Nardelli The Pig

    So, another failed CEO takes a fall over excessive pay. It was pretty amusing to watch the press frenzy over his crash and burn because of his refusal to even take a modest cut in his pay package. Robert the Hog, who took home $64 million over six years and was in line to pocket hundreds of millions more. That pissed off even some of the company's board members--though, be clear, it was the board that had already approved his deal. So, Nardelli, who did a pretty poor job at Home Depot, will still get $210 million as severance.

    It is amusing that the press now is piling on. After all, the huge pay Nardelli was pulling down was no secret. Take Business Week's take in its issue that just popped into my mailbox:

In the end it came down to the headstrong CEO's refusal to accept even a symbolic reduction in his stock package. Home Depot Inc.'s (HD ) board of directors wanted their controversial chief executive, Robert L. Nardelli, to amend his whopping compensation deals for recent years. After he pulled down $38.1 million from his last yearly contract, angry investors were promising an ugly fight at the company's annual meeting in May. Nardelli agreed to give up a guarantee that he would continue to receive a minimum $3 million bonus each year. But that's as far as he would go. When board members asked him to more closely tie his future stock awards to shareholder gains, he refused, according to people familiar with the matter. Nardelli has complained for years that share price is the one measure of company performance that he can't control. After weeks of secret negotiations, things came to a head at a board meeting on Jan. 2, leading to Home Depot's stunning announcement the next day that the company and Nardelli had "mutually agreed" that he would resign.

"The board loved him and hates the way this ended up," says a person familiar with the matter. But in a season of growing antipathy toward extravagantly paid executives, the directors felt they had no choice. On his way out the door, however, Nardelli negotiated another jaw-dropper: a $210 million retirement package that assures that he and his former employer will remain at the center of the swirling debate over CEO compensation. Nardelli declined to comment.

    This particular greed may be an example that pushes some sort of move to curb executive pay.

Others remain outraged, even with Nardelli gone. A group of unions whose pension funds own shares in Home Depot plans to challenge his $210 million payout at the annual meeting in May. Meanwhile, in Washington, Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement on Jan. 3: "The actions of Home Depot's Board of Directors to simultaneously dismiss Robert Nardelli and provide him with $210 million in severance is further confirmation of the need to deal with the pattern of CEO pay that appears to be out of control."

    We'll see. But, really, the bigger point is that boards of directors are stocked with buddies and allies of CEOs who are happy to open up the piggy bank for the top guy. That's what has to change.

Comments

[Bill]

What an insult to every hard working employee at home depot. The board of directors approved the severence package. The stockholders one by one should send the board of directors packing.

If corporate CEO greed continues it will ruin the country. Every buyer at home depot should take their business else where. If a nation wide boycott of Home Depot would happen the stockholders would make sure the Unethical corporate greed would be more closely watched. Hopefully the law will change and stockholders will have a say in compensation packages. Do a lousy job and walk away with millions can only happen to the top dogs. All the employees continue to be shortchanged.

[Ermilo]

I agree. I'am not shopping at HOME DEPOT anymore. I think from now on, I'am going to LOWES. There should be some sort of boycott on HOME DEPOT!

[AdelaideE]

We all hope that some bank CEO will find the bravery to reverse their abusive policies.

I call on all celebrities, anyone who can, to join in a boycott and withdraw your money from American banks. The speculation of banks folding compared with wanton, unethical treatment of good, moral people is a no-brainer. Withdrawing from banks is the lesser of the two evils. Use Swiss banks, any banks that you can other than American banks. As one reporter said, the mattress is looking good right now. I do realize that many of you have already had to resort to that.

History has shown that the social injustices that have been partially corrected were begrudgingly done so only because of societal pressure. Denying female citizens the right to vote, denying human dignity to black citizens, actually making it illegal to teach a slave, refusing to pay reparations to victims of factory toxins. Cops who beat their wives getting the protection of the police force because of their code of silence. So many victims of fraud.

In our thirties and with two babies in tow, my husband I built onto our first home. We pick-axed the trench, poured concrete, hammered thousands of nails, lifted 2 by 4’s; nailed window headers, installed a full bath, lifted tar rolls and shingles to the new roof, spackled, painted. That two-year process was back-breaking work, but my children got rooms and we began to grow financially. I remember my children saving their Christmas and birthday money in Bank of America, $15 dollars at a time. I was teaching them the value of saving money. Each child got their accounts up to $85.00. Bank of America never told me that the accounts had to be at least $100. So, my children’s gift money from relatives was taken by Bank of America. So began my lessons with Bank of Amevil. Years of viciously tremendous MBNA interest fees never allowed us to decrease our debt with them. While MBNA made 100% profit for years on all of our payments, our balance just kept increasing.

When we bought our final house, National City Mortgage held the loan. You can do all of the research you’d like in order to make an informed decision, but in the end, you will probably go with the advice of the “experts.”

