Merrill Lynch's CEO Thain seeking 2008 bonus

[Big Orange]

I agree that website is not completely trustworthy and it doesn't pay to be too radical and paranoid, but then again no jobs or homes for millions would make the population more inherently dangerous and harder to control, with an angry, politicized community looking to lash out at culprits - it is interesting to learn that a cornerstone of Iraq's ruin and the coalition's occupation turning rotten was because Iraq's state industries were shutdown to pander to the free market.

[Bedlam]

It might be something I should know but why are execuative pay plans designed with salary + a bonus of several times the salary which they get under almost all situations rather then just a much larger salary? Is there some sort of tax brake on the bonus or is it just a way to make their take home pay look smaller than it actually is?

[General Zod]

It might be something I should know but why are execuative pay plans designed with salary + a bonus of several times the salary which they get under almost all situations rather then just a much larger salary? Is there some sort of tax brake on the bonus or is it just a way to make their take home pay look smaller than it actually is?

It has to do with arcane tax laws that are incomprehensible except by grossly overpaid lawyers. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the specifics of compensation to really say myself.

[bobalot]

Toyota is currently the worlds largest auto maker. Been incredibly innovative and successful in the last decade.

In a reflection of Toyota’s team-oriented approach, its executive pay is paltry by U.S. standards. Analyst Ron Tadross at Banc of America Securities estimates the total annual compensation of Toyota’s CEO at under $1 million - about as much as a vice president at GM or Ford Motor Co. makes in a good year.

A quote from this website (which actually quotes it from somewhere else).

It kind of makes you wonder how our CEO arseholes can justify their enormous payouts.

[Big Orange]

They've found a way of keeping their CEO serving the well being of the company, shareholders, and employees, instead of himself. Corporations are not charaties, and never will be, but Friedman's model of retardo capitalism has seemingly encouraged a generation of American CEOs who are much more like Third World dictators than brilliant statesmen who leave a lasting legacy - brutal hacks who spread chaos and loot the coffers.

[Coyote]

Remember, the focus has shifted for most American companies. It used to be that if you made a good product, people bought that product, and your stocks went up, and so your investors made good dividends for their investments.

At some point, someone realized that the real money was not in products or reputation, but in getting those stocks up so there'd be more investors & more dividends. Most companies these days are really just stock-manipulation companies, with some crappy products tacked on so it looks like they're actually doing something.

[Big Orange]

I know what you mean and is a good enough explanation for the almost systematic tardiness of CEOs/chairmens in corporate governence, but in the case of World Com, Enron, the central banks, and car manufacturers, the gravy trains got horribly derailed.