Ken Lewis's Symbolic Pay Cut

I love the fact that Kenneth Feinberg has made his largely symbolic cut to Ken Lewis’s 2009 payout:

At U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg’s request, Lewis will not receive the $1.5 million salary he was slated to make this year, company spokesman Bob Stickler on Thursday. Lewis will not receive a bonus or any other payments for 2009…

A breakdown of Lewis’s outgoing compensation shows that he is expecting about $53 million of pension benefits from an account frozen years ago and another $72 million of accrued and deferred stock compensation.

Obviously, money is fungible, and Lewis’s $1.5 million in salary was just going to be the cherry on top of the other $125 million he’s managing to walk home with upon departing BofA (BAC). Since Feinberg had no real jurisdiction over the big lump sum due Lewis, he just decided to bring the sum he could control down to zero.

Lewis clearly isn’t running BofA well — in the current interest-rate environment, it’s actually really quite difficult for a bank to have racked up a billion-dollar loss last quarter, even after $2.2 billion in Merrill Lynch profits. Any pay that Lewis gets is not going to be for performance.

On the other hand, BofA’s loss, coming as it does on the heels of similar results at Citigroup (C), shows that times remain very tough in the real world west of the Hudson River. And that’s something the stock-market bulls, and the Goldman Sachs (GS) plutocrats, would do well to remember.

Comments

[Joseph L. S...:]

The gentleman in question bought Countrywide and all its troubles even after seeing the books because he wanted B of A to get "bigger." He overpaid by a factor of at least 300% for that liability and slight asset. I fear the same "buy it at any cost" mentality prevailed when buying Mother Merrill -- although he later protested "the government held a gun to my head and made me buy it."

Clearly he was not the only executive at BAC during the time these decisions were made. But in my life experience, "a leader is always responsible for his men." Even the pirate Jean Lafitte took responsibility when his men, against his orders, attacked US vessels in the War of 1812. An honorable man would take maybe $10 million for his time and effort and donate the other $115 million to childhood leukemia research, alleviating poverty in Appalachia or -- a crazy thought -- giving it to the long-suffering B of A shareholders.

As it is, it looks like the $125 million is a finder's fee for taking all those billions from taxpayers. And the beat goes on...

Oct 16 10:17 AM

[notsosmart:]

boo-hoo. im crying for this failed ceo. what will the poor man do? all these lying ceos should be in jail with made-off along with many of the liars & scoundrels in our congress.ethics & transparency are no longer a part of our society.quality is gone.you buy an item & immediately its suggested you buy a warranty extension.nobody cares & there is no longer a personal relationship.so screw you as i fill my pockets.sad.

Oct 16 01:38 PM

[Cyrus the G...:]

He is another scum that has robbed Americans of their hard-earned worth and tangible assets (as well as intangible assets, such as peace of mind). These symbolic gestures really mean very little today. These banks, corporations, the government, and even czars cant be trusted. They have deliberately expanded the gap between the elite and everyone else, having taken taxpayer money to devalue the worth of the masses while only exponentially growing their asset and value base.

The end all is that Americans will, at one point, have to get fed up and expect a change (an actual one...not the one old buddy Barack promised). This will come in the form of revolt or simply denial of the system; once an individual learns subtle things that are not always recognized, such as the fact that when you sign a note for a mortgage, the bank is simply creating that debt out of no where and selling it off (securitizing) for FRNs, the individual may learn that he/she can simply deny the system as a whole based on the fact that it is a fraud. The system has been created to enslave the masses through massive institutional debt.

Research the true history of the USA. Type in "USA bankruptcy" or other keywords. Learn how the USA was taken under hostile control in 1871 and was seized by international bankers who have since then had a stranglehold on this country. After the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1914, the USA officially underwent bankruptcy in 1938. It took the Federal Reserve less than 25 years to bankrupt this country.

