Will he be getting bailed out as well?

I don't blame him. I blame the people that enabled it. I think CEO's are like sports players. They get signing bonuses. If they blow a knee and are finished or blow a game, we lambaste them. If they win the series, we cheer them and thank them. I mean can anyone here say they wouldn't take a job with a 6 million dollar a week "bonus"?

sad part is that guy probably doesn't even need it.. he's already a millionare.

maybe he shoudl donate part of it?

Well, his employment agreement is what it is. I can't say I'm partial or have any criticisms about it. Being afforded the opportunity of CEO of a corporation as large as Washington Mutual is a whole other world. If he walks away with 18 million dollars, oh well I guess.... :\

reading that makes me ill. like, oh god i might throw up ill. what is wrong with this country? sure this kinda stuff happens all the time, but i've been screaming (to myself) foul for years now...it's time for action! this HAS to stop.

If your buddies got to decide how much you get paid, and you got to decide how much your buddies get paid, you would be paid 6 million per week, too.

Hey Fishman, we know what you look like. Be careful crossing the street. My foot might accidentally slip off of the brake (and slam the gas pedal through the floorboards) when I see you in the crosswalk.

I saw something that said if the average worker (me) got the same percentage of pay increases that CEOs have since 1980 I (the average worker) would be making over 160,000 a year at my job.

Think of him as a high priced call girl. He screwed his customers for a couple of grand each.

I have GOT to get a job like this.

3 weeks, $18,000,000

Then I can retire.

OK, it's not this guy's fault and of course I'd take the deal if it came my way, but I still hate him a little bit.

I'm wondering why there aren't more lawsuits filed by sharedholders over this sort of thing.

Sure it SEEMS great getting $6 mil a week ,but think of the pay cut he'll be taking on his next job

That photo looks a lot like C. Montgomery Burns with a head full of hair

@HomersBrain: They'll treat him like Dick from the new "Fun with Dick and Jane".

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->:

My thoughts exactly.It's the people that enabled including the lawyers,board of directors and hr people that negotiated his contract.

I'm not for limits on ceo compensation in that most don't want caps placed on their job.You have to be willing to walk the talk by accepting this goes on.

What you can do is expect greater accountability from the people that negotiate these contracts.Was giving this WaMu ceo the signing bonus really in the best interest of the company and stock holders or was it a backroom deal from friends who simply got him a job.

There might be civil liability here but crimal probably not.Unless he signed off on fraud.

@TechnoDestructo: Ain't that the truth. The board decides on how much to pay CEO's. Problem is that the board of one company is made up of executives from other companies. These guys' literal golfing buddies are scratching each others' backs.

couple of things to keep in mind. He got a lot of stock option and restricted stock which are worthless. He did get cash as a sign on bonus (7.5 mill). The severance depends on how he was fired and we don't know the full terms of the contract because the full terms are not public. But the most important thing is, the company is bankrupt! They have NO money to pay him his severance. So he will NOT get that 18 million payout.

@Coder4Life:
Ah yes, just because someone has money already doesn't mean they aren't entitled to any more of it. Just give it away! Great idea!

@ShortBus: I would like to start seeing names including the boards that approved these salaries.And aren't those same boards supposed to be overseeing the company business as a representive of the stockholders-how does a stockholder benefit if the company goes bankrupt.

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->:
I highly doubt that it was in his contract that he would get 6million a week as a bonus. If it was and shareholders got wind of it there would have been hell to pay.

I simply don't understand the hostility that people demonstrate towards high-paid executives. This guy didn't run the company into the ground, he simply couldn't save it in 3 weeks. Further, executives are highly paid because they are (generally) smart, skilled and hard working. It's not like they are taking 9-5 jobs. What totally blows my mind are comments like the one regarding hitting him in an intersection. The resentment towards the wealthy on here is just ridiculous.

