You may remember not too long ago when the banksters were insisting that they just had to have their bonuses and their GIGANTIC salaries because otherwise they just wouldn't be able to get anybody to work in banking any more. If, in fact, they lost as much as a single percentage point, they'd all go John Galt on us and we could just see how hard they worked screwing their investors and wrecking the planet, and when we were overwhelmed and bloodshot and wringing with sweat, then we'd understand how important they were and come crying back to them, begging them to take over again.
Turns out all that whining and threatening was kind of, well, bullshit.
Of the 104 senior executives whose pay was set by the federal pay regulator in the last two years, 88 executives, or nearly 85 percent, are still with the companies even though their pay was drastically cut back, according to people briefed on the government data.
The relative stability, at least within the executive suite, suggests that a soft job market, corporate loyalty and personal pride helped deter the feared management exodus at the companies hardest hit by the pay rules.
I'm sorry, "corporate what was that word? Loyalty"? *hack hack* *cough* *wheeze* Um, I don't think so. I think what's going on here, given that CEO's are the single most cowardly demographic on the planet, people who are constitutionally incapable of taking even the most modest risk and who, indeed, react to the very word "risk" the way Maynard G Krebs used to react to the word "work", quite simply were too afraid of losing the $tens of millions$ they were going to make to quit over a measly few millions more.
Which was predictable. It was all bluster, just as were all the same dire threats and warnings the CEO's of their day screamed when Congress invented the income tax and again, in the 50's, when millionaires had to pay 90% of their income in taxes (compared to the 0-23% they scream about now). Executives in Corporate America, even after the cuts, are still paid, on average, in excess of 1000X what the average employee is paid (compared with the 240X that was the average before Reagan).
Pay for top earners at those companies, on average, is expected to fall by 11 percent from 2009, to $1.62 million, according to people briefed on the situation. Compensation is down nearly 77 percent from 2008. And this year, more than 70 percent of all approved compensation is expected to be given in the form of stock instead of cash.
Mr. Feinberg reviewed the 2010 pay packages of 119 executives at five companies the government bailed out more than once. Those companies include the American International Group, GMAC Financial, General Motors as well as Chrysler and its auto financing unit. Citigroup and Bank of America, whose pay packages needed Mr. Feinberg’s approval last year, are no longer subject to the scrutiny because they repaid their bailout money in December.
11 percent. Gee. That's a real hardship. Might have to start buying economy gasoline for the personal jet.
Not for very long, of course.
Still, Mr. Feinberg’s actions did little to rein in the industry’s huge payouts. Most of Mr. Feinberg’s pay rulings, for example, were in effect only for the final few weeks of 2009 — and affected only a handful of the most troubled companies.
That left the other Wall Street firms that were not subjected to his rules free to pay their employees as much as they wanted. To the dismay of many critics, compensation levels across the board surged to near their precrisis heights in 2009 as trading profits quickly rebounded.
Oops. Back to BAU, eh?
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