I don't know where Gwyn has been. I read about options back-dating every single day in the WSJ. In fact, it was the Journal that broke this story, with the original story examinig 13 companies that, just coincidentally, happened to issue options at or near the quarterly lows, with the odds of such fabulous market timing as high as 20,000,000:1.

Also, much of this happened before Sarbanes-Oxley passed.

However, the general gist of the article is correct. Its appalling. Pay for CEOs has risen 250% over the past decade and for what? Earnings have risen 6% per year, about the same rate as they have the past 100 years, and 1/3 the rate of CEO pay. Its one of the biggest rip-offs of all time. And some will go to prison.

The granting of options, which was designed in the late 1980s to give managers a stake in the corporations they were running, are out of control. They are creating perverse behavior and having an effect on the real economy. They have, until recently, also skewed accounting. They have encouraged fraud and the collapse or near collapse of some companies.

Executive pay is ridiculous.