In the last few days, Wall Street is rocking as its leaders tumble. Last week the nation's largest brokerage house Merrill Lynch saw its CEO Stanley O'Neal step down. This week, it's the nation's largest bank, Citigroup's Charles Prince III resigning.
I do not want to talk about their golden parachutes. (They leave with millions, having lost billions for their companies.)
I just wanted to mention that when O'Neal said his goodbyes, at least one reporter mentioned that he was Merrill Lynch's first black CEO. There was no mention that Charles Prince was another in a long line of white guys at the helm of Citigroup. Do we get it yet?
True equality is when a black guy can get fired for incompetence just like a white guy, and still get a sweet severance package... and then get hired by another financial firm after a short vacation (like the small club of re-treaded coaches in the NFL, or Don Imus).
I think as a country, we're almost there. Not quite, but almost.
1 comment:
I'll use an old journalism trick and make my correction small (in the comment section, rather than a whole new post). I misspoke. Messrs. O'Neal and Prince did not get severance packages. Rather, their exiting compensation reflected years of hard-earned benefits, various forms of stock (options, deferred, restricted awards), and savings.
Mr. O'Neal's accumulated benefits, $161.5 million. Mr. Prince's pot o' gold ($16.05 million) did include a prorated bonus for 2007 (huh?), plus an office, admin. asst., car and driver for five years, or until he gets another job (what's the rush?). And Citigroup (its shareholders and depositors) will pay certains taxes on those benefits.
Sorry, fellas. Didn't mean to dis' ya.
Old School Editor
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