Corporate Perks

Title: Corporate perks are alive and well
Source: Washington Post
Date: May 2, 2004


CEOs get paid millions in salary, bonuses, stock grants and stock options. Apparently that is not enough, so they also get innumerable perks to add to the wealth. The article lists a number of examples:

• "The most popular perks included free personal rides on corporate jets"
• "Companies also picked up $6.6 million of personal tax bills and paid $575,989 for executives' personal financial planning."
• "David W. Dorman, AT&T Corp.'s chairman and CEO, gets a $12,000 a month housing allowance from the company." (Note in this post that he already receives $17 million per year.)
• "Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. spent $1.5 million to relocate Andrew R. Bonfield, its chief financial officer."
• And so on - there are many more examples in the article

This quote is interesting:

Alan Johnson, a New York compensation consultant, said some companies pay for the CEO's health club membership, "as a nudge, just so he takes care of himself."

Couldn't the same be said of every employee in every company? In fact, every citizen in the nation? Wouldn't it benefit us all -- from a cost standpoint, a productivity standpoint and a general welfare standpoint -- if everyone was in good physical shape? Why not give everyone the nudge?

Why doesn't the CEO pay for his/her own health club membership - like everyone else? Because it provides a way to concentrate even more wealth.