If you are a CEO & Screw Up Like Merrill Lynch & have to write down over 8 billion, here

[EV_Ares]

is what you could expect when you get fired.

"If Merrill does oust O'Neal, his company holdings, retirement benefits and severance package would easily top $200 million, regulatory filings show." O'Neal's tenure as chief executive and chairman is at risk after an $8.4 billion write-down for the third quarter, mostly because of bad bets on securities tied to subprime loans.

From CNBC Web Site:

[Spinzonner]

1. Then there's failed executive

George W Bush

Costing his 'corporatocracy' trillions

[Robbien]

2. Not only that

the last quarter of this year is expected to also suck, according to CNBC. The CEO is not done with his write offs.

Heh, two weeks before all this was publicized, the CEO offered to resign. Dumb Board said no, not necessary.

[indepat]

3. Maybe the BOD should slash the CEO's bonus by 10% or so

[riverdeep]

4. Can someone give me an explanation, from the investor class'

point of view, maybe even yours, what a package like that does? I always thought it was about incentive. Carrot and stick. This sounds to me like carrot the size of Massachusetts, and another carrot the size of Boston.

Warren Buffet was talking on NBC news how he did a survey of his own office. He had the lowest tax rate, without even the usual tricks, in the entire office. He had 17% and his secretary had something like 31%. WARREN said that's not fair. I can imagine he's not too popular in the country clubs.