OT - Merrill Lynch CEO To Be Fired Today For Startegy That Has Cost Company $8.4 Billion In Losses S

Not mentioned in the article below outlining soon-to-be former Merrill

Lynch CEO O'Neal is his ill-advised attempt to get Wachovia to acquire

Merrill Lynch without first consulting Merrill Lynch's Board of

Directors. O'Neal wanted to lock in his platinum parachute so he was

shopping Merrill Lynch, trying to sell it before the housing meltdown

jeopardized his CEO position and his deferred bonuses.

Now, O'Neal will be happy if the board allows him to collect his

deferred bonus payments. Losing $8.4 billion on a bet that

originating CDO investment vehicles was a faster way to make Merrill

Lynch money was a disastrous move on O'Neal's part. O'Neal personally

made tens of millions of dollars extra in performance bonuses in the

short term on this high risk strategy, which was all that counted to

him.

Now Merrill Lynch is without the experienced senior management O'Neal

got rid of, doesn't have the giant brokerage business it used to have

to generate steady income and is facing even more losses on the CDOs

it issued at O'Neal's behest. Merrill Lynch had better hope the Stock

Market doesn't head south in the near future, that would shrink the

value of Merrill Lynch's inventory of stock holdings, a major

remaining asset, which it uses for trading purposes.

Merrill Lynch could end up just like Prudential, forced to sell prime

assets at a fire sale discount to Wachovia in order to stay in

business. In six short years, O'Neal gutted Merrill Lynch. That is

some negative accomplishment, one to go into the Guiness record

book.

------

O'Neal Ouster Makes Mess of Maternal Merrill After Worst Losses

By Bradley Keoun, Staff Reporter

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=af1syArN6VEM&refer=home

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Losing a lot of money for shareholders is the

surest way to end a career on Wall Street, as Merrill Lynch & Co.'s

Stan O'Neal found out this month after the embattled chief executive

officer delivered the worst news in the firm's 93-year history.

The third-quarter loss of $2.24 billion, or $2.82 a share, was about

six times more than O'Neal acknowledged on Oct. 5 and derived from

$8.4 billion of writedowns for the subprime mortgages, asset-backed

bonds and loans gone bad under his watch.

Merrill's result, coming during a credit market shakeout that

triggered a run on a British bank and caused Switzerland's largest

financial institution to fire its CEO, was the biggest quarterly

debacle in the history of the securities industry. That was enough for

the 11-person board, nine of whom were handpicked by O'Neal during his

five years as CEO, to make it clear that the 56-year-old grandson of a

former slave is leaving, possibly as early as today, according to a

person with knowledge of the directors' discussions.

For Merrill, a firm that over nine decades built a corporate culture

that promoted from within and gently nudged its chiefs into

distinguished retirement, O'Neal's ouster is an abrupt departure. To

his predecessors, many of whom resented his penchant for getting rid

of dozens of Merrill loyalists, the losses are a painful reminder of

how much has changed at the brokerage they used to call ``Mother

Merrill.''

`It's Awful'

``I've been in touch with many, many of our fellow employees and ex-

employees and they're sick, everyone is sick about it, as I am too,''

Daniel Tully, Merrill's CEO from 1992 to 1996, said in an interview

this weekend. ``It's awful.''

Now, Merrill's directors must decide whether a new CEO exists in the

firm's depleted ranks. O'Neal pushed out so many of the leaders

groomed by Tully and his successor, David Komansky, that the board has

had to look outside. Komansky declined to comment.

Among the casualties were Thomas Patrick, fired as executive vice

president in 2003, and Arshad Zakaria, who resigned as head of

investment banking eight days later. Last year, in a shakeup designed

to make Merrill more of a risk-taker, O'Neal dismissed six of the top

executives in the firm's fixed-income department, Doug DeMartin, Harry

Lengsfield, Jeff Kronthal, Tom Saylak, Macauley Taylor and Jeff

Chandler.

