15 or 16 years ago a big and famous manufacturing company in the Pittsburgh area was on the verge of bankruptcy. Several thousand employees were laid off, and the company almost went out of existence. The board of directors got around to taking action by firing the CEO. Now I don't think that this man was the only culprit, but he was the man in charge, and was highly paid. In order to send him off quietly, the board awarded him an increase in pension (though he was retiring early--by insistence) from $700,000 to $900,000 a year, $10,000,000 in stock options, and get this--the craziest of all--an $800,000 1 year contract as a consultant.
His consulting must have been easy; all he needed to do was to tell the other executives to study his actions and do something different.
This man's golden parachute is nothing compared to the gp's given to the CEOs of the banks and other financial institutions that failed in the current economic crisis.
Rewarding failure has become common in the business world--at the highest levels. I am sure that the lower level employees in the failure did not get millions of dollars. Also, I would like to know how the companies could find the money to pay out these high-level incompetents (or perhaps embezzlers) when they can't pay their regular expenses.
What the hell is the matter with our financiers?
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