I didn’t do it

Posted by Marc Hodak on February 5, 2011 under Executive compensation, Reporting on pay | Be the First to Comment

A story about Steve Eckhaus, who negotiated some of the Wall Street pay packages that made the news during the reaction to the meltdown:

Among the pay packages with Mr. Eckhaus’s fingerprints is Tom Montag‘s May 2008 deal to join Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America Corp. The package, which according to an SEC filing included a $39.4 million guarantee, was among those that caught the eye of regulators in the fury over pay after the financial crisis.

“It was understandable why there was anger,” says Mr. Eckhaus, but “the crisis was not caused by Wall Street fat cats. It was caused by a confluence of economic, political and historical factors.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Eckhaus, “a confluence of economic, political and historical factors” is a difficult story for a journalist to write, an uninteresting story for the average citizen to read, and does not yield an obvious scapegoat to throw to the seething mob.

So here it is one more time:  highly paid people get what they can negotiate, just like any of us would in their place.  The fact that we aren’t in their place is less their fault than ours.