I weep for them. The "Frozen Seventy Two". I really do.
The chief executives of General Motors, AIG, and Ally Financial had their 2012 compensation packages frozen for a second year in a row by the Treasury Department after they got "exceptional" bailout help during the financial crisis...
The Treasury also said total direct compensation during 2012 for 69 other senior executives at the three firms was being cut by 10 percent from 2011 levels.
Jaime Dimon, CEO of Chase, made $23 million last year in total compensation, and all his company did was throw hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes. These other CEO's could have been contenders, but the Treasury Department just won't consider it.
AIG? You remember them. The company that nearly single-handedly crashed the economic system of the entire industrialized world and almost plunged us into another Dark Age? You'd think its CEO might deserve a bit more than Dimon. But no.
The top executive at AIG will receive total direct compensation, which includes cash, stock and future stock options worth $10.5 million.
Perhaps AIG needs to deny more of its widows' and orphans' insurance claims. Still, I would be less than disappointed, shall we say, to have my 2012 compensation package so frozen.
Then there's General Motors.
What's good for GM is good for America.
Bringing such a company back from ruin, creating tens of thousands of new jobs and turning the company profitable might semm to be worth quite bit, even to a skinflint like Timothy Geitner. But no.
GM's chief executive ((will receive a mere)) $9 million...
GM just assembles things into objects that people find useful. A waste of capital and talent if there ever was one, when they could be thinking of new ways to deny health insurance claims or something.
And yet, I would only be mildly upset to have my 2012 compensation package so frozen.
As visions of having your compensation package frozen by the US Treasury dance in your head, I leave you with this thought.
If you make $23,000 a year, you make a thousand times less than Mr. Dimon (and you may well pay more in taxes!). But you are not the one to be pitied. Alas, Mr. Dimon, should he figure out how to keep even the entire $23,000,000 (less the cost of a suitable tax accountant) would still have less than 1/2600th of Mr. Gates' wealth.
P.S Timothy? Let's talk.