meirman wrote:
But corporate CEOs and boards are always saying they have a duty to
the stockholders to maximize profits. I wonder how true that is, in
law and in practice.


It never seems to bother them when their negotiating their own compensation
packages. Just this last week there was some media coverage of the former Delta
Airlines CEO who managed to get a multi-year multi-million dollar "consulting
fee" thaat included clauses to prevent the consultations from being either
inconvenient nor taking very much of his time. All it took was a lot of
stockholder money.

There ought to be a law mandating the maximum amount of compensation allowed in
publicly held corporations directly tied to the income of their average
employee. In Japan, the CEOs of the largest corporations make 7-10 times that
of their average employee; here it can run 100s of times.

Don't tell me you have to offer 100s of times the average salary to attract the
best. I'm sure they're not interested in earning what the average man makes and
will accept what you offer on top of that. Even if they wouldn't, what have you
lost? Most of these overpaid CEOs seem to be running their companies into the
ground. The CEO of Delta didn't set the world on fire with anything except his
exit package.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE