CAPITALIST PIGS:

Calif. Pensions Call on Grasso to Resign (Reuters, 9/16/2003)

In their letter, the California pension funds, which together trade some $100 billion with broker-dealers each year, said it was wrong that Grasso had been so highly paid for his stewardship of the NYSE at a time when the markets "were being pummeled by the worst string of corporate scandals since the market crash of 1929."

California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat who sits on the boards of both pension funds, told reporters in a televised news conference from Sacramento, California that Grasso's pay package had been too large given his role as a regulator with influence over listing standards.

"This pay package is out of line and it's part of a sickness in this country that too many at the very top have forgotten what's right and fair in the American economy," Angelides said.

[....]"Today we are trying to pull the pig away from the trough," Harrigan said. "The next step is figuring out who filled up the trough."

I'll risk sounding like an outright defender of Grasso's compensation to say that I'm at a complete loss to connect the dots here. Surely these gentlemen understand that the NYSE, just like Mr. Grasso's compensation, is a function of market supply and demand. According to their statistics, the NYSE turns over about 8 times the yearly volume of California Pensions on a monthly basis. What's Grasso's pay package got to do with stock prices? Stock prices tend to go down when less dollars are chasing more shares. Stock prices tend to go up when more dollars are chasing less shares. I don't suppose these pension funds did any SELLING in the last three years? Furthermore, a large part of the compensation related to YEARS of oversight during which pensions, such as those in California, took advantage of billions in profits thanks to an orderly market maintained through the NYSE.

And what on earth is the "pig and trough" analogy supposed to mean?