I take your point - for those CEO's with the highest profile and some sort of media personal interest angle.
I also take the earlier point that some of the articles about tightening up financial accountability are typical of the anxieties that arise as the economic cycle passes its peak and heads towards tougher times for returns on capital.
On the other hand I maintain the secular trend is for the regulation of financial risk increasingly to be just another function of the overall management of finance capital in its increasingly highly socialised form.
The media can pursue the celebrity CEO's but the financial intelligentsia who run the funds will want to know how soundly the financial department of individual companies is run. They will not want to see expenditure on too many CEO celebrities if simple control procedures combined with less glamorous high flyers can be part of an effective mix of technical skills and technology.
The means of production continue to socialise themselves within the framework of private ownership.
Chris Burford
PS the thread title relates to a shorter term secular phenomenon - the turn in the capitalist cycle, which has been disguised by the central banks pumping liquidity into the market at low interest rates to prevent an economic crisis, in which there is in a sense too much capital - too much unproductive capital - for the amount of surplus value that can be accumulated. Globally capital is at a tactical disadvantage, and will remain so until a proportion has been killed off. eg a proportion of US capital by Chinese capital?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 10:56 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capital lost clout?
The public may resent high CEO pay, but it makes CEOs part of the celebrity culture. Why would anyone take an interest in Donald Trump. Jack Welch was a rock star of business -- until the aftermath of his divorce. Remember Lee Iaccoca?
Carrol writes: >A) Does the public as a whole see CEOs in that light? I haven't >paid much attention to the matter, but my vague impression is that a large share of the public (i) disapproves heartily of high pay for CEOs but (ii) doesn't think anything can be done about it, and anyhow other issues are more important????<
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