``He got rid of people with hundreds and hundreds of years of

experience,'' said Winthrop Smith, who left as head of Merrill's

international brokerage after O'Neal became president in 2001. ``When

you get rid of people who have gone through problems in the past, you

increase the probability that a mistake is going to happen again.''

O'Neal's spokesman, Jason Wright, didn't return calls seeking

comment.

Enter Fink

Now Laurence Fink, the 54-year-old BlackRock Inc. chief who swapped a

49.8 percent stake in his company for Merrill's asset- management unit

last year, is a top contender to replace O'Neal. Others include

Merrill Co-President Gregory Fleming, 44, and Robert McCann, 49, head

of the brokerage unit.

Merrill beat out Citigroup to become the biggest underwriter of

collateralized debt obligations, securities that mostly hold pieces of

junk-rated corporate bonds, mortgage bonds, high- interest loans,

derivatives or even other CDOs.

O'Neal put more of the firm's capital at risk by investing it directly

in LBOs including British retailer Debenhams Plc, car-rental company

Hertz and HCA Inc., the U.S. hospital chain. Then Merrill bought

subprime lender First Franklin for $1.3 billion in December, just as

the real-estate market peaked and mortgage delinquencies began

accelerating.

$48 Million Pay

His strategy transformed Merrill into a firm that looked less like the

one Tully, now 75, bequeathed and more like Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Last year, Merrill's brokerage produced just 34.9 percent of revenue,

down from 49.3 percent in 2002, the year O'Neal took over as CEO.

Profit and pay soared. Net income rose 47 percent last year to a

record $7.5 billion, and O'Neal took home $48 million in compensation

-- $20 million more than in 2003. Only Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein

earned more.

Merrill may have to cut the value of its holdings by an additional $4

billion in the fourth quarter, according to CIBC World Markets.

Goldman, UBS AG, Wachovia Corp. and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

analysts cut their recommendations on Merrill from the equivalent of

buy to hold.

O'Neal was ensnared by the very culture he fostered at Merrill. Under

his leadership, executives who outgrew their usefulness were more

readily cast out or bumped down.

Mother Merrill

Mother Merrill, a term sometimes used to describe the firm as more

forgiving and loyal than its Wall Street rivals, rankled O'Neal. He

said a business should be driven more by performance than by tenure

and relationships.

``The Mother Merrill, cradle-to-grave thing isn't possible to do,''

O'Neal said in 2002, shortly before becoming CEO. ``It's not even

smart to do.''

O'Neal's climb began in the kudzu-carpeted hills and hollows of his

hometown of Wedowee, Alabama. His grandfather, born into slavery in

1862, held about 1,000 acres in the area when few black people were

landowners and was one of the first to buy a car and cotton gin.

E. Stanley O'Neal was born in nearby Roanoke, Alabama, in October

1951. His education began at a one-room school with an outhouse,

neighbors recalled.

When O'Neal was 11, his father moved the family 90 miles away to a

public housing project in Atlanta. The elder O'Neal landed a job on

General Motors Corp.'s Doraville assembly line when it was opened up

to black workers. O'Neal joined him after graduating from high

school.

GM Institute, Harvard MBA

He wasn't content to stay in the factory, though, and took advantage

of GM's program that helped workers attend college. O'Neal graduated

from General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, by

alternating stints of 24 weeks in a Michigan classroom and 24 weeks on

the assembly line.

Next came a scholarship from GM to study at Harvard Business School.

After receiving his MBA, O'Neal went to work at GM's treasurer's

office. Arranging transactions such as the issuance of tracking stock

for GM's Hughes Electronics and Electronic Data Systems units whetted

his appetite for investment banking and complex financial

transactions.

``It was exciting; it was innovative; there was a sense of urgency,''

O'Neal said in 2002. ``I wanted to keep doing those kinds of

things.''

