THE BONUS_ Always keep a holiday stocking pinned to your mantle, just in case the real Santa Claus happens by with a little something to celebrate the year's end. Make sure it is a deep stocking.
As a rule of thumb, keep your salary only mildly unreasonable, your stock options as invisible as possible, and your bonuses astronomical. Your salary is a published constant, always available for criticism. Your stock options are difficult to calculate. Your bonuses hit like lightening and any criticism of them will dissipate as quickly as thunder when other issues intrude. Plus, when the economy is troubled, stock and options used as bonuses can be wrapped in accounting camo packages that help them blend into a balance sheet quietly. And never tie one hundred percent of your bonuses to performance, except in a good year. The control you exercise over your team is considerable, but never absolute. Why pay for the failures of others?
On the other hand, when your little corner of the economy is robust and you and your team perform brilliantly and all those around you are making money, then award your annual bonuses proudly and let any criticism remain where it began, with the envy of others. How much should you expect? Eyebrows start to rise at around thirty million dollars, whether in stock, options, or cash, or any combination of the three. On the other hand, larger bonuses have been taken. Why not go for a record? The fact is that a handsome annual bonus is a small price to pay for success and top leadership.
Let’s take a look at the costs. At year’s end in 2006 Wall Street gave away twenty-four billion dollars in bonuses. Let’s assume that this figure represents only ten percent of all bonuses awarded by major corporations in America that year. Of America’s three hundred million inhabitants, about half file tax returns. The rest are children and other dependents, retirees, slackers, incompetents, tax cheats, and people living off handouts. A quick calculation will reveal that two hundred and forty billion dollars in annual bonuses divided by one hundred and fifty million workers equals a price tag of only sixteen hundred dollars per tax payer. Considering the risks of bad leadership and heated competition from foreign companies, one hundred and thirty-three bucks per month, or seventy seven cents per hour for every hour ever worked, per worker, is a small insurance premium for citizens to pay to keep America’s top corporations on track and to bring happiness and good cheer each holiday season to our hard working corporate leaders
This brings to mind that old saying, "Make hay when the sun shines." You can live or die by the bonus. I strongly recommend that in a good year you choose life, and not just life, but life magnified. If your personal annual bonus equals ten to thirty times the lifetime earnings of the average American wage earner, then be satisfied that at least for this year, Santa knows that you’ve been good.
Who said America is no longer a land of opportunity?
