Thanks for the clarifications, on what you originally meant and on what happened to my reply. That was a in a separate post. I didn't mean to offend you and apologize for doing so because my intention was to give you a simple but genuine feedback on impressions left by what you say and how you say it. You are one of the best communicators on the internet and your talent at presenting very well constructed arguments to express points of view that seem to suit with the orientation of some kind of political school of though made me believe that you were, indeed, a communications expert. If it's not the case, you certainly have the talent and the knowledge for it. Again, no offense intended.
Steve, I truly appreciate the kind words as I've followed your comments on interest rates with great attention.
Thanks. There was a pretty good article in the Washington Post business section today saying that proposals to limit CEO comp packages are getting more votes, typically in the high 40% range. They gave some additional horrible examples of out of whack pay. One was the CEO of Merck, who has overseen something like a 14% drop in the stock's price over five years. (I may have the details slightly wrong, as I don;t have the article in front of me and can't linbk to it.) The Board just gave him a $6.5million PER YEAR retirement package, which is mmore than his current annual comp. He can also take a lump sum which I believe was in the $80 mill range. I'd hate to think what they would have given him if he had actually been a successful CEO. Of course Raymond of XOM got $400 mill right before they badly missed earnings in a near ideal market for an oil company.