• 25 highly paid CEOs earn more than their company’s income taxes source

• » The high cost of big loopholes? The angst you may have had or heard the past few years about corporate tax loopholes and decadent executive pay comes home to roost nicely in this study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing Washington think-tank. As is typical in the strange and sometimes muddy world of Washington think-tanks, some have doubted the study (which found that 25 of the 100 highest paid CEOs in America earned more than their company paid in income tax), calling its accounting methods into question — in this case, corporate spokespeople for Boeing and General Electric.

• Were the job cuts needed? After a report came out yesterday on the unofficial Gannett Blog noting the executive pay of the company’s chief executives, there’s definitely some deserved anger due to the number of layoffs that the newspaper company had. Truth is, though, their salaries, while high, are only a dent in a much larger pie, and from one perspective, they did their jobs well.

Executive salaries vs. 2009 job cuts

• 6,000 number of jobs that were lost throughout the company in 2009 through cuts and layoffs; many workers were also furloughed
• $4.7M the amount Gannett’s chairman and CEO, Craig Dubow, made in 2009, up $1.6 million from 2008 (including a $1.5 million bonus)
• $4M the amount president and COO (and former CFO) Gracia Martore made in 2009, up $2.6 million from 2008 (with a $950,000 bonus)

Would lower executive pay help? Not really

• $240M the amount the laid-off workers’ collective salaries would be if they were each paid $40,000 per year, around average for journalists (though some are paid higher)
• $700 the amount each laid-off worker would get if that $4.2 million difference between 2008 and 2009 executive pay was spread out evenly amongst them

Where the cuts helped most: Stock prices

• 907% the increase in stock price since 2009

Uncomfortable reality

• » The business consideration: Truth of the matter is, from an investing and financial perspective, Craig Dubow and Gracia Martore look very smart for cutting off some of the dead wood, even if it screwed over thousands of journalists as a result.
• » The real problem? Same as many other newspaper conglomerates: Gannett’s simply too big. It holds jurisdiction over many markets large and small, and as a result of heavy debt burdens from the financial crisis, it and companies like it, including McClatchy and Tribune, have had to make some tough decisions to protect the whole beast. Seems like all these mergers and buyouts had the effect of damaging local newspapers and local journalism. Financial sense and editorial sense are two different senses. source

• She was afraid of being sent to her room without supper. AIG Vice Chairman Anastasia Kelly, who was in charge of legal, human resources, corporate affairs and corporate communications, resigned with “good reason” over her executive pay. She’s eligible for severance, and man, that severance should keep her from eating cans of Chef Boyardee for a long time – $2.8 million. source

• Blaming Glenn Beck Former Fox News pundit Jane Hall, now a professor at American University, claims that the lessening debate on Fox News convinced her to leave. Oh, and also Glenn Beck, who she says is “way over-the-top” in his rhetoric.
  
  
• Gangsta gangsta“You gotta love Sean Connery in that!” We can all agree that the clip Fox News played was pretty funny, but we don’t agree with the way that they’re trying to paint the White House like a group of Al Capones. Seems unbecoming of Fox.
  
  
• Is it punishment?On “Meet the Press,” Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer goes on for a bit about how the executive pay cuts aren’t punishing corporate execs. Immediately afterwards, Republican Sen. John Cornyn calls the cuts “punishment.”
  
  

• $18 million, on average, for Citigroup and Bank of America execs source

• 90% of the salaries of highly-paid executives at bailed-out companies will be taken away by pay czar Kenneth Feinberg
• $200,000 the pay cap set on the incomes of executives at AIG’s financial products unit, which largely caused the financial crisis source

• $45 billion amount each bank still owes the government in TARP bailout funds; hurry up and pay it
• 100 workers at each company will face government scrutiny for their high compensation source

• $71.8 million the amount longtime A&F CEO Michael Jeffries gets in total compensation in 2008, including a $6 million “stay bonus”
• 71% tumble the freefall of that stock during the twelve months of 2008; it’s up a little since then, but it’s nowhere near its January 2008 levels source

• Whether I have jurisdiction to decide his compensation or not, we will take a look and decide over the next few weeks.
• Obama pay czar Kenneth Feinberg • On what he’s considering doing to companies that have been slow to pay back money from the TARP program. Those companies include some of the government’s favorite targets: Citi, AIG, Bank of America, Chrysler Financial, Chrysler, General Motors and GMAC. Basically, two of the country’s biggest banks and the two auto companies that we bailed out. • source

• $702.4 million the amount Blackstone Group LP’s Stephen Schwarzman, made last year, largely from the vesting of equity grants
• $557 million the amount Oracle’s Larry Ellison, made largely from exercising stock options; both are hot-shot company founders source