Look beyond daily perception. People like Ken Lewis are part of the problem; replacing him will not replace the sytem though. The system is the problem. The system is based on deception, fraud, manipulation, all to control the masses through a modern-day enslavement.

Research the facts and learn to slowly deny the fraudulent system!

Oct 16 08:07 PM

[casey00001:]

Obama is doing a crappy job running the country. Why don't we cut his pay also?

Oct 17 11:26 AM

[hwood007:]

I hope you think as well of several members in congress who did us wrong in not allowing more oversight of the GSEs and others that lent money to thoses who could not really pay. We were taught not to lend money to friends or family members and ACORN had banks lending to friends of ACORN.


On Oct 16 01:38 PM notsosmart wrote:

> boo-hoo. im crying for this failed ceo. what will the poor man do?
> all these lying ceos should be in jail with made-off along with many
> of the liars & scoundrels in our congress.ethics & transparency
> are no longer a part of our society.quality is gone.you buy an item
> & immediately its suggested you buy a warranty extension.nobody
> cares & there is no longer a personal relationship.so screw you
> as i fill my pockets.sad.

Oct 17 04:31 PM

[hwood007:]

I think a lot of CEOs made mistakes and I would like a share of that money returned to stock owners. Have you noticed that when the SEC or other gov agency fines a company for mistreatment of owners, the fine goes not to the owners, but to the gov. go figure that one?


On Oct 16 08:07 PM Cyrus the Great wrote:

> He is another scum that has robbed Americans of their hard-earned
> worth and tangible assets (as well as intangible assets, such as
> peace of mind). These symbolic gestures really mean very little today.
> These banks, corporations, the government, and even czars cant be
> trusted. They have deliberately expanded the gap between the elite
> and everyone else, having taken taxpayer money to devalue the worth
> of the masses while only exponentially growing their asset and value
> base.
>
> The end all is that Americans will, at one point, have to get fed
> up and expect a change (an actual one...not the one old buddy Barack
> promised). This will come in the form of revolt or simply denial
> of the system; once an individual learns subtle things that are not
> always recognized, such as the fact that when you sign a note for
> a mortgage, the bank is simply creating that debt out of no where
> and selling it off (securitizing) for FRNs, the individual may learn
> that he/she can simply deny the system as a whole based on the fact
> that it is a fraud. The system has been created to enslave the masses
> through massive institutional debt.
>
> Research the true history of the USA. Type in "USA bankruptcy" or
> other keywords. Learn how the USA was taken under hostile control
> in 1871 and was seized by international bankers who have since then
> had a stranglehold on this country. After the inception of the Federal
> Reserve in 1914, the USA officially underwent bankruptcy in 1938.
> It took the Federal Reserve less than 25 years to bankrupt this country.
>
>
> Look beyond daily perception. People like Ken Lewis are part of the
> problem; replacing him will not replace the sytem though. The system
> is the problem. The system is based on deception, fraud, manipulation,
> all to control the masses through a modern-day enslavement.
>
> Research the facts and learn to slowly deny the fraudulent system!

Oct 17 04:36 PM

[jackooo:]

casey00001:
Obama said he would give you change, not run the country right!! You got what you voted for.... lol

Oct 17 08:49 PM

[Cyrus the G...:]

Obama is a puppet. A face and a voice that is supposed to pacify the masses. If Americans truly realized they are being robbed by the upper elite in this economic warfare, I would imagine they would bring more than just posters and pitchforks to protests.

Obama is being completely mastered by his controllers. They hold the determination of the end road.

America has been looted by the oligarchs and it will happen inevitably until the gap between poor and rich is so wide that there will be a distinct 2 class existence: the top and the bottom. No more lower, middle, upper class. Just the upper oligarchs and everyone else. Welcome to serfdom, brought to you by Obama the puppet, Geithner the moronic yet slick tax fraud, Benny the devaluing socialist puppet, and everyone else in the higher ranks of the banking cartel.

Oct 19 11:40 AM