Is this “fair” – disparate treatment but “fair”?

By the way, the best single piece that I have seen, which analyzes what is responsible for the explosion in top-executive pay is the following; though it confines its remarks to financial services firms, these firms are what have, so to speak, led the rot: “The Current Financial Crisis: Causes and Policy Issues”, by Adrian Blundell-Wignall, Paul Atkinson and Se Hoon Lee, FINANCIAL MARKET TRENDS (publication of the OECD, 2008)

We both love business but also understand it’s too often focused on short-term performance. Sadly, public companies that issue quarterly earnings guidance and reports are usually therefore the most short-sighted.

Peter Drucker therefore famously told Forbes, or Fortune, I don’t remember which, during the mid-nineties that executive compensation was like “watching pigs at the trough..” Peter thought no CEO is worth more than twenty times the average salaries at a company. No one ever listens to a prophet until too late and Ignoring Peter’s counsel has been costly to American business.

I am no Occupier but my skepticism of major Wall Street firms soared when a tiny footnote at the end of our annual report detailed how our CEO’s stock options were re-priced seriously downward after the crash of 1987. The rest of us employees, as well as our clients, were not so lucky of course. Compensation committees might leave such “grace” to God while focusing on justice. For recent events at the firm have proven that God, as well as our economy, can still be just, hence the new series entitled “Capitalism in Crisis” in the Financial Times.