Ward on Words

Bank of America is set to pay back $45 billion it owes TARP. Funny how the need to free the company from CEO pay restrictions provided motivation for such an action... For more, here's Felix Salmon's report . And here's what the WSJ has to say .

Not long ago, I wrangled a bunch of parents to volunteer for the school's annual carnival. A lot of work, but it's a volunteer position that gives me the chance to talk with people I'd otherwise never get to meet. One of the moms who helped out is a flight attendant at American Airlines. During some down time at the carnival, she shared her frustration about the great divide between executive compensation and the pay scale for the rest of the people who work for American. She had no problem with executives earning significantly more than other employees - her problem was that the executives who negotiated hard for union concessions in a number of areas - including compensation - then turned around and paid themselves an enormous bonus. The flight attendant was outraged that leaders who asked for shared sacrifice apparently felt entitled to remove themselves from the opportunity to sacrifice with the rest of the company. According to this story in the Washington P...

Rick Wagoner, newly retired CEO of General Motors, is driving away from his career with a $20 million retirement package. That's what's being reported in the MSM (see here for one of the stories.) Wagoner had been CEO at GM since 2000 - so had nearly a decade to make an imprint on the company. Prior to that, he had been COO and CFO for the company - meaning he spent at least 15 years in the C-suite at GM. His company exists today thanks only to the largess of the American taxpayer. And thanks to the brilliant retirement package he negotiated sometime ago, Wagoner will never again have to work a day in his life – nor will his children. His time at GM was spent building up massive generational wealth that the autoworkers who worked for him cannot even fathom. (It's funny when Detroit talks about the expense of building cars, they never factor the enormous compensation package of the CEO into the equation.) The employees built cars - the CEO built wealth - for ...