Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and chair of the company, did not receive any compensation last year other than his $350,000 base salary.

Schwarzman basically worked for free relative to the whopping $180 million he was paid in 2007 in addition to the $684 million he received when the company went public.

Blackstone shares lost 70% of their value last year, performing far worse than the major indexes.

Fifth Third Bancorp CEO Kevin Kabat had his 2008 pay cut in half compared to 2007.

Though he still received $3.1 million in pay last year, he saw his compensation drop significantly from the $6.2 million he received in 2007.

Unfortunately for investors, the company's shares lost more of their value than his pay last. Fifth Third shares plummeted 67% in 2008. Also, Kabat's salary actually went up 4% in 2008.

From the Dayton Business Journal:

Kabat still received a salary of $900,000, up 4 percent from $867,000 in 2007. He also received $815,000 in stock awards and $1.2 million in stock options. His pay also included $26,589 in perks, including country club dues, parking fees and trust and estate planning services.

MBIA Inc., primarily a bond insurer, announced earlier this week that its board adopted a new shareholder voting policy for senior executive pay decisions.

From Forbes.com:

Shareholders will be able to vote on whether they approve of the compensation for the company's CEO - currently Jay Brown. The vote will be considered by the board's compensation committee in determining the CEO's compensation for subsequent periods.

Shareholders will also take an advisory vote on annual compensation awarded to senior executives as a whole.

Shareholders will be afforded the right to a third vote for any one-time compensation awards given to the CEO or other senior executive offices. Those votes on one-time awards will be binding.

From the USA Today:

The profit at SunTrust Banks last year was half of what it was in 2007. The stock price was also cut in half, but the company's board of directors approved a 75% increase in the 2008 total compensation of CEO James Wells to $8.1 million, according to the SunTrust proxy filed late Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Even better, though SunTrust is in much better shape than many other banks, it has also received some bailout money.

A company spokesperson responded by saying that the company's proxy statement overstates the value of Wells' compensation because of the vast drop since then in SunTrust's stock price - which is true but doesn't explain the 7.7% increase in Wells' cash salary in 2008.

Whether you love or hate the structure of America's tax code, the simple fact is it often benefits already handsomely paid executives relative to normal 9-to-5 employees.

As the Christian Science Monitor reports:

The current top tax rate on "ordinary" work income sits at 35 percent. But dividends and capital gains from the buying and selling of most assets face only a 15 percent top rate. That's why in 2006, America's top 400 paid just 17.2 percent of their $263 million average incomes in federal tax.

Millions of middle-class American families, once you tally income and payroll taxes, pay far more of their incomes in tax. One particularly striking example from billionaire investor Warren Buffett: In 2006, he paid 17.7 percent of his income in total taxes. His secretary, who made $60,000, paid 30 percent of hers.

When an executive receives outrageous, undeserved stock compensation, they not only take advantage of their shareholders but often times they also take advantage of every normal taxpayer too.

(It is important to note that not all stock options, for instance, skirt normal income tax rates. Nonqualified stock options require the exerciser to claim the difference between the strike price and the market price as income.)

The Associated Press is reporting that General Electric's CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Immelt declined his "long-term performance award," valued at $11.7 million, for 2008.

Given that GE shares have lost nearly 70% of their value over the last 12 months, Immelt is right to forgo his bonus - but the real question is why he is even eligible for a bonus?

I am not suggesting companies should be held hostage by stock market price swings - but GE is facing a real crisis not simply a downturn in its business cycle.

Bloomberg is reporting that "Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said, [while testifying before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee], he will take a salary of $1 and no bonus until the bank, which has accepted $45 billion in government bailout money, returns to profitability."

From BusinessWeek:

In recent weeks, the news from Japan Inc. has been a steady drumbeat of layoffs, plant shutdowns, and gloomy earnings forecasts. Yet few CEOs have been shown the door. And there are scant signs that the public and political outcry against CEOs' fat pay packages in the U.S. will be echoed in Japan.

That's because most Japanese chief executives don't earn anywhere near the big paychecks of their Western counterparts. CEOs at Japan's top 100 companies by market capitalization earned an average of around $1.5 million, compared with $13.3 million for American CEOs and $6.6 million for European chief execs at companies with revenues of higher than $10 billion...

Not that Japan's lower executive pay necessarily means the country has a better overall compensation climate. As the article goes on to note, Japanese company boards are generally dominated by insiders with very long tenure while Japanese filing regulations do not require that executive pay be broken down by individual.

Nonetheless, it is somewhat refreshing to see pay that does not seem to assume the CEO has super-human powers.

From the blog of Bob Sutton, a reminder that Board Members not only make a good deal of money but also don't hesitate to spend it (often by paying the CEO more money):

After controlling for traditional size and performance measures, the amount of money made outside directors, especially those on the compensation committee, had a huge effect on CEO pay.  O'Reilly and his colleagues report that for every $100,000 that the average member of the compensation committee is paid, the CEO's pay goes up another $51,000 per year.  Remember, these effects are independent of firm performance and size!