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Executive Pay: We Knew They Got Raises. But This?

It turns out that the good times are even better than we thought for American chief executives.

Among the executives who registered huge gains in the value of their company stock and options in 2010 were Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, top, Lawrence J. Ellison of Oracle, center, and Jeffrey P. Bezos of Amazon.com. Together, the three men’s holdings climbed by more than $13 billion for the year.

A preliminary examination of executive pay in 2010, based on data available as of April 1, found that the paychecks for top American executives were growing again, after shrinking during the 2008-9 recession.

But that study, conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, an executive compensation data firm based in Redwood City, Calif., was just an early snapshot, and there were even more riches to come. Some big companies had not yet disclosed their executive compensation.

So Sunday Business asked Equilar to run the numbers again.

Brace yourself.

The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent.

Total C.E.O. pay hasn’t quite returned to its heady, prerecession levels — but it certainly seems headed there. Despite the soft economy, weak home prices and persistently high unemployment, some top executives are already making more than they were before the economy soured.

Pay skyrocketed last year because many companies brought back cash bonuses, says Aaron Boyd, head of research at Equilar. Cash bonuses, as opposed to those awarded in stock options, jumped by an astounding 38 percent, the final numbers show.

Granted, many American corporations did well last year. Profits were up substantially. As a result, many companies are sharing the wealth, at least with their executives. “We’re seeing a lot of that reflected in the pay,” Mr. Boyd says.

And at a time of so much tumult in the media business, it might be surprising that some executives in media and communications were among the most richly rewarded last year.

The preliminary and final studies put Philippe P. Dauman, the chief executive of Viacom, at the top of the list. Mr. Dauman made $84.5 million last year, after signing a new long-term contract that included one-time stock awards.

Leslie Moonves, of the CBS Corporation, got a 32 percent raise and reaped $56.9 million. Michael White of DirecTV was paid $32.9 million, while Brian L. Roberts of the Comcast Corporation and Robert A. Iger of the Walt Disney Company each received pay packages valued at $28 million.

“Media firms seemed to be paying a lot,” said Carol Bowie, head of compensation policy development at ISS Governance, which advises large investors on corporate governance issues like proxy votes. “Media companies in general tend to be high-payers, and they tend to feed off each other.”

Other big payers included oil and commodities companies like Exxon Mobil and a few technology giants like Oracle and I.B.M.

Some of the other highly paid executives on the new list who were not in the April survey are Gregg W. Steinhafel of Target, who had a $23.5 million pay package; Michael E. Szymanczyk of Altria, $20.77 million; and Richard C. Adkerson of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, $35.3 million.

Most ordinary Americans aren’t getting raises anywhere close to those of these chief executives. Many aren’t getting raises at all — or even regular paychecks. Unemployment is still stuck at more than 9 percent.

In some ways, chief executives seem to live in a world apart when it comes to pay. As long as shareholders think that the top brass is doing a good job, executives tend to be well paid, whatever the state of the broader economy. And some corporate boards were probably particularly generous in 2010 after a few relatively lean years for their top executives. In other words, some of this was makeup pay.

“What is of more concern to shareholders is that it looks like C.E.O. pay is recovering faster than company fortunes,” says Paul Hodgson, chief communications officer for GovernanceMetrics International, a ratings and research firm.

According to a report released by GovernanceMetrics in June, the good times for chief executives just keep getting better. Many executives received stock options that were granted in 2008 and 2009, when the stock market was sinking.

Now that the market has recovered from its lows of the financial crisis, many executives are sitting on windfall profits, at least on paper. In addition, cash bonuses for the highest-paid C.E.O.’s are at three times prerecession levels, the report said.

Of course, these sorts of pay figures invariably push the buttons of many ordinary Americans. Yes, workers’ 401(k)’s are looking better than they did in some recent years, but many investors still have not recovered from the hit they took during the financial crisis. And, of course, millions are out of work or trying to hold on to their homes — or both.

And it’s not as if most workers are getting fat raises. The average American worker was taking home $752 a week in late 2010, up a mere 0.5 percent from a year earlier. After inflation, workers were actually making less.

On the flip side, some chief executives have consistently taken token salaries — sometimes, $1 — choosing instead to rely on their ownership stakes for wealth. These stock riches don’t show up on the current pay lists, but they can be huge.

Warren E. Buffett, for instance, saw his stock holdings rise last year by 16 percent, to $46 billion. Other longtime chief executives or founders who are sitting on billions of paper profits include Jeffrey P. Bezos of Amazon.com and Michael S. Dell, the founder of Dell.

Resurgent executive pay has some corporate watchdogs worried that companies have already forgotten the lessons of the bust. Boards have promised to tie executive pay to company success, but by some measures pay is rising faster than performance. The median pay raise for chief executives last year — 23 percent — was roughly in line with the increase in net corporate profits. But it far exceeded the median gain in shareholders’ total return, which was 16 percent, as well as the median gain in revenue, which was 7 percent.

