How Power Suits Subvert the Law of the Land

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



How Power Suits Subvert the Law of the Land
February 19, 2012

Lawmakers make laws. They don’t enforce them. Corporate America understands that difference — and exploits it with a relentless regularity. The latest case in point: the battle over outrageous CEO pay.

By Sam Pizzigati


Towers Watson, the corporate consulting powerhouse, last week shot out to clients a cheat sheet for dealing with that “unflattering headline about your company’s executive pay.”

This coming spring, the Towers Watson advisory counseled, be prepared for news articles that may “mislead the reader into thinking” that your corporate board is taking “actions that are not in shareholders’ best interests” — articles with headlines like “CEO Pay Rises Dramatically in 2011.”

The Towers Watson warning could hardly be more timely. The new annual CEO compensation reports will start appearing late next month, and all signs are pointing to another big corporate executive pay uptick, maybe as much as the 36.5 percent pay hike for top 500 CEOs reported for 2010.

Few analysts expected this latest surge in executive pay. Two years ago, after all, lawmakers in Congress had written into law a series of curbs on corporate executive pay practices, as part of the widely celebrated Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/how-power-suits-subvert-the-law-of-the-land/