Smart Bombs: CEOs cultivate pay myth

The Occupy Wall Street protests carry different meanings for different people. Lately, I’ve been mindful of a Clinton-era slogan that was tailored for frustrated people who “work hard and play by the rules” but couldn’t get ahead. Since then, it’s only gotten worse … for most people.

The rules are quite different on the rarefied rungs of the career ladder. I’ve long been bemused by the rationales for exorbitant CEO pay; rationales, by the way, that only apply to top executives, and only American ones. The excuses can be distilled thusly: “If you want the best, you gotta pay the best.”

Implicit in this is the self-serving notion that there are only a handful of folks with the chops to do such work. The idea that CEOs are a rare breed helps keep their lofty pay, well, aloft. And though some of them might be ineffective, they aren’t dummies. They leverage this myth to the hilt. As a result, they see to it that “golden parachutes” are added to their contracts.

Business writer Robert McGarvey toted up Hewlett-Packard’s costs for dumping three chief executive officers since 2005 and posted the results at the Internet Revolution website. It tops $80 million.

Carly Fiorina received $42 million for failing. Her replacement, Mark Hurd, got a mere $11 million. He would’ve been in line for more had he not signed on so quickly with Oracle, which turned a blind eye to Hurd’s alleged expense account fraud and an affair with a consultant. Hey, you can’t sweat the small stuff when the pool of qualified executives is so shallow. Finally, there’s Leo Apotheker, who almost lasted a year before being forced to deploy his $25.2 million parachute.

H-P has since hired Meg Whitman, who left eBay to run for governor of California. She spent $119 million on that unsuccessful bid, and got nothing in return. Not to worry. She is safely enrolled in the CEO protection program, where success is rewarded – and failure is lucrative, too.

If H-P ever tires of financing CEO myths, I’d be willing to take over. Just pay me $999,999 a year (just in case the liberals impose a millionaire’s tax) and I’ll forgo the golden parachute. In fact, I’d adhere to the same severance rules that apply to the poor souls who will be laid off due to my incompetence.

Old Boys Club. This recycling of CEOs reminds me of baseball managers. At the start of this season, 17 of the 30 Major League skippers had steered other teams. Many had been fired; some multiple times. Apparently, there’s this belief that it’s the rare man who can manage a clubhouse and chew tobacco at the same time.

Rest in peace. Steve Jobs is the kind of chief executive who ought to be revered. As the founder of Apple and owner of Pixar Studios, may his soul soar to infinity and beyond. His accomplishments need no repeating, but another great man also died Wednesday.

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, 89, led the fight to desegregate Birmingham, Ala. He somehow survived beatings and bombings to take on Bull Connor, the brutal police commissioner best known for unleashing snarling dogs on small children. Shuttlesworth pestered Martin Luther King Jr. to focus his protests on Birmingham, and the civil rights leader eventually relented. King’s inspirational “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” is known worldwide. Lesser known are the courageous acts of Shuttlesworth that paved the way for King’s Alabama marches.

It’s odd that on the day Shuttlesworth died, he was once again overshadowed. But it should not diminish his human rights legacy.

Jury is out. What do the trials of Tom DiBartolo, Robert Lee Yates, Joseph Duncan and Jay Olsen have in common? All were preceded by massive media coverage and intense emotions, but none of them included a change of venue. DiBartolo and Olsen were law enforcement officers. Yates and Duncan were serial killers. There was no injustice in keeping those trials in their respective hometowns.

Yet, Judge Fred Van Sickle has determined that the trial of Spokane police Officer Karl F. Thompson must be moved to Yakima. Where is the evidence that publicity would taint justice here?