Is the problem bad communication or greed?
— Stefan Eiselin, Zurich You can be sure both bad communication and greed have something to do with the heated controversy over executive compensation. Some companies certainly are not clear or candid enough in explaining why their top people earn what they do, and some top people want to earn more than they’re worth. That said, we would suggest another reason for all the recent sound and fury over CEO pay: clashing ideologies. That’s right. We think the debate over executive compensation is exactly as it appears: a philosophical divide. On one hand, you have activist shareholders (and just regular people) who believe that many CEOs make too much money compared with average workers and their relative value to the organization, and that someone—be it shareholders themselves or government regulators—must close that gap. Outsized CEO compensation, this group generally believes, is bad for society and morally wrong. On the other hand, you have people who believe…well, they generally don’
