The economy is BOOMING! For CEO's, that is. Even when their corporations

[muntrv]

are loosing money.

As the American economy slowed to a crawl and stockholders watched their money evaporate, CEO pay still chugged to yet more dizzying heights last year, an Associated Press analysis shows.

The AP review of compensation for the heads of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index finds the median pay package added up to nearly $8.4 million. That's a comfortable gain of about $280,000, or 3.5 percent, from 2006.

Pay for only one Ann Arbor-area CEO topped the median for S&P 500 executives last year, and that was David Brandon. The head of Domino's Pizza Inc. earned a total of $14.8 million last year, driven largely by a $12.5 million stock option payment he got because the pizza company paid out a special dividend of $13.50 a share last year.

The pay increase for CEOs came even as the landscape for both workers and shareholders darkened considerably and the economy was choked by a housing market in free fall, layoffs and soaring prices for fuel and food.

The AP examination of CEO pay in 2007 mined data from the 410 companies in the S&P 500 that filed compensation disclosures with federal regulators in the first six months of this year.



http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/06/ceos_pay_chugged_higher_in_200.html

[leftofthedial]

1. CEO's are the claws by which the oligarchy grips our economy

and controls our nation

[crazymans economics]

2. Tell me why people invest in publicly traded companies again?

The CEO makes money whether the company does or not.

As "Crazyman's Economics" points out, you are left holding a piece of paper that only has value if someone else buys it off of you. The company has no obligation to do so.

The company is getting free capital, with no promise to pay back, even in dividends.

The board of directors are many times stocked with cronies of the CEO with no real interest in the efficient operation of the company.

The company gets away from issuing "stock options" instead of a higher salary. It's like handing out lottery tickets.

None of this benefits the average American investor.

[leftofthedial]

3. because the propaganda tells us that we can all be rich

if we play the capitalism game


it's very much like religion telling us we can live forever

[Name removed]

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