Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Chief of Running Companies into the Ground

Since a post back in September on the subject, I ran across another interesting website at http://gcdailyworld.com/blogs/chriswathen/entry/20991/ that shows executive compensation at some of America's largest companies.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which describes itself as a federation of a number of national and international labor unions, has developed the "Executive PayWatch Database" on its website for many of America's top Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). The database can be viewed and searched here: http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/pay...

Many of the companies that are now arguably the biggest causes of the current credit crisis compensated their leaders extremely well. For example, total compensation in 2007 for these CEO's is reported on the site as follows:

Martin J. Sullivan, American International Group Inc. (AIG): $14,330,736

Daniel H. Mudd, Fannie Mae: $11,648,409

Richard S. Fuld, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.: $34,382,036

To put this into perspective, the median U.S. household income is approximately $50,000, as shown here in an August U.S. Census Bureau press release: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html So, these three executives noted above made about 233 to 688 times the amount of the 'average' U.S. household.

With the current economy, in general, and the financial state of the companies above, something doesn't seem right, does it?

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This blog post by Chris Wathen was also published in his Linton, Indiana based Greene County Daily World blog entitled, "Riddle Me This".

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