Did you read the article?
It is talking about CEOs who are making much more money now that they where a few years ago, even though their respective companies are showing shrinking profits!

“And it's not clear that all of their CEOs were earning their keep. Take the top earner last year, then-Yahoo (YHOO, news, msgs) CEO Terry Semel. He got $71.7 million, chiefly in options grants. He also cashed in $19 million worth of options. That's a lot of loot. From a shareholder perspective, it's tough to argue that Semel earned it.
Yahoo's stock is lower now than it was at the start of 2004, while the Standard and Poor's 500 index ($INX)has advanced more than 30% in the same time period. Semel stepped down as CEO in June because of shareholder dissatisfaction with his company's performance. “

There is no way that anyone can argue that this trend of corporate greed is good for anyone besides these CEOs. They are not only cheating their employees, they are cheating their investors. They are weakening us all as a nation. Have people forgotten that there is a difference between capitalism and unadulterated-greed. Where is your sense of civic virtue? This type of destructive selfishness needs to be seen for what is is. Greed is not an american value!

Perhaps you missed the part where I said I was just naming absurdities. The money they make is criminal, but what makes it worse is that it's not criminal, just obscene. I don't have any other input on this because I'm not educated on the topic, but I do agree that is terrible that they make this much. But I don't really blame them, as for I would never turn down a $600 million salary, but I don't understand how the company itself, especially a publicly traded company, can let it get that bad. Wait, yes I do, because big corporations run like governments. Everybody complains but nobody does.

Hey Leo, my bad I guess I missed that. Sorry that I jumped on you.:o

no problemo :)

You could find out for us by taking advantage of the "open door policy." ;)

Yeah, :D with a good lawyer... Overall skyw is a good place to work, I just hate to see hard earned money wasted and trust them as much as tsa. Who knows what will happen to this place when uncle j retires....

Executives typically are shareholders. How do you think they end up making so much?

Bingo!
 

That's the beauty of capitalism. Looking out for shareholders is looking out for themselves.While some people choose to focus on the greed of others, it's the best system. That being said, there are certainly greedy CEOs taking advantage of the situation. It's up to shareholders to do something about it. In the meantime, I choose to not whine about something I can do nothing about.

I wouldn't consider a stock repurchase "wasted" money.

Management has incentives to improve shareholder value (as mentioned above, they are usually shareholders, after all). Often times management will justify a stock repurchase by asserting their the best investment opportunity at the moment is the company itself. That is essentially what the company is doing: investing in itself.

A stock repurchase could improve the stock price by decreasing the supply of common stock on the market. In addition, the balance sheet is affected: assets are decreased (due to a decrease in cash) and equity is decreased (due to a decrease in outstanding shares). Generally speaking, this means a balance sheet analysis will show improvements for Return on Cash and Return on Equity. This may be viewed as an indication of improving financial strength in the eyes of investors, creditors,and analysts.

The stock repurchase is one of the "flavor of the week" tools that management in all types of industries is using to make the earnings look better. This has been going on for a while this year.

You could align yourself with the interests of management if you became a shareholder as well. If enough of the employees of the company became shareholders, things might change a bit. However, United seems to be an example of that not working out too well in the long run. Plus, it would be hard to reproduce the magnitude of management's earnings, since we dont have the option grants that they have.