“Is it Fair?”
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money!
Reality TV fans tuned in today to watch the public flailing of Wall Street fat cat and CEO of now defunct Lehman Brothers. Between 2000 and 2008, Richard Fuld Jr. admitted to the House Committee in Washington took home $350 million and presided over a company that paid out millions and millions in bonuses to other executives who rode to work in helicopters. While many Americans are wondering how to hang on their homes and watching their 401K get the stuffing kicked out them, Fuld has two vacation homes, including a 14 million ocean front estate in Florida, a multimillion-dollar art collection.
“You did well, when your company did well and you did well when your company wasn’t doing well,” said House Committee Chairman Waxman. “You have lots of money and now your shareholders have nothing.”
Fuld was repeatedly asked and asked many ways if this was fair compensation?
He bobbed, weaved, dodged, and never really answered the Committee’s question about the touchy subject of executive compensation that so enrages people, especially these days.
The man who presided over the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the world told the Committee looks as exhausted as Lehman Brothers. He started out with the company in 1966 as a junior employee, did his business degree at night school and wound up as the CEO. If the ending of the story wasn’t such a nightmare, it would the very essence of the American dream.
Of course, for Fuld, who still managed to end up with a big bag of marbles, it is still a pretty good tale.
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