To the editor:

We continue to hear and read something about the greed and enormous multimillion-dollar pay packages of the top executive officers of so many of our companies in our American economy today. Also, that the average pay of the executives has been increasing each year even when their companies are losing money, their stock prices have fallen, employees are being terminated and, in some cases, the company has become bankrupt.

The question I think we should be asking is: “Why do the board members of these companies approve these exorbitant multimillion-dollar pay packages?” We know the pay packages would not be allowed if they were not approved by the board of directors of the company. It is this approval that makes the pay possible and legal. Maybe there should be some study of the compensation paid to the board members, for it is hard for me to understand how board members can be so irresponsible. Could it be the top executives have found a way to control who gets on the board and who does not?

Kenneth Fisher,
Lawrence