Ciao, Grasso!
My first, semi-serious reaction to the sacking of New York Stock Exchange president, Richard Grasso, who worked his way up from $82.50 a week in 1968 to a platinum parachute of $140 million?
"They"–the old-line WASPocracy–will do anything to stick it to a spaghetti bender who does good! If Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice (which of course it isn't), then busting a goombah's chops is the last acceptable prejudice against European Americans (pop culture may be awash in knuckle-dragging goodfellas but when's the last you even heard a Polish joke?). This is the sort of thing that my sainted mother, the former Therese Guida–who grew up speaking Italian and whose own mother was once kept out of the US for years due to the 1920s' racist immigration laws–used to talk about.
Then an Italian American (whose name even ends in a vowel) I trust on financial matters pointed out, "Fuck that puny thieving scumbag. The interlocking compensation committee scam that Grasso benefited from isn't much different than a bunch of mob bosses getting together on the bocce court to decide how to carve up territory."
Whatever the truth of the matter, this much is certain: The NYSE is an interesting example of self-regulation that is responding to investor concerns. The fact that various public entities are among its biggest investors muddies the waters a bit, but it provides an illustration of how markets correct themselves.
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Wait a minute. I thought greed was good.
OK. Let me see if I understand. The Board decides to pay Mr. Grasso $140 mm. When word gets out, the press and members go bonkers. Someone’s head must roll. So’s whose resignation is demanded? The Board, who approved the decision? The compensation committee, which made it? Don’t be silly. Its Grasso who has to go. What am I missing?
Look, maybe Grasso deserved getting tossed and maybe he didn’t, but his very public flameout has accomplished one good thing : as compensation boards all over the country meet to decide the pay of corporate officers, they will have to contend with the demostrably real consequences of overplaying their hands. No company wants the kind of scrutiny now on the NYSE, and no company wants one of their officers pushed out in scandal.
in the meantime, cry not for grasso. I’ve spent most of the day thinking about how happily I could live on the annual interest of a 140 mil. nest egg.
c:
Right on. Grasso’s going to be crying today…during the entire [limo ride, chartered flight] out to his estate in the [Hamptons, Aspen, wherever].
Philly lawyer:
Grasso has to go because he practically hand-picked the comp committee. I think it makes perfect sense. And I’m a greedy S.O.B.
Lefty,
Please note that private parties who didn’t want a tarnished image decided to exert private pressure on an employee to resign.
The board of the NYSE were being greedy in doing so.
See how that all works out?
EMAIL: sespam@torba.com
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DATE: 01/21/2004 10:01:51
Both dreams and people crash down.