Bill O'Reilly has a copy of a letter this guy sent out just a couple weeks before wamu went down saying they were solvent, and encouraging people not to quit on them. As a result, some people actually bought WaMu stock at $2.40 a share thinking it was heading back up. Now that it's toast, he may wind up under investigation for securities fraud.

I don't know how he could sleep at night knowing he walked away with over 10 million dollars after the company he was heading just died.

Perhaps we could pay him the 10 mil and brand the word FAIL on his forehead as a warning to future employers.

@Marshfield:

10 million dollars will buy a hell of a bed, and a lot of sleeping pills.

@u1itn0w2day:

I disagree. After the horribly rampant greed that has been seen in recent decades I am TOTALLY for caps on CEO pay. However I can be fair and make it a sliding scale.

Set a Federal Maximum wage, but instead of setting it at some random point lets make it a percentage based on the pay of the lowest paid employee. For ease of explanation lets say the CEO can't make more than 100 times that of their lowest paid employees. So the McDonalds CEO who pays their newest employees minimum wage ($6.25/hour) could stll make $625/hour or a salary of $1,300,000/year which is nothing to sneeze at no matter where in the country you live.

Now, if it turns out that the CEO needs a raise then he can bump all his min wage employees up $0.75 to $7/hour and now he makes $700/hour or a salary of $1,456,000. Because lets face it, for years management has spouted BS about how important every employee is to the company so if the company is doing so well that the CEO and top execs get a sizable raise why shouldn't those doing the day to day grunt work also get something more than a certificate of appreciation?

Of course we would have to put in a stipulation that the 100 times lowest paid employee law accounted for TOTAL compensation and not just salary or else we would just end up with the same abuses of perks, stock options, etc. that led to the current problem.

@Pylon83:

The hostility is the fact that the pay is outside of reality. They simply do NOT have the value they demand. No one person is worth a million dollars. Heck we dont even pay the president that well!

@Pylon83: I believe the hostility stems from the fact that people who own that stock see it like they are losing money in their stock while this jerk makes off with TONS of money. Not fair since it is a personal loss to so many investors.

@Pylon83: Because it's my money, it's your money. It's you working harder and spending less time with your kids or in your life and paying more in bank fees so that he can walk after having done nothing of note.

Yes, death threats are too much. But I'll resent these asses until the end of time.

@TechnoDestructo: Not really, because my buddies hit me up for money to buy bud lite since I'm the only one with a job.

I guess that means I need better friends?

@vdragonmpc:

Clearly he is worth the money he demands or he wouldn't be making it. Welcome to the free market.

@lightaugust:
You resent them for running a company that provides a service that you choose to use? You don't HAVE to bank at WaMu. You don't have to bank at all. Cash all your paychecks. There is no law, or even right, to a bank account.

@Pylon83:

The hostility towards highly paid executives is that many of then are (generally) NOT smart, skilled, or hard working. If they were, the company wouldn't be in the crapper in the first place. Many have made it to the "top" relying on the golf buddy system.

I'm going to play the part of Bladefist today, except do a better job of it than he would:

Let's say you're a top-notch, top-talent CEO type, and someone comes to you from WaMu and says, hey come work for us. You'd look at the person like they were insane. It'd be like being asked to captain the titanic after it had already hit the iceberg. Why would you want to sully your reputation by attaching it to that rotten pile of feces? You wouldn't. It would take a pretty big incentive for you to take all the risk of taking on the job of leading that ship being sunk by all the risk it carries in terms of toxic mortgages.

So how could WaMu possibly get anyone to agree to try to save it without offering a big reward? It couldn't. So it did. And it was just too little, too late for the thrift. Or strike that, and make it: much too much, too late.

Okay, now I'm done being Bladefist. I'm back to being me: I say let's either waterboard all the CEOS and hedge fund managers connected to CDOs and CDSs, or send them to fight the war in Iraq. Or maybe a little of both? And we can take all their possessions away and use the few billion dollars we'd get to help bail out the economy. We should be seeing armed rebellions in the street a la France in 1789.

