The Associated Press looks at politicians' use of 'say on pay' as a cudgel:

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has proposed writing the concept, known as "say on pay," into law. Republican Sen. John McCain wants to encourage companies to give shareholders a say but without legislating the idea.

The McCain approach is similar to what President Bush has done — jawboning corporate America over extravagant pay packages but opposing "say on pay" legislation.

Executive pay rings a strong populist tone on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail, especially when the economy is stumbling and stocks are falling.

"Say on pay" legislation cleared the House last year by a 2-to-1 margin but has gone nowhere in the Senate. It has been opposed by the White House and most Republicans.

The legislation won't necessarily become law, though. Populist rhetoric and bold legislative proposals play well, but enacting laws to change corporate governance is another matter.

The say-on-pay legislation "could be a catalyst," said Amy Borrus, deputy director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a group representing public pension funds. If the Senate Banking Committee were to take up a proposal, that could "get more companies to take the issue seriously and act on it," she said.

From The Associated Press:

THE 'HOUSING CRISIS HITS HOME' AWARD: Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE: Q) - It may be in the telecommunications business, but it hasn't escaped the housing market downturn. Bought a house for its new CEO last summer, ultimately sold the house and lost $1.83 million on the episode.

THE 'LET'S GO SHOPPING' AWARD: Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M) gives its top brass an additional discount on top of the discount that the rest of its employees get. That totals 40 percent off the retail price. There's more: The Cincinnati-based department store chain also picks up the taxes on that extra discount because it's considered taxable income.

THE 'YOUR PAY IS BASED ON WHAT?' AWARD: To companies that trumpet the idea of "pay for performance" but then don't give investors the detail they deserve in knowing what that means.

A study by compensation consulting firm James F. Reda & Associates of about 300 large public companies found that just 16 percent were thorough in spelling out exactly how pay supposedly tied to the company's annual performance was measured — and how much was actually paid. Another 19 percent provided no detail at all.

The Motley Fool examines CEO pay from a unique angle by calculating, based on your percentage ownership stake in the company, how much you contributed to the compensation:

"Clif P. of Hawaii was comparing his ownership of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) and Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC). He explained that, considering his total shares owned:

'I now own almost exactly one millionth of Berkshire. This makes my share of [CEO Warren Buffett's $100,000] salary $0.10. ... In contrast, I own [about] 1/110,000 of Countrywide. Countrywide's CEO [Angelo Mozilo's] compensation for 2007 was recently reported as being $22 million. This means I forked over $200 for his management.'

He noted how tempted he was to go to the Countrywide annual meeting and ask why Mozilo was worth 2,000 times more than Buffett.

It's an interesting way to view an investment, no? But it certainly has its limitations."

J. Edward Ketz, an accounting professor at The Pennsylvania State University and author of Hidden Financial Risk, has been featured here before for his articles at SmartPros. His most recent piece offers substantive measures for Congress to take to curb CEO pay, rather than just pandering:

"The first thing to do is to separate the position of chairman of the board from the CEO position. The board should represent the shareholders and, as such, it ought to supervise and control the activities and the proposals of managers. The board cannot function very effectively for these purposes if the board is populated with the top executives. As the British have learned, there are important benefits to separating these functions, including better oversight by the board of directors.

The second thing to do is to empower shareholders to vote. It is shameful for managers to prevent votes to take place on important issues, including but not limited to, compensation. But I would not take the toothless position of having these votes nonbinding. After all, these are the shareholders -- the owners of the corporation! Surely in a capitalistic society such as ours the owners of the firm or their agents can have a say in how the business is run.

The SEC had several chances during recent years to empower owners to regain control over their firms, but instead the SEC fumbled the ball. It wouldn't hurt for Congress to question Christopher Cox and ask him why the commission's recent decisions favor managers over shareholders. I thought the purpose of the SEC was to represent and protect the interests of shareholders."

Because 'golden parachutes' were not enough, a WSJ story reported on another way to absurdly pay CEOs, even if they are dead:

"For instance, Nabors Industries (NYSE: NBR) would owe the estate of CEO Eugene Isenberg a "severance" payment of at least $263.6 million, which is more than the first-quarter earnings at the Houston oil-service company, the Journal said.

