The score is in: CEOs make more money as the rest of bite the bullet

The Associate Press has followed our lead and has begun investigating CEO pay and, like this blog, assembling the numbers. Here are the articles:

AP IMPACT: CEO pay chugs up in '07 despite economy

They must be reading this blog because they went for the specific thing I've been doing. Calling our CEOs of companies in decline:

Fixer-up: New CEOs at troubled companies earn top pay in '07

And lists like here:

List of highest-paid CEOs in 2007

Some of the "highlights":

The AP review of compensation for the heads of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index finds the median pay package added up to nearly $8.4 million.

At the top of the AP list: John Thain, who took the reins of Merrill Lynch on Dec. 1, 2007. His $83 million pay package was supercharged by a signing bonus and other enticements that lured him from the New York Stock Exchange to lead the investment bank as it was suffering its worst-ever losses.

FYI from Cannibal Planet, ole Johnny Boy has taken Merrill Lynch from a high of $62/share when he took the helm of company to $38/share today. Nice pay for shoddy work.

The AP even took snippets from my report on GM! You can read my more extensive report here.

But I like this little tidbit I hadn't found:

AP analysis found that CEO pay rose and fell regardless of the direction of a company's stock price or profits.

Take KB Home, battered by the subprime lending crisis and the weak housing market. According to the Los Angeles-based homebuilder's proxy statement, CEO Jeffrey Mezger is entitled to a cash bonus based on a percentage of KB's profit.

The problem was there was no profit. KB Home lost almost $930 million in 2007 and its stock lost 60 percent of its value. But Mezger still made $24.4 million, as valued by the AP, including a $6 million cash bonus.

Some good reporting by AP. I hope the masses notice that there's something going on here.