guardian.co.uk — One might think the financial executives who brought the world to the brink of financial ruin should be finding coal in their stockings this Christmas. But don't be concerned about them. The Associated Press reports that last year, $1.6bn in bonus payouts went into the pockets of top executives of more than a hundred banks and companies that later received bail-out funds from the US government.
Do they deserve such lavish compensation after savaging their balance sheets and precipitating a worldwide financial crisis? Aren't these the guys who go us into this mess in the first place? Are banks rewarding executives for bringing their companies and the world's financial system to the brink of ruin? Or were these big bonuses legitimately earned?
Before she became the first female Labor secretary in 1933, Frances Perkins had seen firsthand the tragedy of Manhattan’s 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Locked in by their employer, 146 mostly young girls died when they couldn’t escape the burning building where they toiled in sweatshop labor. Later, as the New York industrial commissioner, Perkins held employers accountable for workplace safety and health, expanding factory investigations and championing other pro-worker laws, like unemployment insurance.
Now, imagine if Elaine Chao had been there instead. more »
In 2007, chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the United States made an average of $12.8 million apiece. That put their daily salary of $51,200 ahead of the typical workers’ annual salary, which was $42,650.
bloomberg.com — Pay plans for chief executive officers helped create the subprime-mortgage crisis by encouraging companies to take on too much risk for short-term gains, the AFL-CIO said in an analysis.
nytimes.com — Shareholders were mad about excessive compensation last year, when the economy was booming. This year, governance experts say, they are livid. “They are furious about the dichotomy of experiences — their shares fall, yet C.E.O. pay still rises,” said Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate at the Corporate Library, a governance research group.
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Before she became the first female Labor secretary in 1933, 