Moving Up

At 35, older than most new investment bankers, he joined Merrill's

high-yield-bond department. Within three years, he was running the

group, which competed head-to-head with Michael Milken's Drexel

Burnham Lambert Inc. When Milken pleaded guilty in 1990 to securities

fraud, it opened the way for O'Neal's unit to become the biggest junk-

bond underwriter for five straight years.

O'Neal was promoted by Herbert Allison, then head of the firm's

corporate and institutional client group, to oversee debt and equity

capital markets. Allison is now chief executive of New York-based

pension fund TIAA-CREF.

In 1997, after Komansky became Merrill's CEO and Allison was made

president, O'Neal became co-head of the corporate and institutional

client group, which includes investment banking and securities

trading. Just a year later, he moved up to chief financial officer.

Komansky's Pick

Komansky, now 68, picked O'Neal to succeed Launny Steffens as head of

the brokerage division, Merrill's most prominent unit, in 2000. In the

Merrill way, Steffens stayed on as chairman of the division.

O'Neal's appointment was a test of his ability to manage an unfamiliar

division, Komansky said. O'Neal was an investment banker turned CFO

who had never served among Merrill's 15,000 brokers.

The promotion came at a pivotal time. O'Neal became head of the

world's biggest brokerage business as history's longest bull market

was reaching its peak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped out at

11,750 a month before his appointment, and the Standard & Poor's 500

Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index reached their highs a month

later.

Almost immediately, O'Neal quit advertising Merrill's Internet trading

service. He accelerated an effort to have Merrill's army of brokers

focus on getting more millionaires as clients.

The brokerage's financial results outpaced margin improvement in

Jeffrey Peek's asset-management division, which Komansky said assured

O'Neal's anointment as heir apparent.

CEO Contenders

He still had to wrest the job from other contenders who were

maneuvering for it. Win Smith, Thomas Davis and Peek raced to improve

results in their respective units, international brokerage, investment

banking and capital markets, and asset management.

Komansky had promised to name a successor by year-end. O'Neal was the

best candidate and was always his choice, Komansky said in a 2002

interview.

``I feel very strongly that it was going to take a specific skill set

to be able to manage the firm where it had to go,'' Komansky said.

O'Neal had shown that he could manage effectively in tough times,

Komansky said.

O'Neal said he spent his first six weeks as president meeting with

executives throughout the firm and thinking about new jobs for some of

them, just as he had when moving into previous roles.

After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, O'Neal accelerated his

timetable for change. He eliminated 14,800 jobs and closed 266 offices

around the world, dismantling the international empire that Komansky

built during the previous five years.

Imperfect World

He also pushed out the men who had been his rivals for the top job,

Peek, Smith and Davis. Smith, whose father had helped run the firm

with founder Charles Merrill, resigned. Peek, Davis, Steffens and

Allison couldn't be reached for comment.

The reorganization ran counter to Merrill's ``culture of teamwork,

compatibility and stability of their senior management,'' Henry

Higdon, a recruiter who placed senior executives at Wall Street firms

for decades, said at the time.

Investors and executives asked whether O'Neal had usurped all of

Komansky's power.

``In a perfect world, I would have loved to have seen some of those

people not leave,'' Komansky said later.

O'Neal's emphasis on profitability also overtook the firm's focus on

market share.

O'Neal's Demands

After Merrill took a $1.7 billion charge in the fourth quarter of 2001

to pay for losses from acquisitions made by Komansky, O'Neal directed

investment bankers to focus on winning the most lucrative business. He

demanded that his new executives figure out a way to improve

efficiency.

``The worst thing you can do is take talented people and put them up

against a problem or market opportunity that has changed dramatically

and tell them to keep doing it in the same way,'' O'Neal said in 2002.

``You wind up frustrating and demoralizing people.''

It fell on O'Neal to guide Merrill through legal challenges that began

in April 2002, when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged

that some of the firm's analysts had misled investors with research

tainted by their role in helping win investment banking assignments.

Spitzer, now governor of New York, released e-mails in which analysts

disparaged stocks that they publicly praised.

Merrill, which paid a $100 million fine, said the e-mails were taken

out of context. Komansky, not O'Neal, publicly apologized.

