Reformist presidents and upper-class ingrates

I always thought I would be the first up against the wall when the revolution came. Turned out it was Wall Street instead.

What is striking about the ruling corporate executive class, whether in Wall Street or Hollywood, is their virtually limitless sense of entitlement.

You guys clearly spend way too much time on the inside. Look, there is a widely shared view, even among the layer of management immediately below the executives in corporations, that this crowd is out of control. At my corporation (not a financial one), the CEO froze merit pay because of the finan cial emergency. Well and good.

Then it came out that, after overseeing a 75%+ drop in stock price over the last year, he had secured a commitment to a $5 million plus retention bonus from our Board. When this was leaked to the local paper, the Board stated he had to meet financial goals, but wouldn't specify what they were.

The semi-amused speculation among senior managers is that he has to keep the stock price over $1. At the same time he dispensed with all merit pay, he asked the Board to buy him a helicopter so he could commute from his LI home to his new digs at the new WTC. Amazingly, they turned him down. For all I know, he has signed a rental agreement for one.

If these are the shenanigans at the better run companies, can you imagine what it's like elsewhere?

Nobody objects to people making money in America. However, it is essential to the Horatio Alger ethic to believe they earned it.

@Justin: LOL!!! Hopefully it happens this week; right now I'm next door to where you gave your talk last week.

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?s=3

Try reading these comments. People aren't really that angry. They are just unsympathetic that taxes on their $50-60K a year should be huge bonuses for executives at firms that tanked.

The pitchfork scenario is unconstructive. But maybe it's fun to be snarky, eh?

OMG, I read that book nearly 30 years ago in high school! I still have the copy. I don't agree with all of the author's opinions, but what fun.

Oh, crap, now I want to suspend my Discworld marathon and read APT again. How nerdy can you get? My recollection is that Hofstadter dumped on Jefferson and overly-hyped Truman, but my last reading was about a dozen years ago and I don't trust my impression anymore. [On a side note, I've always wondered if the author were related to Douglas (Gödel, Escher, Bach), whose book I was reading about the same time (and should probably dust off and read again).] Too many books, too little time.