The $140 Million Patriot

It would be hard to imagine a steeper slide from hero to zero than the experience of Richard Grasso, the now-deposed head of the New York Stock Exchange. writes Jim Stanford.
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On September 17, Richard Grasso resigned as chairman and CEO of the exchange. Public details of his compensation (including a deferred payout of $140 million) had ignited a storm of outrage - especially among key pension funds and other financial heavyweights.


With investors struggling to rebuild their faith in the wake of accounting scandals and the dot-com meltdown, this revelation of blatant excess and cronyism at the heart of finance capitalism was too much to take. Grasso's compensation was hardly the most obscene in U.S. business. Compared to the $706 million that Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison took home in 2001, for example, it looked downright humble. Nevertheless, the writing was on the wall. After all, Grasso didn't actually run a real business, producing things of real value to real human beings; he ran a glorified casino. And the dealer's take in this particular card game was far too rich for the main players to tolerate <snip>

http://workers.labor.net.au/features/200310/a_guestreporter_grasso.html


ah ..it does my heart good to see the ruling class getting a good whack of money for services rendered..

Grasso's final payout is being cut back somewhat, it's still many millions of dollars. He's not going to go on welfare any day soon.