``It happened on my watch,'' Komansky said. O'Neal became chief

executive in December 2002, and Komansky left the firm in April 2003.

Komansky, receiving the treatment reserved for retiring Merrill

chiefs, was given an office on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. O'Neal may

not be so fortunate.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bradley Keoun in New York at

bkeoun@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: October 29, 2007 00:18 EDT

"gerry" <2gerrytwo@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:1193637628.084107.192180@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

> Not mentioned in the article below outlining soon-to-be former Merrill

> Lynch CEO O'Neal is his ill-advised attempt to get Wachovia to acquire

> Merrill Lynch without first consulting Merrill Lynch's Board of

> Directors. O'Neal wanted to lock in his platinum parachute so he was

> shopping Merrill Lynch, trying to sell it before the housing meltdown

> jeopardized his CEO position and his deferred bonuses.

>

> Now, O'Neal will be happy if the board allows him to collect his

> deferred bonus payments. Losing $8.4 billion on a bet that

> originating CDO investment vehicles was a faster way to make Merrill

> Lynch money was a disastrous move on O'Neal's part. O'Neal personally

> made tens of millions of dollars extra in performance bonuses in the

> short term on this high risk strategy, which was all that counted to

> him.

>

> Now Merrill Lynch is without the experienced senior management O'Neal

> got rid of, doesn't have the giant brokerage business it used to have

> to generate steady income and is facing even more losses on the CDOs

> it issued at O'Neal's behest. Merrill Lynch had better hope the Stock

> Market doesn't head south in the near future, that would shrink the

> value of Merrill Lynch's inventory of stock holdings, a major

> remaining asset, which it uses for trading purposes.

>

> Merrill Lynch could end up just like Prudential, forced to sell prime

> assets at a fire sale discount to Wachovia in order to stay in

> business. In six short years, O'Neal gutted Merrill Lynch. That is

> some negative accomplishment, one to go into the Guiness record

> book.

> ------

What do you bet that O'Neal is a Republican, probably a Bush Pioneer.

Also -- I suspect the bonuses he was paid over the years were based on his

being able to cut expenses thereby increasing profits -- which translates to

laying off employees to increase profits while screwing people who have

worked for the company for years.

>

> O'Neal Ouster Makes Mess of Maternal Merrill After Worst Losses

> By Bradley Keoun, Staff Reporter

>

> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=af1syArN6VEM&refer=home

>

> Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Losing a lot of money for shareholders is the

> surest way to end a career on Wall Street, as Merrill Lynch & Co.'s

> Stan O'Neal found out this month after the embattled chief executive

> officer delivered the worst news in the firm's 93-year history.

>

> The third-quarter loss of $2.24 billion, or $2.82 a share, was about

> six times more than O'Neal acknowledged on Oct. 5 and derived from

> $8.4 billion of writedowns for the subprime mortgages, asset-backed

> bonds and loans gone bad under his watch.

>

> Merrill's result, coming during a credit market shakeout that

> triggered a run on a British bank and caused Switzerland's largest

> financial institution to fire its CEO, was the biggest quarterly

> debacle in the history of the securities industry. That was enough for

> the 11-person board, nine of whom were handpicked by O'Neal during his

> five years as CEO, to make it clear that the 56-year-old grandson of a

> former slave is leaving, possibly as early as today, according to a

> person with knowledge of the directors' discussions.

>

> For Merrill, a firm that over nine decades built a corporate culture

> that promoted from within and gently nudged its chiefs into

> distinguished retirement, O'Neal's ouster is an abrupt departure. To

> his predecessors, many of whom resented his penchant for getting rid

> of dozens of Merrill loyalists, the losses are a painful reminder of

> how much has changed at the brokerage they used to call ``Mother

> Merrill.''

>

> `It's Awful'

> ``I've been in touch with many, many of our fellow employees and ex-

> employees and they're sick, everyone is sick about it, as I am too,''

> Daniel Tully, Merrill's CEO from 1992 to 1996, said in an interview

> this weekend. ``It's awful.''

