Not much but maybe they should.

Today the networks were all atwitter about the Senate hearings into CEO compensation.  Three unfortunate - if anyone who has not had a family tragedy or a prison sentence and has had multiple millions in executive compensation can be termed unfortunate - CEOs were asked to give testimony: still standing (okay, maybe leaning) head of Countrywide Finance Angelo Mozilo ($250 mil and counting in compensation and stock, not including what he sold while Countrywide stock was tanking); and the recently retired duo of Merrill Lynch CEO,  Stan O'Neal and head of Citybank, Chuck Prince (both O'Neal and Prince were allowed to retire rather than asked to resign ; O'Neal left Merrill with about $160 million while the Prince of the City took home the meager sum of not quite $40 mil).  

These figures are particularly abhorrent in the face of the current subprime crisis but then a lot of CEO compensation is beyond the bounds of any logical discusssion.  I know, I know - how do you keep these genuises of industry if you don't pay them what they are worth?  Given the current state of the industries in which these men toiled, I would say none of the trio is worth minimum wage.  If I were on one of their boards I would have said, you have a better offer?  Please let me help you put the contents of your desk drawers in a box.

Today, however, CEO compensation is not in my mind's line of sight; for you see my brain works much more on the pinball machine explosiong of lights and whistles than on linear format- and today, along with the CEO compensation pinball, there are two other pinballs pinging around in there turning on the lights: the hard hit manufacturing communities of western Pennsylvania and Masdr City, the new green city being built in Abu Dhabi .

A couple of weeks back I spent a very pleasant weekend in Beaver County, Pennsylvania and the burgs that hug around it.  Beaver, an almost Norman Rockwell town between Industry and Rochester, alone seems to have hit upon a way not only to stay alive but to thrive.  Industry, one of several tiny towns sitting across from the positively Simpsoneque Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant, seems to survive on - hell, if I know - its high school football team and a prayer.  Rochester and New Brighton - across the river from Beaver - have streets lined with second hand stores calling themselves antique stores and vintage shops, liquor stores, recently closed businesses and businesses closed long enough to have boards over their windows. 

Masdr City - and the charismatic CEO of the Masdr Initiative, Dr. Sultan al Jaber - received a lot of time on CNBC last month.  Billions will be spent there in hopes of building the world's first sustainable city.  I applaud this effort and at the same time I wonder why some of the financially blessed CEOs of United States companies couldn't try a little bit of city building in western PA. 

Many who support unchecked CEO pay - and I'm not implying that I support government regulation of CEO pay, for me it's a moral issue and morality is rarely, if ever, successfully legislated - say that the run off from executive compensation (particularly if it is lightly taxed) benefits the public good.  These high minded and community spirited CEOs will give back to the people, cities and states upon whom their wealth was built.  Now I am sure that there are quite a few of the super rich who do just that; I am also sure there are quite few who don't.  My thought is why not call a few of them on it - specifically those whose salary and bonuses were drawn from the United States industries which have been decimated in recent years. 

Mr. O'Neal and Mr. Prince should have some time on their hands these days - and a few mil or at least a few hundred thou laying around - and Mr. Mozilo is going to be free in the fall.  I'm not so sure I want them in charge of the details but maybe they could contact some of their friends and put together a whole 'nother kind of Board of Directors: well heeled CEOs who are willing to pool some of their money, some of their time and the phone numbers of some of their contacts to get a cutting edge city going in western Pennsylvania.  Hey, I'd be willing to throw in ten bucks. >