Greed is Good - Until It's Bad
Here is a New York Times article on the outsized bonuses paid on Wall Street over the past few years, with a focus on Merrill Lynch. Executive decisions, in my opinion and experience, are almost always made on how the executive is going to be compensated, not on the business school mantra of shareholder wealth maximization. The past few years will be studied in business schools for years, as decisions based on executive compensation destroyed shareholder wealth.