From Newsday's James Bernstein:

David H. Brooks, charged with looting the Westbury-based body armor company he founded to pay for a lavish lifestyle, has been under house arrest in Manhattan for nearly a year now and is out of public sight.

Except on the Internet.

In the past few weeks, angry investors said yesterday, Web postings have gone up portraying Brooks as a "humanitarian" who has "saved thousands of lives" by developing body-armor technology, and who is involved in a mission in Malawi, Africa, "offering generous donations to help aid the grief-stricken area."

When this humanitarian wasn't saving the world through his generosity, his federal indictment claims he was using DHB Industries Inc., now called Point Blank Solutions, money to pay for personal expenses like an $8 million bat mitzvah and a $101,000 bejeweled belt buckle.

An excellent contemporary and historical overview of the current executive compensation issue by David S. Hilzenrath has these three suggestions and caveats for shaking things up:

First, short of a revolution in the way corporations are governed, there are efforts afoot to make it harder for executives to profit from mismanagement while investors are left holding the bag.

Some shareholder activists are calling on boards to hold incentive pay hostage to a company's long-term fortunes, and investor anger could put pressure on directors to comply. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) plans to ask shareholders to vote next year on resolutions urging boards to take two steps: stretch out the payment of annual bonuses over multiple years and hold on to a significant portion of equity awards until the executive has been gone from the company for two years.

The resolutions are purely advisory.

Second, through its bailout programs, the government can set conditions for companies that accept federal funds. For example, the government is requiring participating firms to eliminate incentives for executives to take "unnecessary and excessive risks that threaten the value of the financial institution." It's unclear how companies will apply such a nebulous standard. In the spirit of both the AFSCME proposal and the Treasury mandate, the investment firm Morgan Stanley recently said it will make a portion of annual bonuses subject to recapture by the company.

Third, either Congress or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could make it easier for big shareholders to put their own candidates for board seats on the corporate ballot. In theory, that could make directors much more accountable. For it to work, shareholders, especially institutions like pension and mutual funds, would have to take a more active role than many have had the stomach to play in the past.

The plan could backfire. If executives are forced to confront shareholders with real power, would they be any less motivated to deliver short-term results, or the illusion of short-term results -- even if those compromise the company's interests over the long run?

The Conference Board released its annual Top Executive Compensation report Wednesday. The not-for-profit claims that changes in CEO compensation were already underway this year - but unless one believes minor shifts in the allocation of huge pay packages qualify as true "changes," I see nothing but the status quo.

Key findings of the report include:

    * Compensation mix is reallocated towards stock. Almost all industries show a reallocation of compensation towards stock and away from total cash compensation and stock options. In financial services (non-banks), for example, the average percent of total compensation delivered in non-equity incentives fell by 2.62 percentage points (from 24.19 to 21.57).
    * Cash may be losing share-but the median CEO still earns more of it. Median cash compensation increased in more than two thirds of the industries studied (as did total compensation overall). The largest median gainer in cash compensation is insurance (up by 34.39 percent to $1,227,371). The only notable negative is construction, an outlier showing a 22.36 percent decrease.
    * Food and tobacco executives are the top earners. Among the 22 industries represented, food and tobacco shows the highest median CEO total compensation. It tops the list with $6.34 million in median total compensation, and $2.7 million in median total cash compensation, followed by utilities, insurance, and financial services (non-banks).
    * CEOs already have plenty of "skin in the game." Of the largest 10 percent of companies in the sample, the median CEO holds almost 100 times (99.97 percent) of his/her salary in total stock and stock options holdings in the company. Across industry, the largest median multiple (94.44) is seen in the financial services industry (non-banks), the smallest is commercial banks (23.31).

From Michelle Singletary of The Washington Post:

If we now have an economy in which we can’t allow certain industries or companies to fail, then we need better governance over executive compensation. We need to place some checks and balances so that top executives aren’t allowed to run firms into the ground while enjoying outrageous pay packages no matter how their companies perform.

Perhaps one way is to focus more on the boards that approve executive pay. Last year, companies in the S&P 500 index spent an average of more than $2 million on board compensation, according to preliminary findings of a director pay survey by the Corporate Library, an independent research firm. The median total compensation for individual directors of S&P 500 companies was just under $200,000.

Despite the economic downturn and a yearlong recession, the pay for directors has gone up. The median increase in total board compensation was nearly 11 percent. The median increase in compensation for individual directors was almost 12 percent. This is the third year of double-digit increases for directors and boards.

Is it no wonder that executive pay is so high? The people determining how much executives will get are lapping up the money too.