ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!

A I've noted before, Henry Waxman is terrific! Now he's going to look into the moral hazard of being a CEO.

Congress panel wants to grill subprime CEOs on pay
Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:48pm EST

By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Current and former CEOs of three major U.S. financial institutions deeply involved in the widening subprime mortgage crisis were asked on Monday by a Congressional committee to testify at a hearing next month on their massive pay and severance packages.

A House of Representatives panel invited Countrywide Financial Corp CEO Angelo Mozilo, former Citigroup Inc CEO Charles Prince and former Merrill Lynch & Co Inc CEO Stanley O'Neal to appear and answer questions on February 7.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a 17-term California Democrat, said he was seeking testimony from the executives as part of an "ongoing investigation into executive pay."

Waxman asked Mozilo to be prepared to explain how his compensation package aligns with shareholders' interests and whether it "is justified in light of your company's recent performance and its role in the national mortgage crisis."

Prince quit in early November as chief executive while Citigroup posted billions of dollars in subprime losses and O'Neal was ousted amid similar circumstances at Merrill Lynch.

Despite these problems, Merrill said O'Neal would collect about $161.5 million in stock awards and benefits after leaving. One expert estimated shortly after his resignation that Prince would depart Citi with about $31 million.

The same House committee held a hearing last month on executive pay during which Waxman said: "In the 1980s, the CEOs of the nation's largest companies were paid 40 times more than the average employee. Now they make over 600 times more. At a typical company, 10 percent of corporate profits -- a staggering sum -- goes into the pockets of top executives."