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Money for Nothing: How the Failure of Corporate Boards Is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Trillions
Money for Nothing How the Failure of Corporate Boards Is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Trillions
Author: John Gillespie, David Zweig
A Bank of America director questioned the CEO's $76 million pay package in a year when the bank was laying off 12,600 workers and found herself dropped from the board without notice a few months later.According to their employment agreements -- approved by boards -- 96 percent of large company CEOs have guarantees that do not allow them to be...  more »If you own stock -- and 57 million U.S. households do -- every cent of these outrages comes out of your pocket, thanks to boards of directors who are supposed to represent your interests. Every customer, employee, and taxpayer is also being hurt and American business is being imperiled. In the most recent economic collapse, almost all attention has focused on the greed, recklessness, or incompetence of CEOs rather than the negligence of boards, who ought to be held equally, if not more, accountable because the CEOs theoretically work for them. But the world of boards has become an entrenched insiders' club -- virtually free of accountability or personal liability. Too often, corporate boards act as enabling lapdogs rather than trustworthy watchdogs, costing us trillions.Money for Nothing exposes the glaring flaws in this dysfunctional system, including directors who are selected by the CEOs they are meant to hold accountable; compensation consultants who legitimize outrageous pay; accountants and attorneys who see no evil; legal vote buying; rampant conflicts of interest; and much more.Using their extensive original reporting and interviews with high-level insiders, John Gillespie and David Zweig -- both Harvard MBAs with thirty-plus years of Fortune 100 experience at investment banks and media companies -- expose what happened, or failed to happen, in the boardrooms of companies such as Lehman Brothers, General Motors, Bear Stearns, and Countrywide and how it has resulted in so much financial devastation. They reveal how the byzantine yet indestructible web of power and money has brought on collapse after collapse, with fig-leaf reforms that feebly anticipate last year's scandal, but never next year's.Money for Nothing shows how the game is played, and how you can help to demand real change in a badly broken system.
ISBN-13: 9781416559931
ISBN-10: 1416559930
Publication Date: 1/12/2010
Pages: 320
Rating:
  • Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
 1
4.5 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: Free Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
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 goodnightnobody avatar reviewed Money for Nothing: How the Failure of Corporate Boards Is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Trillions on + 17 more book reviews
You want to talk about the elite controlling the vast majority of wealth in America? This is where it happens. Former heads of military serving on boards with former CEOs and former heads of state - and none of them doing the job they're supposed to do.

Yes, we can lay the blame for the collapse of a company at the feet of a CEO - but the CEO is supposed to report to the Board.

Really well-written and fascinating, although ultimately frustrating in its level of "You've GOT to be kidding me!" moments throughout.


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