Well sure, he's making $1,200,000 a day for basically arranging his new office furniture just so.
But have some pity on the guy: think of the confiscatory taxes someone in that position faces.
Oh. Wait.

@m4ximusprim3:

They aren't determining how much your job pays.

@m4ximusprim3: So yes, you need better friends.

@pcwwalker:
You're either terrible at math, or WaMu failed because they had no more than 9000 customers.

@vdragonmpc: I don't know what reality you live in, but if I had a decision to hire a CEO for a million, and he would increase the value of the company by a large multiple of that, I would GLADLY hire him.

Of course I'd also tie that pay to performance and provide reasonable compensation (probably 100-200k) if he did not hit his numbers since being a CEO is an incredibly stressful, demanding job that few are capable of handling. That would help avoid this kind of situation.

People on here don't seem to understand that being a CEO is not a walk in the park. There is unimaginable stress and zero job security. Plus, since you are one of the most public facing members of your company, any screw up is seen by all and can SERIOUSLY hamper your future employment options. Not to mention the legal risk you assume...

I wouldn't wish being a CEO on anyone.

@PoliticalScapegoat:
You're simply wrong. While I'm certain there is a small exception or two out there, you don't get the education, experience and skill that it takes to run a corporation without being intelligent. Further, you can't run a company without being hard working. When the shit hits the fan, you get called. Doesn't matter if it's 2pm and your at lunch, 3am on a Saturday or while your on vacation half the world away. As Haltingpoint pointed out, you're also the face of the company. Just because they don't swing a hammer or drive a truck doesn't mean they don't work hard.

@Haltingpoint: CEO's with zero job security? After they they fired, they become political advisors, lobbyists, or just take executive job at another clueless company. Kinda like how the NFL recycles coaches - no matter how bad Team A was under Coach X, Team B will hire him to "turn it around".

Wait, did someone just cite Bill O'Reilly as a credible source of information regarding the real world on Consumerist?

But, I digress.

The real problem is that the CEO is the leader of a company who is paid even if the company fails. That is not capitalism. That is not how corporations were intended to work. If the company fails to make a profit, the upper management doesn't get paid. That's how it's supposed to work. Some great businessmen know this, and have taken $1 salary to help save their company. This should be a goddamn law.

@PoliticalScapegoat:
You didn't really refute the job security argument. Just because they might be able to get other jobs doesn't mean their current job is secure. Plus they might be able to survive one or two firings, but eventually they will be seen as toxic and have a hard time finding work. So they don't usually want to lose their jobs.

@TechnoDestructo: Understood. I'll start the hunt at my local country club. Can I name myself Preston C. Hawthorne III, Esq.?

@Pylon83: To be honest, there ARE CEOs and executives that can justify these really high salaries. If you take a $50M/yr business, and turn it in to a $500M/yr business with higher profitability, of course you're worth millions. The problem is that CEO's don't play by the same rules as anyone else. If you did a terrible, awful job, and did -200% of what you normally do for a year, what would happen? The company would fire you. How about for CEOs? They might fire a bunch of people and slash spending to return to profitability while skimming millions off the top for themselves, placing the company in danger of collapse. Or, they might get axed, leaving with a multi-million severance package. Why should they receive such elaborate reward for failure? This is not free market economics.

If it had to be someone (other than me) I'm glad it was this guy. When he was CEO of Independence Bank the had a terrific record of supporting local arts organizations.

When I saw he had cashed in on this I immediately thought, hey that's great news for the Brooklyn cultural institutions (BAM, BMA, Public Library etc)...

Something is truly sick about our society when individuals get this much money. No one's work, be they CEOs, athletes, or other celebrities, is worth this much money.

@HClay:
It's called capitalism. If you prefer salary caps and restricted markets, try Russia. I hear they have a booming economy.

@Rob Phelps:
Most people aren't willing to take that kind of risk. They have families, bills, debts, responsibilities. If they can negotiate these kinds of deals, great, good for them.