Google-sized bonuses
President Obama caught a lot of people’s attention when he talked about the $500,000 salary cap for executives who work for companies that are being bailed out by the government. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings even went so far as to suggest that ANY CEO who makes $1 million or more per year in salary should be taxed at a 50 percent rate. Talk about a populist/popular proclamation.
However, big business finds a way around the rules. They always have and they always will. Take Google, for instance. Their top executive bonuses – not technically salary – still had room to soar.
Associated Press tech writer Michael Liedtke reports that four of Google Inc.’s top executives received bonuses for 2008 of over $1.2 million a piece. I’m certainly not against rewarding an employee for a job well done, and Google operates within a different tax bracket than most businesses – but this has to stop. That money could have been used to retain workers who had been downsized, or even donated to charitable causes. It could have been given to people who work hard, yet have little or nothing to show for it.
But that’s less than the 2007 bonuses!
Fine. But the Dow Jones wasn’t below 7000 then. It’s there now and families are stretched to the breaking point. And in 2007, according to Liedtke, Google’s profit rose 37 percent. In 2008, the gain was only one percent.
At least top execs like CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin don’t give themselves bonuses. Many other large corporations can’t say the same.
Jonathan Rosenberg, who oversees Google’s products, received $1.64 million. Top sales executive Omid Kordestani and Alan Eustace, who oversees the company’s engineers, got $1.38 million each. CFO Patrick Pichette received a $1.24 million bonus. Interestingly, Pichette is credited for a cost-cutting method that helped Google offset slow revenue growth.
Liedtke states that Google’s top executives received as much as a $6 million bonus for a given year. However, 2008 was definitely not one of those years. For most, it was a year in search of cheap loans for difficult times.
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$1.38 BILLION each?, definitely a typo.
If they managed to turn a profit, then perhaps some bonuses are in order, but not in any way shape or form should executive bonuses be dispensed if a single employee had to be laid off. If you had to fire people in order to save payroll, then your company failed – its that simple. If those laid off had it coming eventually, that’s one thing, but giving out bonuses after layoffs had to be instituted is just plain wrong.