Cool as a Cuke Until Raw Deal
Paul Vitello - NewYork Newday Columnist
September 18, 2003

Maybe you were baffled by the outcry on Wall Street over Richard Grasso's big payout. I know I was. He's the New York Stock Exchange's chief executive, a very rich man who since 1997 has been paid at least $11 million a year, according to Forbes magazine.

What incensed Wall Street traders and big-time CEOs recently, however, was not the $11 million. It was news of the $140-million payout that Grasso decided to cash in this year - a "deferred compensation" package in his contract that no one on the stock exchange seems to have known about except Grasso's friends, who happened to be on the compensation committee of the exchange's board of directors.

Caught by surprise, many of the rich humans who hold seats on the stock exchange, and many others who are executives of companies traded on the exchange, voiced loud indignation. Outrage. Shock.

Frankly, until yesterday, I didn't get it. I thought the fraternity of greed was all about just this - getting it and keeping it and to hell with everybody else.

But a scientific study described in the journal Nature, to be published today, offers an insight into the brouhaha that neither The Wall Street Journal nor the business section of this or any other newspaper has previously considered.

It was a study about monkeys. A tale of grapes and wrath.

"Brown capuchin monkeys trained to exchange a granite token for a cucumber treat often refused the swap if they saw another monkey get a better payoff - a grape," The Associated Press reported yesterday.

"Instead, they often threw the token, refused to eat the piece of cucumber, or even gave it to the other capuchin after viewing the lopsided deal ..."

This study, conducted by a team of researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, purports to demonstrate that "man and monkey may have inherited a sense of fairness from an evolutionary ancestor," said the AP in describing the team's paper.

That may be.

Seen from another view, on the other hand, it may also demonstrate that man and monkey are jealous, back-biting, mean-spirited little pouters who hate it when the other guy gets a better deal - whether it's on cucumbers, grapes or deferred compensation packages.

Wall Street executives' biggest gripe about Grasso's payout - at least those I've read - seems to be not just the size of it, or the fact that he is head of a quasi-regulatory body that doesn't generate any money itself. It is that he gets this $140 million in cash.

There are probably many executives who can expect deferred compensation payouts of equal size; but they will be paid largely in their own company's stock, which will fluctuate in value depending on the executive's "performance."

Therefore, the argument goes, Grasso didn't take the same "risks" as the true masters of the universe.

I admit, I don't know what risks are involved in that world, though it seems many executives on Wall Street and elsewhere are paid very well whether they do good work or not. Michael Eisner, the head of Disney, has earned about $120 million a year since 1997 - while his company's stock has slid. American Airlines paid out millions of dollars in bonuses to its top executives while they sought billions in concessions from workers. Where's the risk?

Oh, but never mind me. I'm no different - just another little brown capuchin throwing his cucumbers all over his cage until Grasso gave up his grape last night.