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Overpaid Executives

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* Executives receive up to $50 million when they are laid off for poor performance? This should shock every American.

“Executive Compensation Climbs Into Stratosphere” [July 5] notes that stockholders in these companies might notice some dilution of share value. It also mentions that remaining employees, who have to pick up the slack and do extra work, are quietly outraged.

But we should all be outraged, and not quietly. This money is being stolen from all of us. From those laid off to increase profits, from those expected to produce more but denied a real raise, from those doing hard or dangerous work for minimum wage, from those whose jobs went overseas where employees are easier to exploit and pollution laws are lax.

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The money is also being stolen from the company itself: from research and development, safety and testing. It results in inferior, less safe products.

Remember that the excessive compensation given to executives doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s added to the cost of everything we buy, every service we use.

CHARLES MARK-WALKER

North Hills

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The letters on executive compensation [“Exorbitant Executive Pay a Serious Drag on Society,” July 9] were all negative.

Two columns to the right on the same page was a table of the top 10 “Highest Base Salary Earners.”

Why not list the top three singers, top three athletes and top four actors alongside?

JACK CASSON

Claremont

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