FOR the moment, shareholders aren’t storming executive suites. And while they received a say on pay under new federal rules last year, their votes are nonbinding. In other words, boards can still do as they please.

Pay specialists say companies are taking a hard look at these votes. Still, only about 1.5 percent of the 200 companies in the Equilar study were rebuffed by their shareholders on pay. A vast majority of the votes passed overwhelmingly, with 80 percent or 90 percent support, according to Mr. Boyd of Equilar.

Mr. Boyd says companies are making an effort to explain their pay plans. “We saw companies take it very seriously,” he says of the new rule.

In some respects, the mere possibility that shareholders might reject a proposed pay plan is enough to make corporate executives think again. Ms. Bowie of ISS says that outrageous payouts — such as so-called tax gross-ups, in which companies cover executives’ tax bills on perks like corporate jets — are becoming rarer.

Disney for instance, eliminated tax gross-ups this year in the face of shareholder ire, she said.

Company directors have the power to rein in runaway executive pay, but it is unclear whether either they or shareholders will do so in 2012. “It can be done if there is the will,” Ms. Bowie says.

By: Pradnya Joshi, The New York Times, July 2, 2011

July 4, 2011 Posted by | Big Business, Class Warfare, Congress, Conservatives, Consumers, Corporations, Democracy, Economic Recovery, Economy, Equal Rights, GOP, Media, Middle Class, Minimum Wage, Politics, Republicans, Tax Loopholes, Taxes, Unemployed, Unemployment, Wall Street, Wealthy | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Minnesota Shutdown – A Glimpse Into The Nation’s Future And The GOP’s True Intentions

A telephone help line service for the elderly will not be ringing today in Minnesota.

Blind residents reliant on state funding for reading services will remain in the dark for as long as the government’s lights are turned off. Poor families who receive subsidies for childcare are on their own. The St. Louis Park Emergency Program’s food shelf will have bare pickings for those who depend on the program for sustenance. The Community

Action Center of Northfield will likely be forced to close down its homeless shelter without the state funding upon which it relies to house the homeless.

And yes, 23,000 state workers will be trying to figure out how to care for their families without a paycheck for the duration along with an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 construction workers who will be laid off as the state shuts down dozens of road and highway projects.

These are but a few of the consequences of the shutdown of Minnesota’s government.

At issue is how to close a $5 billion deficit in the state left by the previous Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty.

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat, had tried to bargain his way toward an agreement by offering up massive cuts in state services. In return, he asked the Republicans to agree to a tax increase for the wealthier citizens of the state to make up the remainder of the funding required to close most of the gap in the budget.

But the Republicans held firm on taxes – even when Dayton made his final offer that would have placed an additional 3% tax on only those Minnesotans earning over $1 million a year, a burden that would have been placed on just .03% of all Minnesotans.

It’s not so much that the state’s GOP leaders had a violent, allergic reaction to those earning seven figures a year having to pay a few percentage points more in taxes. What appears to have ended negotiations were the

Republican demands that Governor Dayton agree to their social agenda issues, including Voter ID legislation and abortion restrictions, as the price for the Republicans allowing the very wealthy to pay a little more.

When the Governor refused to swallow the notion that the conservative social agenda should be used as a tool to resolve budgetary issues, the talks broke down and the lights at the statehouse were turned off.

So, you might wonder, how did the Minnesota GOP suggest that the gap in the finances be met even as they seemed to realize that there was little left for the Governor to offer on the cutting side of the ledger?

You won’t believe it.

The Republicans actually proposed creating more debt to close the gap.

The GOP proposed delaying another $700 million in payments owed to schools, which would add to the more than $1 billion the state already owes K-12 schools.

Republicans also offered to issue “tobacco bonds” of an unspecified amount to cover any remaining budget gap. Sources said Dayton considered the offer, but he criticized it as unwise borrowing late Thursday. Via The Star Tribune

I guess a Republican has to do what a Republican has to do when it comes to protecting the wealthiest in the state from paying a higher tax rate- even if it means creating more debt despite a GOP platform that, allegedly, abhors debt.

If you find the lessons of Minnesota disturbing, get used to it.

What you are seeing is simply the national debate playing out on a smaller stage. I suppose this is what Republicans mean when they suggest using the states as laboratories for what will and won’t work on the national level.

You can bet that every political player on the national stage will be watching to see how the Minnesota public reacts to their situation along with which party gets the lion’s share of the blame for bringing this blight upon their land.

If Governor Dayton caves and simply accepts the GOP budget, we can expect that our Congressional Republicans would take great heart in such an occurrence and be emboldened to stick with the plan.