>

> Now, Merrill's directors must decide whether a new CEO exists in the

> firm's depleted ranks. O'Neal pushed out so many of the leaders

> groomed by Tully and his successor, David Komansky, that the board has

> had to look outside. Komansky declined to comment.

>

> Among the casualties were Thomas Patrick, fired as executive vice

> president in 2003, and Arshad Zakaria, who resigned as head of

> investment banking eight days later. Last year, in a shakeup designed

> to make Merrill more of a risk-taker, O'Neal dismissed six of the top

> executives in the firm's fixed-income department, Doug DeMartin, Harry

> Lengsfield, Jeff Kronthal, Tom Saylak, Macauley Taylor and Jeff

> Chandler.

>

> ``He got rid of people with hundreds and hundreds of years of

> experience,'' said Winthrop Smith, who left as head of Merrill's

> international brokerage after O'Neal became president in 2001. ``When

> you get rid of people who have gone through problems in the past, you

> increase the probability that a mistake is going to happen again.''

>

> O'Neal's spokesman, Jason Wright, didn't return calls seeking

> comment.

>

> Enter Fink

> Now Laurence Fink, the 54-year-old BlackRock Inc. chief who swapped a

> 49.8 percent stake in his company for Merrill's asset- management unit

> last year, is a top contender to replace O'Neal. Others include

> Merrill Co-President Gregory Fleming, 44, and Robert McCann, 49, head

> of the brokerage unit.

>

> Merrill beat out Citigroup to become the biggest underwriter of

> collateralized debt obligations, securities that mostly hold pieces of

> junk-rated corporate bonds, mortgage bonds, high- interest loans,

> derivatives or even other CDOs.

>

> O'Neal put more of the firm's capital at risk by investing it directly

> in LBOs including British retailer Debenhams Plc, car-rental company

> Hertz and HCA Inc., the U.S. hospital chain. Then Merrill bought

> subprime lender First Franklin for $1.3 billion in December, just as

> the real-estate market peaked and mortgage delinquencies began

> accelerating.

>

> $48 Million Pay

> His strategy transformed Merrill into a firm that looked less like the

> one Tully, now 75, bequeathed and more like Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

> Last year, Merrill's brokerage produced just 34.9 percent of revenue,

> down from 49.3 percent in 2002, the year O'Neal took over as CEO.

>

> Profit and pay soared. Net income rose 47 percent last year to a

> record $7.5 billion, and O'Neal took home $48 million in compensation

> -- $20 million more than in 2003. Only Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein

> earned more.

>

> Merrill may have to cut the value of its holdings by an additional $4

> billion in the fourth quarter, according to CIBC World Markets.

> Goldman, UBS AG, Wachovia Corp. and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

> analysts cut their recommendations on Merrill from the equivalent of

> buy to hold.

>

> O'Neal was ensnared by the very culture he fostered at Merrill. Under

> his leadership, executives who outgrew their usefulness were more

> readily cast out or bumped down.

>

> Mother Merrill

> Mother Merrill, a term sometimes used to describe the firm as more

> forgiving and loyal than its Wall Street rivals, rankled O'Neal. He

> said a business should be driven more by performance than by tenure

> and relationships.

>

> ``The Mother Merrill, cradle-to-grave thing isn't possible to do,''

> O'Neal said in 2002, shortly before becoming CEO. ``It's not even

> smart to do.''

>

> O'Neal's climb began in the kudzu-carpeted hills and hollows of his

> hometown of Wedowee, Alabama. His grandfather, born into slavery in

> 1862, held about 1,000 acres in the area when few black people were

> landowners and was one of the first to buy a car and cotton gin.

>

> E. Stanley O'Neal was born in nearby Roanoke, Alabama, in October

> 1951. His education began at a one-room school with an outhouse,

> neighbors recalled.

