It Pays (A Lot) To Be A CEO
Half Of America's Top Executives Make More Than $8.3M A Year
AP) A new Associated Press calculation shows that compensation for America's top CEOs has skyrocketed into the stratospheric heights of pro athletes and movie stars: Half make more than $8.3 million a year, and some make much, much more.
CEOs of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 that filed proxy information in the first half of this year received a combined $4.16 billion in 2006, according to AP's formula.
The high cost of chief executive pay has drawn criticism in recent years as salaries rose, stock options paid off like lottery jackpots, and perks like chauffeured cars and private jets spread. Still, there are few signs of any investor backlash.
2 comments:
Bah.
I doubt that it makes any difference, given my small holdings, but I vote my stock proxies with particular attention to executive salaries and bennies, stock options (we must be able to attract and keep the best people, blah blah), and other such egregious perqs. It's at least satisfying, if not truly productive, to vote against them, and *for* almost any stockholder proposal (i.e., something the board advises against).
For a long time I didn't bother with voting proxies; now I can't wait to strike my tiny blow against the corporate whores who are sucking out of companies money they haven't earned (no one is worth multi millions a year to be a figurehead for the people who do the real work) at the expense of small stockholders.
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