If the GOP legislators begin to fear that their jobs may be in jeopardy as punishment for shutting down the state in order to protect a little more than 7,000 Minnesotans earning at least a million bucks a year, that too will be noticed.

Watch the polls in Minnesota over the next week or two. They may tell you everything you need to know about what is likely to happen as we move towards resolving the debt ceiling debate.

 

By: Rick Ungar, The Policy Page, Forbes, Junly 1, 2011

July 3, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Conservatives, Deficits, Democracy, Economy, GOP, Government, Government Shut Down, Governors, Ideologues, Ideology, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Politics, Public, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, Seniors, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wealthy | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mitt Romney ‘Makes It Worse’ With Obvious Falsehood

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has focused most his message on attacking President Obama’s economic record. To that end, the former governor has repeated a specific phrase over and over again: “He made it worse.”

“He” in this sentence is the president, and “it” references the economy. Romney has used the exact same line, word for word, in debate appearances, press releases, exchanges with voters, and even his campaign kick-off speech, when Romney said of the president, “When he took office, the economy was in recession. He made it worse.”

This is, in other words, one of the driving messages of Romney’s presidential campaign. Unfortunately for the GOP frontrunner, it’s also a lie.

With that in mind, Romney held a press conference yesterday in Pennsylvania, and NBC’s Sue Kroll, to her enormous credit, asked the candidate the question no other reporter has been willing to pose.

[Kroll] asked the former Massachusetts governor why he believes that Obama’s policies have made the economy worse — when the economy is now growing (and not shrinking like it was in 2009), when the Dow is climbing (and no longer in a free-fall like it was in ‘09), and when the unemployment rate is down a full percentage point from where it was in Oct. ‘09.

Romney offered a response that was nothing short of extraordinary.

“I didn’t say that things are worse…. What I said was that economy hasn’t turned around.”

When a candidate lies, it’s a problem. When a candidate lies about lying, it’s a bigger problem.

Even for Romney, who’s flip-flopped more often and on more issues than any American politician in a generation, this is ridiculous. He’s argued repeatedly that Obama made the economy worse, and when asked to defend the bogus claim, says he never made the argument in the first place.

Romney does realize that Google exists, right? That it’s pretty easy to find all kinds of examples of him saying exactly what he claims to have never said?

What’s more, as part of his defense, Romney’s new line — the economy “hasn’t turned around” — is itself wrong. The economy was shrinking, now it’s growing. The economy was hemorrhaging jobs, now it’s gaining jobs. The stock market was collapsing, now it’s soaring. When compared to where things were when the president took office, the economy has obviously turned around, even if it’s far short of where it needs to be.

I’m not sure why this isn’t a bigger deal this morning. It was amusing when Michele Bachmann falsely characterized John Quincy Adams as a Founding Father, but Romney getting caught telling a blatant falsehood about one of the central themes of his presidential campaign is infinitely more important.

Remember when John Kerry, talking about Iraq funding, said he was for it before he was against it? Romney’s incoherence yesterday is every bit as interesting.

 

By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, July 1, 2011

July 1, 2011 Posted by | Conservatives, Democracy, Economic Recovery, Economy, Elections, GOP, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Jobs, Media, Mitt Romney, Politics, President Obama, Republicans | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mitch McConnell’s Insincere Invitation

One can only dream of a Republican Party led by grown-ups. Instead, we have this.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) challenged President Obama on Thursday to meet with Senate Republicans to hear firsthand about the political reality of passing tax increases through Congress.

A day after Obama challenged Republicans to give up special tax breaks for corporate jets and major oil companies, McConnell issued a challenge of his own on the Senate floor.

“I’d like to invite the president to come to the Capitol today to meet with Senate Republicans. Any time this afternoon if he’s available, to come on up to the Capitol,” McConnell said. “That way he can hear directly from Senate Republicans … why what he’s proposing will not pass.”

McConnell says once Obama learns from GOP lawmakers that ending special tax breaks for oil companies and wealthy families has no chance of passing the Senate, “we can start talking about — maybe, finally — start talking about what’s actually possible.”

Let me summarize the message McConnell announced this morning: “If the president has some free time in a few hours, he should stop by and listen to us tell him we want to lower the deficit, but only in ways we see fit.”

Soon after, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters the president need not hear Republicans “restate their maximalist position,” adding, “We know that position. That’s not a conversation worth having.”

Of course not. Everyone knows what everyone thinks and everyone’s position at this point. Obama doesn’t need to listen to Republicans demand 100% of what they want, anymore than McConnell needs to listen to Democrats tell him he can’t get 100% of what he wants.

This entire process made a right turn at farcical quite a while ago. Mitch McConnell isn’t just threatening to crash the economy, he’s also threatening to make mockery of the institution he claims to serve and turn the American political process into a reality-show circus.

