Uh, yeah. Look at the merger of Chrysler and Daimler Benz. Somebody got
their lunch handed to them.

Johnny and Jane think the company owes them a check, send direct deposit
Unions want ever increasing wage and benefits
Wall Street has a bird if a company misses it's profit projections by a
few per cent.
The government thinks of new ways to tax.
Lobbyists pay off politicians to leave their company alone, and / or
make it tougher on their competitors.
Boards follow whatever fad is current.

Hell, why isn't America competitive? Damned if I know...

Jerry Foster wrote:
"Louis Ohland" wrote in message
news
While the idea has merit, who gets to decide what someone earns? If
people (read company boards) are stupid enough to pay 400 million dollar
separation packages, and the shareholders roll over, then what law has
been broken?


snip

In the old days, the Board of Directors tended to consist of the company's
largest shareholders.
And, of course, the shareholders were individuals investing their own money.
Now the big
shareholders tend to be "institutional investors." Today's Boards of
Directors are now merely
"hired help," chosen by the CEO mostly from the ranks of CEOs of other
companies. And,
of course, the people running the "institutional investors" are also members
of this same more
or less incestuous little clique. And it is they that agree to pay one
another these absurd sums,
shareholders be damned.

I once worked for a company that could not possibly succeed. While the
technology worked
impressively well, certain physical limitations (those damned Laws of
Physics again...) precluded
the company from ever generating enough revenue to support itself. We built
a consumer
product, for sale to the general public. Yet, our CEO could not operate our
own product! He
freely (and somewhat proudly) admitted that his contribution to the company
was bringing in
investors. As one of the production technicians once put it to me, "It's
all so the big boys can
have a smorgasboard and maybe you and me get a sandwich."

Later, the business section of a major newspaper did a little article on
that CEO (detailing his
antics in another company where he served on the board). The article was
entitled, "Are There
No Limits to Greed?"

Jerry