

[Rainsford]

Forget pay and bonus caps, I think if you are in a position where you are responsible for the money of other people and you lose it due to incompetence, you should be thrown in jail. There is (or should be) such a thing as public responsibility, investors' money doesn't just grow on trees.

 

[andy04]

FBI is probing them I hope someone goes to jail and lives long enough to loose all his money.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Forget pay and bonus caps, I think if you are in a position where you are responsible for the money of other people and you lose it due to incompetence, you should be thrown in jail. There is (or should be) such a thing as public responsibility, investors' money doesn't just grow on trees.

I agree with this. Whether through incompetence, malfeasance, or fraud, when your leadership causes this kind of calamity, there needs to be Federal time served.

 

[smashp]

I am making my services available to all of these top banking institutions. I will be your CEO for 1 Million a year and promise to run your company into the ground as effectively as your current CEO. Think of the immediate Cost savings to shareholders.

 

[rudder]

The CEO's of these companies in the bailout better not get one dime of taxpayer money.

I think I will forward them this article:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,426363,00.html

 

[K1052]

Well to be fair I think the new head of WaMu should be making some decent cash given the titanic mess the company is in (which he has to attempt to extract it from).

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: smashp
I am making my services available to all of these top banking institutions. I will be your CEO for 1 Million a year and promise to run your company into the ground as effectively as your current CEO. Think of the immediate Cost savings to shareholders.

LOL!

I'll be your VP for 500k!

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: K1052
Well to be fair I think the new head of WaMu should be making some decent cash given the titanic mess the company is in (which he has to attempt to extract it from).

Then just give them smaller salaries. If they do well, you can give them a bonus. If they do crappily, the company is not out of too much money (beyond the direction the CEO steered them in and the CEO's salary).

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: K1052
Well to be fair I think the new head of WaMu should be making some decent cash given the titanic mess the company is in (which he has to attempt to extract it from).

Then just give them smaller salaries. If they do well, you can give them a bonus. If they do crappily, the company is not out of too much money (beyond the direction the CEO steered them in and the CEO's salary).

That's already been done. However, how do you define "doing well"? Short-term success can easily become long-term failure, but by then the CEO (and the bonus money) is long gone.

 

[43st]

High paying professions attract incompetence like flies to shit.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: K1052
Well to be fair I think the new head of WaMu should be making some decent cash given the titanic mess the company is in (which he has to attempt to extract it from).

Then just give them smaller salaries. If they do well, you can give them a bonus. If they do crappily, the company is not out of too much money (beyond the direction the CEO steered them in and the CEO's salary).

That's already been done. However, how do you define "doing well"? Short-term success can easily become long-term failure, but by then the CEO (and the bonus money) is long gone.

Then give a smaller bonus for the short term with the option for a larger payout if the company does well within the next 10 years.

Overall, I don't really know what to do, but I do know that CEO salaries are a little out of hand.

 

[Vette73]

FYI Bush/republican does NOT want pay to be cut if these compnaies take any gov money.

"Executives whose companies get a piece of the $700 billion government bailout will have their pay packages strictly limited under proposals that are broadly supported by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress."


Bailout in Doubt as Exec Pay Limits Gain Support


Bush protecting his buddies, what a shock. :roll:

No whinder McCain and other republicans that are up for election are running from Bush when they blindly supported him the last several years.

 

[nakedfrog]

Seventy MILLION dollars?!?

How the hell were the salaries at Fannie and Freddie so outrageous? I guess lack of oversight was an understatement.

 

[lupi]

I listened to some stats yesterday mentioned that the top 5 brokerages had lost 75 billion while giving out executive bonues during the same time of 29 billion.

 

[dmcowen674]

I've said CEO pay is a large part of the problem for many years.

Maybe now people are starting to see that.

Will the people do anything about it?

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: Mursilis
Sadly, incompetence appears to pay quite well.

Must be why I don't get good pay at my job


I like the hybrid of stock as part of the pay, with time limits on when you can sell it. But I don't understand why most people need to make over a million a year.

 

[mect]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Forget pay and bonus caps, I think if you are in a position where you are responsible for the money of other people and you lose it due to incompetence, you should be thrown in jail. There is (or should be) such a thing as public responsibility, investors' money doesn't just grow on trees.

And surgeons who make mistakes should be charged with jail time as well. I agree completely if they are breaking the law, then lock them up and throw away the key. I don't like the precedent of making incompetence a federal offense.

 

[JS80]

Those numbers are inflated 4x. Divide by 4. Those are all-in comps. Half restricted stock (which are now way less or worthless) and half taken by taxes.

However, I do hope that the FBI charges these fuckers with fraud and fines them for the cash bonus comp they received for 2007 performance.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: lupi
I listened to some stats yesterday mentioned that the top 5 brokerages had lost 75 billion while giving out executive bonues during the same time of 29 billion.

/facepalm

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: JS80
Those numbers are inflated 4x. Divide by 4. Those are all-in comps. Half restricted stock (which are now way less or worthless) and half taken by taxes.

However, I do hope that the FBI charges these fuckers with fraud and fines them for the cash bonus comp they received for 2007 performance.

So you mean divide by two? I'm not aware of any industry standard of listing salary after tax.

 

[I Saw OJ]

Its pretty easy for those CEO's to get those kind of numbers when you are buddies with all the top people in the company who make the decisions about your salary.

 

[piasabird]

Stock options are not taken by taxes unless you sell them. You have to sell stock to actually lose money unless it becomes completely worthless or you are bought out. All these stocks or most of them could escalate in price in a year or two.

But stock now while it is low and wait for the bailout and the sell high.