Not to be outdone, NRSC Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) said President Obama has “diminished” his office by urging lawmakers to do their duty. If anyone explain what on earth Cornyn was blabbering about, I’m all ears.

And then there’s Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, who told Fox News this morning that the president goes golfing too much.

These aren’t random House backbenchers — McConnell, Cornyn, and Thune are three of the top four highest-ranking Republican members of the Senate. And they all appear to be rambling incoherently.

I was about to type that there are no adults left in the Republicans’ room, but that’s not entirely true. There are still a couple left, but they’re stuck in primary fights, so they have to go along with the madness to save their careers.

It’s a pathetic display.

 

By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, June 30, 2011

July 1, 2011 Posted by | Congress, Conservatives, Debt Ceiling, Debt Crisis, Democracy, Economic Recovery, Economy, Federal Budget, GOP, Government, Government Shut Down, Lawmakers, Politics, President Obama, Republicans, Right Wing, Taxes, Wealthy | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Debt Ceiling Hostage Taking: Section 4 Of The 14th Amendment Was Designed To Stop John Boehner

Kevin Drum is skeptical that the Obama administration would really be within its rights to ignore the debt ceiling:

Maybe I’m missing something here, but it strikes me that this doesn’t come close to implying that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. What it really suggests is merely that the public debt is the only untouchable part of the federal budget.

Jack Balkin delves into the legislative history and shows why the 14th Amendment has a provision guaranteeing the debt in the first place. The sponsor of the provision, Benjamin Wade, wrote at the time:

[The proposed amendment] puts the debt incurred in the civil war on our part under the guardianship of the Constitution of the United States, so that a Congress cannot repudiate it. I believe that to do this wil give great confidence to capitalists and will be of incalculable pecuniary benefit to the United States, for I have no doubt that every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.

Balkin explains:

If Wade’s speech offers the central rationale for Section Four, the goal was to remove threats of default on federal debts from partisan struggle. Reconstruction Republicans feared that Democrats, once admitted to Congress would use their majorities to default on obligations they  disliked politically. More generally, as Wade explained, “every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.”

Like most inquiries into original understanding, this one does not resolve many of the most interesting questions. What it does suggest is an important structural principle. The threat of defaulting on government obligations is a powerful weapon, especially in a complex, interconnected world economy. Devoted partisans can use it to disrupt government, to roil ordinary politics, to undermine policies they do not like, even to seek political revenge. Section Four was placed in the Constitution to remove this weapon from ordinary politics.

In other words, it’s in the 14th Amendment to guard against exactly what Congressional Republicans are doing right now.

Balkin does not suggest, nor do I, that the legal merits are open and shut. It’s certainly risky to take a flyer in the middle of a debt crisis. But if we do reach h-hour, we’re probably better off if the Treasury simply announces it’s going to continue to pay the bills and dares Republicans to take them to court than repudiating the debt, right?

Matt Steinglass argues that the Supreme Court would likely side with the Treasury:

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past 11 years, it is that the Supreme Court’s decisions on critical issues are very strongly influenced by political pressure. In a situation where the entire weight of world bond markets was bearing down on Anthony Kennedy’s head, would he really vote to crash the economy and destroy the credit rating of the United States? Would any individual do that? I don’t think even Eric Cantor would, if he were solely and publicly responsible for the decision. The ability of the GOP to push the government to the brink of default, and possibly ultimately over it, depends on the diffusion of responsibility: Republicans can only do it because they can hold Democrats to blame. It’s also driven by political vulnerability: Republicans have gotten themselves into a spiraling tea-party-driven political dynamic where they seem, on issue after issue, to be incapable of voting for any proposals that a Democrat might be able to accept, for fear of the consequences from their base. Anthony Kennedy does not have to fear a primary challenge, and if the United States’ ability to pay its debts comes down to his single vote, he’ll have no excuse. Maybe I have no idea how these things work. But I can’t see a Republican Supreme Court going toe to toe with the entire massed forces of Wall Street and not blinking.

A point that I think is worth drawing out here is that it’s not even clear the GOP leadership wants the power to take the credit of the Treasury hostage, or  — more likely — if it’s simply been forced into this position by a financially uneducated base. Republicans in Congress might be relieved to have a deux ex machina absolve them of the need to walk a fine line between the demands of the base and the demands of their business constituency.

 

By: Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, July 1, 2011

July 1, 2011 Posted by | Congress, Conservatives, Constitution, Debt Ceiling, Debt Crisis, Democracy, Democrats, Economic Recovery, Economy, Elections, Federal Budget, GOP, Government, Government Shut Down, Ideologues, Ideology, Lawmakers, Politics, President Obama, Republicans, Right Wing, SCOTUS, Teaparty | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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