>

> When O'Neal was 11, his father moved the family 90 miles away to a

> public housing project in Atlanta. The elder O'Neal landed a job on

> General Motors Corp.'s Doraville assembly line when it was opened up

> to black workers. O'Neal joined him after graduating from high

> school.

>

> GM Institute, Harvard MBA

> He wasn't content to stay in the factory, though, and took advantage

> of GM's program that helped workers attend college. O'Neal graduated

> from General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, by

> alternating stints of 24 weeks in a Michigan classroom and 24 weeks on

> the assembly line.

>

> Next came a scholarship from GM to study at Harvard Business School.

> After receiving his MBA, O'Neal went to work at GM's treasurer's

> office. Arranging transactions such as the issuance of tracking stock

> for GM's Hughes Electronics and Electronic Data Systems units whetted

> his appetite for investment banking and complex financial

> transactions.

>

> ``It was exciting; it was innovative; there was a sense of urgency,''

> O'Neal said in 2002. ``I wanted to keep doing those kinds of

> things.''

>

> Moving Up

> At 35, older than most new investment bankers, he joined Merrill's

> high-yield-bond department. Within three years, he was running the

> group, which competed head-to-head with Michael Milken's Drexel

> Burnham Lambert Inc. When Milken pleaded guilty in 1990 to securities

> fraud, it opened the way for O'Neal's unit to become the biggest junk-

> bond underwriter for five straight years.

>

> O'Neal was promoted by Herbert Allison, then head of the firm's

> corporate and institutional client group, to oversee debt and equity

> capital markets. Allison is now chief executive of New York-based

> pension fund TIAA-CREF.

>

> In 1997, after Komansky became Merrill's CEO and Allison was made

> president, O'Neal became co-head of the corporate and institutional

> client group, which includes investment banking and securities

> trading. Just a year later, he moved up to chief financial officer.

>

> Komansky's Pick

> Komansky, now 68, picked O'Neal to succeed Launny Steffens as head of

> the brokerage division, Merrill's most prominent unit, in 2000. In the

> Merrill way, Steffens stayed on as chairman of the division.

>

> O'Neal's appointment was a test of his ability to manage an unfamiliar

> division, Komansky said. O'Neal was an investment banker turned CFO

> who had never served among Merrill's 15,000 brokers.

>

> The promotion came at a pivotal time. O'Neal became head of the

> world's biggest brokerage business as history's longest bull market

> was reaching its peak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped out at

> 11,750 a month before his appointment, and the Standard & Poor's 500

> Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index reached their highs a month

> later.

>

> Almost immediately, O'Neal quit advertising Merrill's Internet trading

> service. He accelerated an effort to have Merrill's army of brokers

> focus on getting more millionaires as clients.

>

> The brokerage's financial results outpaced margin improvement in

> Jeffrey Peek's asset-management division, which Komansky said assured

> O'Neal's anointment as heir apparent.

>

> CEO Contenders

> He still had to wrest the job from other contenders who were

> maneuvering for it. Win Smith, Thomas Davis and Peek raced to improve

> results in their respective units, international brokerage, investment

> banking and capital markets, and asset management.

>

> Komansky had promised to name a successor by year-end. O'Neal was the

> best candidate and was always his choice, Komansky said in a 2002

> interview.

>

> ``I feel very strongly that it was going to take a specific skill set

> to be able to manage the firm where it had to go,'' Komansky said.

> O'Neal had shown that he could manage effectively in tough times,

> Komansky said.

>

> O'Neal said he spent his first six weeks as president meeting with

> executives throughout the firm and thinking about new jobs for some of

> them, just as he had when moving into previous roles.

>

> After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, O'Neal accelerated his

> timetable for change. He eliminated 14,800 jobs and closed 266 offices

> around the world, dismantling the international empire that Komansky

> built during the previous five years.

>

> Imperfect World

> He also pushed out the men who had been his rivals for the top job,

> Peek, Smith and Davis. Smith, whose father had helped run the firm

> with founder Charles Merrill, resigned. Peek, Davis, Steffens and

> Allison couldn't be reached for comment.