In 2007, my husband and I lost our home, all of our retirement, had to sell a car, moved three times within a year, sporadically go grocery shopping and usually have 10 or 2 items in the fridge, have ceased purchasing clothes even at the thrift shop, have canceled home phone, internet, my cell. Two bankruptcy attorneys told me that we could have easily qualified for full bankruptcy. My husband has been laid off. But for moral reasons, rather than make creditors eat all of the loans, we entered debt settlement.

Now in our fifties, we have started new. No longer with Bank of Amevil, our new credit life with this bank has been honorable. When we opened the account, they offered overdraft protection, which we have used. We make heroic efforts to pay it back. We’d like for our banking history with this bank to based on our clean, timely payments. We constantly sweat the threat of overdrafts, just making it by pennies. This is a long, slow, painful, extremely stressful process, but we are trying and doing moral best.

However, this new bank found out about our settlements with past creditors, which have nothing to do with the new history we have established, like paying large amounts at a time back for the use of the overdraft protection. With no warning, this bank lowered our overdraft protection and set into motion the likelihood of bounced checks, this time with the creditors with whom we have agreed to settle. Aside from the unethical dilemma in which this bank created for us, the new life of showing prompt payments and good faith, and now future creditors and those who check credit, potential employers, housing, it has been sorely damaged, again.

This unethical treatment of banks preying on those of us who are trying to rebound from losing everything and reestablish our lives must stop immediately.

When I got my undergraduate degree, I read of one theory as to why the ancient Roman Empire fell: their greed.

Corporate greed has long been out of control. Corrupt CEO’s and lobbyists are not only not penalized, they are somehow tremendously rewarded. But morality is not. Morality does not enter into their business practice with customers, though many customers, such as ourselves, use morality to guide our dealings with others, even businesses.

It is a shameful comment on our society that the business world has sentenced us to a legacy of immoral, abusive people.

The greedy have made it clear that money is the only language to which they will respond. Withdrawing it is the only pressure that may force them to stop these perpetrators. Good heavens, Chase charges monthly fees to just check your balance.

To those of you who, like us, have already lost everything, I wish you luck in your struggle to survive, without electricity, without credit, while banks abuse you and further knock you down.

Hopefully, you still have your family and your health. You do have something else. You are the final sounds of decency and morality in our society.

I invite you to reply and share your story of bank abuse.

Per angusta in augusta

In Case you are interested in CEO bank salaires:

Bank of America
McGee, Liam = 12,153,000
Desoer, Barbara = 10,532,500
Price, Joe = 6,486,717
Lewis, Kenneth = 24,844,000
Total  $54,016,217 Savings = $52,016,217

Citigroup Inc:
Sir Winfried Bischoff Chairman = 6,130,390
Vikram Pandit CEO = 573,813
Gary Crittenden Chief Financial Officer = 19,369,506
Sallie Krawcheck Chair and CEO = 9,918,267
Lewis Kaden Vice chairman = 6,771,307
Michael Klein CEO- Global Banking = 7,861,438
Stephen Volk Vice Chairman = 9,825,936
Charles Prince Former Chairman and CEO = 29,108,127
Total $89,558,784 savings $85,558,784

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Cohn, Gary = 72,511,400
Winkelried, Jon = 71,455,400
Viniar, David = 58,467,100
Blankfein, Lloyd = 70,324,400
Total $272,758,300 Savings $270,758,300
Morgan Stanley:
John J. Mack Chairman and CEO = 1,602,458
Colm Kelleher Chief Financial Officer = 21,015,689
David H. Sidwell Former Chief Financial Officer = 14,608,693
Robert W. Scully Co-President = 15,211,212
Gary G. Lynch Chief Legal Officer = 11,899,964
Thomas R. Nides Chief Administrative Officer = 6,333,148
Total $70,671,164 savings $67,671,164
Bank of New York Mellon Corporation:
Kelly, Robert = 20,117,780
Gibbons, Thomas = 5,424,500
Rogan, Brian = 5,516,300
Total $31,058,580 savings $29,558,580
JP Morgan Chase:
Staley, James = 16,747,600
Scharf, Charles = 13,213,500
Cavanagh, Michael = 8,286,340
Black, Steven = 20,864,500
Winters, William = 21,199,300
Total $80,311,240 Savings $77,811,240
Wells Fargo & Company:
Atkins, Howard = 5,115,720
Kovacevich, Richard = 22,875,000
Stumpf, John = 12,568,917
Oman, Mark = 6,420,160
Hoyt, David = 6,381,130
Tolstedt, Carrie = 3,993,751
Total $57,354,678 Savings $54,354,678
State Street Corp
Hooley, Joseph = 10,322,900
Phalen, James = 7,009,319
Resch, Edward = 6,592,670
Logue, Ronald = 28,345,000
Total  $52,269,889 savings $50,269,889
Total savings to tax payers = $687,998,852

[Credit Repair Services]

unethical treatment of banks preying on those people who are trying to rebound from losing everything and reestablish there lives must stop immediately...its horrible...