[Mr 5 0]

So, Bill Ford gives his salary to charity but that is considered just 'a write off'? The guy can't win! What would you have him do? Commit Hari Kari? Would that help Ford recover it's market share? Let's face it, the 'workers' are always going to resent the 'boss', especially when the boss got his job because of his lineage and in Bill Ford's case, (just like George W. Bush) nothing he does will please some folks.

It's become obvious that many of us love to point fingers at what we consider excessive, unjustified executive compensation and howl about it to no end. However, in the greater scheme of things, it is NOT the main reason for Ford or GM's falling stock and market share. While executive compensation is a valid enough point to discuss, this penchant to harp on it seems petty and unproductive. I suspect that under the patina of concern for the car companies continued viability that is often expressed as the rationale for the complaints, it often comes down to envy, more than anything else.

The article Unit 5302 linked, as he noted in his comments, states that Ford executive pay amounted to only a fraction (9%) of the workers pension fund shortfall. It seems clear that when a company is bleeding money, it's easier to cut pension fund payments, which are a future obligation, than to suddenly stop or drastically reduce executive compensation that is an immediate obligation. It's like losing your job and stopping your savings account deposits but making your car payment. One can be deferred but the other cannot, at least, not without unpleasant consequences.

The cold hard fact is that well-educated, experienced top-level executives...in any business...have now and always will be well-compensated. That means hundreds of thousands or even millions in annual compensation. To make comparisons to their salary and that of floor workers (in the auto industry) and then pretend this is a horrible crime and so on, is simply ridiculous, in my view. I can agree that execs drawing huge compensation packages while the product is shoddy, company sales are laying an egg in the face of tough competition and the company stock is rated 'junk' is cause for questioning. However, I also feel that high executive pay is an easy and sometimes misguided target of stockholder and public wrath. It's clear that adjustments will be made at Ford and GM but I can tell you - with confidence - that shop floor workers at those companies will not be making one-tenth of what the top execs will be making, no matter what happens. That is simply the way of the business world. If Ford or GM actually did drastically reduce executive compensation, they would quickly see a mass exodus of most of those executives - and not all of them are as worthless as some may wish to believe. Ford, GM or any other car manufacturer won't risk that kind of loss just to appease those who see anyone in the executive suite making ten times what a riveter makes as evil.

So, we end up with failing U.S. car companies, shortchanged workers and executives being pilloried for making big bucks in the face of company disasters. Not a pretty picture. Lots of villains, lots of folks to point fingers at, including those assemblers who some want to see as noble, who did their part over the years to turn out poorly made cars while demanding fat salaries of their own, along with fat pensions. Somehow, they are held blameless while the execs, many of whom had/have little to do with quality issues, are castigated as rapacious and immoral, something right out of a 19th century Charles Dickens novel. As I have repeatedly stated in my comments on this thread, these auto company execs certainly have their share of blame to shoulder in the saga of the seemingly imminent demise of Ford and GM but to make them the whipping boy for all the problems that have led Ford and GM to the sorry state they are in, today, is missing the 'forest' because the 'trees' are getting in the way.