Compensation critics call the practice the ultimate in pay that is not based on performance.

Death benefits are not a new feature of executive contracts, but a federal rule change 18 months ago that forced companies to provide more detail on severance arrangements has exposed just how lavish some of these arrangements are, the Journal said.

It said the CEO of Shaw Group Inc (NYSE: SGR) is in line to be paid $17 million for not competing with the engineering and construction company after he dies."

According to a Reuters story, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain would make say-on-pay shareholder votes mandatory if elected:

"Americans are right to be offended when the extravagant salaries and severance deals of CEOs ... bear no relation to the success of the company or the wishes of shareholders," he says, adding that some of those chief executives helped bring on the country's housing crisis and market troubles.

"If I am elected president, I intend to see that wrongdoing of this kind is called to account by federal prosecutors. And under my reforms, all aspects of a CEO's pay, including any severance arrangements, must be approved by shareholders," he says.

From a Matthew Daneman piece in The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

Being the head of a major company often comes with rewards beyond a nice paycheck and oodles of stock.

As part of his 2007 compensation, Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) CEO Antonio Perez received $7,000 worth of financial counseling, $24,723 for a security system and personal use of Kodak aircraft valued at $340,007, according to the company's proxy statement.

Securities and Exchange Commission filings by other companies showed 2007 perks including:

• $135,725 moving expense reimbursement for Stephen S. Romaine, CEO of Ithaca-based Tompkins Financial Corp.
• $19,578 to cover taxes for Carl E. Sassano of Transcat Inc. in Ogden, a distributor of calibration equipment.
• $64,825 in perks, including club membership dues, meals and the cost of a Buffalo apartment for M&T Bank CEO Robert G. Wilmers.
• $1,250 clothing allowance for Homi B. Patel, CEO of Hickey Freeman's parent company, Hartmarx Corp.

Not surprisingly, in this selection from a Reuters piece on a new industry group fighting for CEO pay status quo, the group reveals its true colors: the average stockholder (meaning the average owner of the company) couldn't possibly understand the complicated reasons why a CEO needs to be paid an outrageous sum of money - hence say-on-pay is bad for business and bad for America:

With business leaders facing rising scrutiny from shareholders and lawmakers about their compensation, a new organization wants to tell corporate America's side of the executive pay story.

Leaders of the Center on Executive Compensation, an industry-backed group based in Washington, say they want to offer a reasoned view about how to create good pay practices.

The center says its mission is not to blindly defend CEO payouts that have angered investors, but to strengthen the links between pay and performance industrywide while ensuring companies remain competitive.

The media has "rightly" put the spotlight on instances of excessive CEO pay, "but our concern is that paints a picture of corporate America in total," said Richard Floersch, the center's chairman.

"For the vast majority of companies, they are dedicated to a very strong executive compensation program with very strong principles around pay for performance," he said. "Unfortunately, that story doesn't come out when you do have some of these outlier situations."

Activist investors have lashed out over executive payouts they consider too lavish, while members of Congress have publicly scolded some corporate chiefs for receiving outsized pay packages at a time when their companies have been hard hit by the U.S. mortgage crisis.

CEOs themselves play no direct role at the new center, an offshoot of the HR Policy Association, which represents human resources officers at big U.S. companies.

The center has a 16-member advisory board made up of chief HR officials at companies such as American Airlines (NYSE: AMR), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM)) and Lockheed Martin Corp (NYSE: LMT).

Shareholder rights activists say they do not have high hopes that the executive compensation center will advocate for investors.

"This is part of the effort of the business community to protect the status quo from angry shareholders and a concerned Congress," said Richard Ferlauto, director of pension and benefit policy at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a frequent critic of executive pay plans.

"It just shows that the business community is mobilizing, rather than reforming pay," he said.

The executive compensation center opposes the "say-on-pay" investor proposals and a bill pending in Congress calling for a mandatory shareholder vote on executive pay, saying they could end up forcing companies to adopt "cookie-cutter" pay plans aimed at winning shareholder support rather than be in the corporations' best strategic interests.

"There are a lot of unintended consequences and negative consequences from adopting a shareholder vote," said Charles Tharp, the center's executive vice president for policy.