Amazing executive compensation

Title: Fleet awards Gifford $11m
Source: Boston Globe
Date: March 3, 2004

The thing about this article is the remarkable "piling on" effect that it has on you. Fleet Bank is literally pouring money onto its executives. For example:

• Chief executive Chad Gifford received about $11 million in salary, bonuses, and stock options...
  
• And president, Eugene M. McQuade got $8 million...
  
• And vice chairman, H. Jay Sarles got $8 million...
  
• Plus, "On top of those awards, the bank also rewarded each of the top five executives more than $3 million in restricted stock last month, with Gifford receiving shares worth $6.5 million...."
  
• And Brian T. Moynihan "received about $4.5 million last year in salary, bonus, and stock, plus another $3.2 million in stock in February..."
  
• And back in 1999, "the bank awarded former chief executive Terry Murray $14.8 million in stock, and Gifford received $11.1 million in stock..."
  
• And "last year Gifford received a $6 million cash bonus on top of his $992,000 annual salary. He got about $3.8 million in stock..."
  
• And "in February, Fleet awarded Gifford another $6.5 million in restricted stock..."

Why? It is because the executives are giving the money to each other from the corporare bank account. Executive 1: "Would you like several million dollars? Here, let me write you a check." Executive 2: "You are too kind. Now let me give you several million dollars to show you my gratitude. Hand me the check book."

From the previous post we learned that a U.S. Army general with 20 years of experience gets $144,932.40 per year. The president of the United States gets $400,000 per year. Yet the executives at corporations are handing themselves millions of dollars in what appears to be a free-for-all. That money could just as easily go to rank and file employees in the form of higher wages, or back to consumers in the form of lower banking fees and charges.