The deal is, we’ve been told, that CEO pay is so high because demand for the 9-sigma talent of these Water Walking Wonders, so very beyond your and my shriveled imaginations, wildly exceeds supply when it comes to the 500 jobs as Fortune 500 CEOs. I contend that there are exactly 500 Guys (almost all guys, hence I can safely use the term) who believe that line of reasoning—namely the 500 CEOs of the F500 companies. (I guess I could also throw in the heads of the biggest search firms, who unearthed many of these so-far-beyond-the-pale dudes, which perhaps puts the total at 505 True Believers.)
The Inspiring Invincibles! Chuck Prince (Citigroup, formerly head of)! Stan O’Neal (Merrill Lynch, formerly head of)! Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide, formerly head of)! Tough cookies, each one. And yet, somehow, on their watches, The Three Geniuses allowed their firms, through grotesque negligence—maybe silliness or Theaters of the Absurd would be better words if the stakes weren’t so high—to get into positions in which tens upon tens of BILLIONS of greenbacks had to be written off from their books of account. Dodger, my 5-year-old Aussie, could have done a better job. (He could have bitten anybody who tried to make a $500K loan to someone who had never had a job or paid a bill and signed his name with an “X”; and peed on the pants of any 22-year-old University of Chicago PhD who said, “With my clever algorithm I’ve designed what’s called a ‘derivative’—it’ll make risk a thing of the past.” Yes, had Dodger bitten and peed on schedule, the likes of Citigroup would be ten or twenty billion ahead of their current position.) But, since the demand is so strong for the 500 different-from-mere-vice-presidents-Monumental-Management-Marvels, and the supply is so short, The Three Geniuses, on the basis of “Upside Potential,” were able to chalk up about a half BILLION buckaroos on their pay stubs over the last five years, while busily installing the tools necessary for Global Economic Meltdown. Well, I guess that means they’re “excellent” at something. Isn’t there some line about wool & eyes & pulling? (In most cases, their pay deals, especially the parts about “if you turn out to be an idiot, we’ll pay you a king’s ransom to clean out your desk,” were effectively set before they set foot in the executive suite. Wow, I wanna piece of that action!)