Hi - I need a quote or two from a prominent CEO or Chairman that
defends executive compensation as comparable to that of the high
salaries of professional athletes or movie stars.

I've got a quote from Fannie Mae Chief Executive Franklin Raines, so I
don't need that one.  Looking for someone a little more recognizable,
if at all possible.

I need this by Thursday evening.

Hello.

I've located a quote from one of America's top executives, IBM
Chairman Louis Gerstner Jr, that includes this exact athlete/actor
defense.

It's in an intervew that Gerstner did last year with BusinessWeek:


"Q: [BusinessWeek:] Your $127 million compensation package in 2001,
along with that of a few other highly paid CEOs, has been criticized
as outrageously generous. Do we need a change in CEO compensation?

A: [Gerstner:] Compensation needs to be predominately
performance-driven. If CEO compensation was performance-driven, which
I believe it was in IBM's case, nobody would ever argue. If the
shareholders didn't make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn't
make millions of dollars. My salary was the same for 10 years. It was
all performance-based.
What is the most outrageous is the compensation that has gone to
people who have been fired, forced out, whose companies didn't perform
well. The American people have no problem paying great athletes and
great actors lots of money if they're the best and if they perform
well. I hope we're going to see a much tougher set of standards by
directors that get compensation tied specifically to corporate
performance."
source: BusinessWeek. Nov 18, 2002.
"Lou Gerstner Takes the Gloves Off"
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_46/b3808091_PG2.htm

search terms:
"ceo compensation", salary, athletes, pay, paying

I hope this helps.

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Request for Answer Clarification by bootsy-ga on 19 Sep 2003 15:55 PDT

Hey Juggler - got a follow up for you. 

Looking for something along the lines of the following: As for the
outrageous senior executive pay/compensation, looking for a columnist
or moralist who attacks CEO pay purely on the numbers.

If you can answer this, worth the same as the last one, I'll just tip
you.  If tipping doesn't work, I'll just open another question and
specify you as the answerer.

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Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 19 Sep 2003 17:17 PDT

Hi Bootsy,

It's not possible to add a tip to this question since it's already
been rated and closed.

You could post this as a new question and put "attn: juggler-ga" in
the subject line.  Also, if you have any particular
columnists/moralists in mind, let me know, and I could try to see if
they've written about and/or attacked executive pay.

Thanks.
juggler

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Request for Answer Clarification by bootsy-ga on 20 Sep 2003 10:09 PDT

hey juggler:  http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=258572

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Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 20 Sep 2003 11:25 PDT

Hi Bootsy:
I will get to work on your new question. Thanks.
-juggler

Exactly what I was looking for....thanks!