Huffington Magazine Issue 89 | Page 31

Voices And then we have the CEOs in the financial industry, heads of huge banks like Lehman’s, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch, or the insurer AIG. These CEOs took their companies to the edge of bankruptcy or beyond and still walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in their pockets. It’s not hard to write contracts that would ensure that CEO pay bears a closer relationship to the company’s performance. For example, if the value of Raymond’s stock incentives at Exxon were tied to the performance of the stock of other oil companies (this can be done) then his going away package probably would not have been one-tenth as large. Also, there can be longer assessment periods so that it’s