S.E.C. Changes Reporting Rule on Bosses’ Pay

[OhioChick]

Published: December 27, 2006
The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a move announced late on the last business day before Christmas, reversed a decision it had made in July and adopted a rule that would allow many companies to report significantly lower total compensation for top executives.

The change in the way grants of stock options are to be explained to investors is a victory for corporations that had opposed the rule when it was issued in July, and a defeat for institutional investors that had backed the S.E.C.’s original rule.

“It was a holiday present to corporate America,” Ann Yerger, the executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, said yesterday. “It will certainly make the numbers look smaller in 2007 than they would otherwise have looked.”

Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said yesterday that he viewed the decision as “a relative technicality” that improved the rule. When the rule was adopted in July, Mr. Cox said it was aimed at providing information that would allow shareholders to “make better decisions about the appropriate amount to pay the men and women entrusted with running their companies.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/business/27place.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Too many "holiday presents" for corporate America these days.

[freefall]

1. It's going to take a lot more than one election to change the direction

we are going in, more and more of the wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer of the people. Third world status -- we are almost there.

Peace,

freefall

[MockSwede]

2. Money

It's going to take a lot more MONEY. The institutional investors are the fiduciary organizations that hold IRA and 401(k) or 403(b) monies that employees invest for the futures. It's a LOT of money - but people have to exercise their proxy votes every year to get disclosure and push the SEC so that these CEOs don't get to hide any of their lucre from us SHAREHOLDERS!