New economy

[Spongebob]

There's nothing I could say to a board or to a company so poorly thought out and constructed that they suddenly need 100mil to satisfy something they have 2.5mil allocated to today.

They're already fucked.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was a sinking ship full of corporate looters.  It's really not an issue of compelling arguments like "give it to the janitor".  Sure, give it to the janitor..if your metrics show you that investment in janitors brings you a return.  If not, fuck the janitor.  Worrying bout the wellfare of the little people at the bottom out of the goodness of our hearts is the business of government, ostensibly paid for by all the filthy filthy lucre this very talented ceo is creating in increased tax revenue.

Well, those numbers are just speculative, but somewhat representative.  It really does happen and has happened, often with disastrous results.  Do you remember when Carley Fiorina was hired by HP back in the late 90's?  She was given a steep financial incentive to come over with high expectations of the company soaring.  You can lookup the details on Wiki if you like but she was given significant compensation and of course, made some horrific decisions and was fired just a few years later.  But this is not an isolated event; it happens a lot and not always with bad results.  Sometimes it actually works.

If you aren't motivated by the janitor argument, what then?  The reason for this is to increase dividends, which is the be-all, end-all to corp. boards.  What other reason would they have to limit CEO pay?