Where Is Madame la Guillotine When You Need Her?

Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange, says that there is a sesperate need to increase the salaries of very senior executives, or otherwise Britain risks a brain drain.

We must over pay idiot executives who are driving the country into the ground even more, because  ……… The Aristocrats!!!

UK executives should be paid more if the country wants to retain talent and deter companies from moving overseas, according to the head of the London Stock Exchange.

Julia Hoggett said there needed to be a “constructive discussion” about the approach to executive pay in Britain as part of broader efforts to boost the attractiveness of London’s capital markets.

“We should be encouraging and supporting UK companies to compete for talent on a global basis, so we remain an attractive place for companies to base themselves, stay and grow,” the chief executive said in a statement on Wednesday on the LSE website.

“The alternative is we continue standing idly by as our biggest exports become skills, talent, tax revenue and the companies that generate it.”

Her comments come as shareholders at some of the largest UK companies mount rebellions against executive pay plans. Almost 60 per cent of Unilever shareholders rejected the company’s remuneration report on Wednesday over concerns that the incoming chief executive’s pay, which includes a base salary before bonuses of €1.85mn, is too high.

There are a number of problems with this:

• High executive pay is an artifact of these executives, and their consultants, gaming the system, and colluding with other executives, and their consultants, to loot the company instead of operating for the benefit of their share holders. (Executives vociferously deny this calculus, but it is literally Econ 101.  It's called rational actor theory.)
• Extremely high levels of remuneration actually correlate with worse performance.

Ms. Hoggett needs to be fired ……… Out of a cannon ……… And into the sun.

We need to stop pampering executives, and start jailing them for theft and conspiracy.