CEO pay is part of a bad system

This is a response to Jerry Donlon's "High CEO salaries are an easy target."

Your argument neglects one reality. CEO benefits packages are absurd, unethical and sinful. You make the argument that the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002 has put an end to CEOs getting excessive compensation packages. But has it? I went on the Internet to study the infamous Robert Nardelli former CEO of Home Depot. As is commonly known, January 2007 he got a $210 million plus stock options severance package to leave a corporation whose shareholders were ready to lynch him at the last shareholders meeting he attended due to poor corporate performance.

The median income for an individual in the state of Illinois in 2007 was $42,995. If a median income employee were to receive a comparable severance package to Robert Nardelli's they would receive $236,472 to leave their company.

Continuing my study of Robert Nardelli, I stumbled onto an article announcing that Robert Nardelli had been named the CEO of Chrysler. He agreed to be paid $1 a year - with other compensation not publicly disclosed. The CEO clans have realized that they need to keep their compensation packages a secret. They too realize the absurdity of their thievery.

It is official, the foxes are in charge of the hen houses.

This gets me to all the foxes in corporate America. The boards of corporations vote on CEOs compensations. It is a common supposition that different CEOs sit on different boards in an intermeshed connectivity that necessitates each one taking care of the other one for fear of their not being taken care. A comparable scenario would be if all the employees, of let's say a department in a company voted on their manager's compensation. Then in turn, that manager would assign each of his employees their compensation. I am almost certain that in short order, wages would double, then triple, then, sink the company. Imagine if this model were incorporated all across the United States of America.

Fred W. Neitzke

Bartlett