What's Good for the Goose...

Have you ever had to pay a plumber or auto mechanic $75 an hour and thought, "Gee, wouldn't I like to make that much money in an hour?" Did you ever wonder how anyone's time could be worth $4,800 per hour? Can anyone's work be that valuable?

Well, that is how much Pfizer paid CEO Henry McKinnell every hour of the workday if you compute his $9,706,000 compensation package (2004) over a standard 2020 hour work year. $4800 per hour. That is $14 every second!

But wait! It gets better! Guess how much they will pay him to NOT work? When he retires, McKinnell will receive approximately $3275 dollars an hour to go fishing! Yes, he will receive a retirement package yielding $6,518,000 per year, about 2/3 of his annual salary, after 35 years with the company and 5 years as CEO. That will buy a pretty nice gold watch, huh?

Now, the few retirees in this country who still have a "defined benefit" plan might well receive 2/3 of their salary after 35 years with a governmental organization. Yet, very few employees still participate in a defined benefit plan. Why? Because years ago corporate executives did away with such plans, turning to Congress to establish 401K plans in which a small percentage of the employee's salary is matched by the employer and invested in a private investment account.

For example, McKinnell might get a 5% matching contribution from his employer, receiving about $450,000 per year from the company during his five years as CEO. If he had made his $9million dollar salary for 30 years, Pfizer would have contributed about $13,500,000 over his career. BUT, dont forget that for 28 years he did not earn anywhere near $9M per year so the company's contribution would actually have been much, much lower - probably much less than the $6million McKinnell will receive in just one year of retirement.

So, we can see that there is quite a double standard in the stratosphere of corporate offices around the country. Defined benefit plans are a terrible idea for employees, but a wonderful idea for corporate execs.

Well, if you ask me, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. But, the people that run our country, the corporate executives, don't seem to agree with me.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Below you can find a list of the top 25 CEO pensions in the country, compliments of NPR and the AFL-CIO. If you want to get really outraged, you can go to Forbes.com's directory of executive salaries here.
http://www.forbes.com/static/execpay2004/LIREYQ9.html?passListId=12&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=EYQ9&datatype=Person

Top 25 Largest Annual CEO Pensions

• Pfizer Inc. - Henry A. McKinnell - $6,518,459
• Exxon Mobil Corp. - Lee R. Raymond - $6,500,000
• AT&T Inc. - Edward E. Whitacre - $5,494,107
• UnitedHealth Group Inc. - William W. McGuire - $5,092,000
• IBM Corp. - Samuel J. Palmisano - $4,000,000
• Home Depot Inc. - Robert L. Nardelli - $3,875,000
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. - Reuben Mark - $3,700,000
• Comcast Corp. - Brian L. Roberts - $3,600,000
• Bank of America Corp. - Kenneth D. Lewis - $3,486,425
• Union Pacific Corp. - Richard K. Davidson - $2,700,000
• Exelon Corp. - John W. Rowe - $2,600,000
• ConocoPhilips - James J. Mulva - $2,600,000
• Lockheed Martin Corp. - Vance D. Coffman - $2,591,856
• Robert Half International Inc. - Harold M. Messmer - $2,555,000
• BellSouth Corp. - F. Duane Ackerman - $2,512,300
• Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. - Patrick T. Stokes - $2,500,000
• Mattel Inc. - Robert A. Eckert - $2,500,000
• Coca-Cola Co. - E. Neville Isdell - $2,500,000
• Prudential Financial Inc. - Arthur F. Ryan - $2,456,000
• FPL Group Inc. - Lewis Hay - $2,430,134
• Eli Lilly and Co. - Sidney Taurel - $2,300,000
• General Electric Co. - Jeffrey R. Immelt - $2,300,000
• Valero Energy Corp. - William E. Greehey - $2,236,000
• Countrywide Financial Corp. - Angelo R. Mozilo - $2,171,358
• PepsiCo Inc.- Steven S. Reinemund - $2,170,870