>

> The reorganization ran counter to Merrill's ``culture of teamwork,

> compatibility and stability of their senior management,'' Henry

> Higdon, a recruiter who placed senior executives at Wall Street firms

> for decades, said at the time.

>

> Investors and executives asked whether O'Neal had usurped all of

> Komansky's power.

>

> ``In a perfect world, I would have loved to have seen some of those

> people not leave,'' Komansky said later.

>

> O'Neal's emphasis on profitability also overtook the firm's focus on

> market share.

>

> O'Neal's Demands

> After Merrill took a $1.7 billion charge in the fourth quarter of 2001

> to pay for losses from acquisitions made by Komansky, O'Neal directed

> investment bankers to focus on winning the most lucrative business. He

> demanded that his new executives figure out a way to improve

> efficiency.

>

> ``The worst thing you can do is take talented people and put them up

> against a problem or market opportunity that has changed dramatically

> and tell them to keep doing it in the same way,'' O'Neal said in 2002.

> ``You wind up frustrating and demoralizing people.''

>

> It fell on O'Neal to guide Merrill through legal challenges that began

> in April 2002, when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged

> that some of the firm's analysts had misled investors with research

> tainted by their role in helping win investment banking assignments.

> Spitzer, now governor of New York, released e-mails in which analysts

> disparaged stocks that they publicly praised.

>

> Merrill, which paid a $100 million fine, said the e-mails were taken

> out of context. Komansky, not O'Neal, publicly apologized.

> ``It happened on my watch,'' Komansky said. O'Neal became chief

> executive in December 2002, and Komansky left the firm in April 2003.

>

> Komansky, receiving the treatment reserved for retiring Merrill

> chiefs, was given an office on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. O'Neal may

> not be so fortunate.

>

> To contact the reporter on this story: Bradley Keoun in New York at

> bkeoun@bloomberg.net .

> Last Updated: October 29, 2007 00:18 EDT

>

> > GM Institute, Harvard MBA

> > He wasn't content to stay in the factory, though, and took advantage

> > of GM's program that helped workers attend college. O'Neal graduated

> > from General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, by

> > alternating stints of 24 weeks in a Michigan classroom and 24 weeks on

> > the assembly line.

>

> > Next came a scholarship from GM to study at Harvard Business School.

> > After receiving his MBA, O'Neal went to work at GM's treasurer's

> > office. Arranging transactions such as the issuance of tracking stock

> > for GM's Hughes Electronics and Electronic Data Systems units whetted

> > his appetite for investment banking and complex financial

> > transactions.

Our current Imbecile-In-Chief has forever destroyed Harvards

reputation as a college for geniuses. Yale, too. He has sealed their

reputation as snooty schools for dumb rich kids who can barely tie

their own shoes but like the "intellectual" reputation a really

expensive Ivy League "edumacation" can provide. Two once great Ivy

League institutions have been irreversibly sucked into the same black

hole of Bush Family Incompetence as The Republican party, the

conservative movement, The Constitution and Bill of Rights, FEMA, The

CIA, The Democratic Congress, The NSA, electronic voting, Harken

Energy, Arbusto Energy, Iraq, Afganistan, the media, most of talk

radio, The Dollar, world oil supplies, privacy, The Geneva Convention,

Habeus Corpus and Lou Dobbs, with Iran currently being menaced by the

same black hole.

Some people support stratospheric pay for company brass whose strategic

decisions can bring millions, or even billions, in profit. The funny

thing is, it never works in reverse. When a CEO makes a bad decision

costing a company billions, they never repay millions in "negative

bonuses" from their own pockets. Their shares in the company might lose

significant value, but they generally didn't buy those with personal

earnings in the first place. If things get really bad the board might

force them out with a golden parachute. I've never heard of a CEO of

a big company leaving with millions in debt to the company because of

his bad decisions.

It's a no-risk, ultra-high reward proposition.