[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.25]

prettywraithUID: 197049

Comments (2009-12-25):
The house of the Economist appears a splendid debate for us, though I cannot get a conclusion before catching enough reliable data. In these rebuttal remarks, I acquire satisfying answers for my questions in the last comment. Moreover, for my test preparation, there are numerous of good sentences, which are used to prove or contradict one viewpoint, to learn.

Firstly, as the proposer, Mr. Kaplan thinks Ms. Minow’s examples too few to persuade people. Moreover, he reveals these two examples are not accurate, because one CEO is charged recently. At last, he proves why Ms. Minow’s five claims are false and tells us the exact reason of economic crisis.

Ms. Minow also fights back powerfully, by taking more detailed data and evidence. In first step, she explains why she argues that current executive compensation plans are out of whack and how these plans lead to the crisis. In this process, she gives us two more examples than last remarks, such as Goldman’s and AIG’s bonuses scandal. Furthermore, by exposing the realized CEO compensation, she suspects the validity of data used by Mr. Kaplan. In the meantime, she points there is no relationship between CEO pay and the increase of CEO fired by boards. In a word, focusing on Mr. Kaplan’s evidence and reasoning, she criticizes executive compensation plans thoroughly. In the end, she also show us seven deadly sins found these plans, and will tell us how to do it right in next response.

Both Mr. Kaplan and Ms. Minow bring us excellent discussion, and we can learn much knowledge in their remarks. And I almost forget the moderator’s statement also give me a deep impression. Mr. Wooldridge not only gives us one open debate space, but also keeps the debate in right direction. What is more, his remarks make me clearly to understand the main clue of the debate.

Good sentences:

Once again, Wall Street is all about capitalism when it comes to the upside, but all about socialism when it comes to the downside, that is, from each, according to his ability, to each, whatever he can get away with. 句子简练，用到了演绎等修辞手法。

To 番茄斗斗 ，前半句说：“华尔街在繁华时期施行资本主义，低谷时期施行社会主义”，作者的意思是繁华的时候，公司大佬们都拿绩效工资，这样拿的多啊，经济低迷时，开始靠政府救济，这时候就不讲绩效了，大佬们就想能多分奖金就多分。

后半句，我觉得作者是在演绎马克思的一句话“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.——Karl Marx”，这句话的意思是“各尽所能，按需分配 --百度”，文中的“from each, according to his ability, to each, whatever he can get away with.”这句话估计是讽刺现存的分配制度不合理，也就是“各尽所能，无论如何一部分有特权的人都可能侥幸获得更多”

The preponderance of the data and, even Ms Minow's "outlier" "anecdotes," therefore, fail to provide any evidence that top executive compensation had much to do with the financial crisis. 写驳论文的时候可以模仿的句子。

Difficult sentences:

All Special Master Kenneth Feinberg can do is ask the company not to pay the bonuses and rattle his sabre about the pay he can control going forward, hoping that the threat of clamping down on the 25 executives at each of the covered companies he does have authority over will be enough of an incentive to force a change. 这句话读起来吃力，读完了不知所云，尤其是 “is ask”怎么这里像有语病。请人帮忙解释一下啊。多谢！

I do not understand why he brings up the net worth of CEOs; that has no relationship whatsoever to their pay, its relationship to performance, or its effectiveness at aligning CEOs' interests with shareholders'.
哪位读懂了帮忙解释一下啊。多谢！

qisaimanUID: 2703629

rebuttal: 反驳
prop up : support 撑腰
reiterates： 重申
attention-grabbing anecdotes ： 轶事
based conclusion on ：
stock appreciates ：涨价
diametrically opposed： 恰恰相反
preponderance ： 优势
fail to provide any evidence：
bonuses
agency costs： 代理成本


in this article , N seems take a temporary advantage over K.
the moderator : focus on the overall picture rather than anecdotes.
what I should focus on is how to support my views and how to disprove other's .
to avoid unnecessary dispute, a common definition on the pay or bonuses should be presented first, which explain how is the pay

first look at K 's rebuttal :
a summary consisting of 5 claims is shown by K, without including another one that claims a financial crisis results from the over-pay. however, he just propose a convincing reasoning toward the 4th claims by N, while
he failed to provide any other rebuttal. more reasoning and examples is needed for a convincing conclusion.

then N 's rebuttal
using Goldman Sachs and AIG 's story to support that pay is uncoupled from performance. and then by presenting another diagram showing the actual pay is growing, fight back K 's argument nicely. besides, N argues that the net worth and other high pay group is irrelevant to the subject discussed here, finally new sins is brought up, forecasting a more attractive debate.

plukaUID: 2721764

13# aladdin.ivy
阿拉丁的comment~
It seems that there is another follow-up debates(debate,连is的哟) after this rebuttal statements waiting for us to read, as the author claim that “in my response, I will explain how to do it right”.

Since I am not a professional specialist（私以为professional跟specialist表意重复了） of financial crisis and executive pay and（连用and感觉有些奇怪，用逗号试试~） have little background knowledge in this field, I just want to comment this article in my view, that is, in a general reader’s view. There are two flaws in this statement I want to point out. First, the argument’s topic is “This house believes that on the whole, senior executives are worth what they are paid”. We should pay close attention to the key phrases “on the whole” and”worth” of the motion. As both of the key phrases are abstractive phrases and every reader holds a different perception on them, authors should debate after definiting the meaning of them. Second, both arguers use many examples which are focus on specific person hence, to some extent, not with a huge amount of sample to refute opposite arguer’s views, these examples are not under a “on the whole” situation.
================
good idea about the abstract phrases and redefinition! Yes, there might be different opinions on whether their performances are qualified and to what extend have they contributed...I like this idea!

jinziqiUID: 2387034

CEOs enjoy the unique privilege of being able to appoint the people who decide their pay. She also reiterates (say, state) the point that there are plenty of devices such as golden parachutes that cannot possibly be justified by performance.    原来是这样...
One survey suggests that only 13% of people trust what CEOs say.   可以学习用来说服的句子
I would urge the participants to pay close attention to the wordingof the motion-particularly the key phrases 'one the whole' and'deserve'.  没有看懂耶。。
She bases her conclusion on two "outlier 局外人" examples, Angelo Mozillo and Aubrey McClendon, that she calls "anecdotes".
CEOs earn a lot and their stock appreciates when their companies performwell. CEOs lose large amounts of wealth and their jobs when theircompanies perform poorly.  
In direct contradiction to Ms Minow's conclusion, the financial CEOs were compensated in the end for the quality of their transactions.
All Special Master Kenneth Feinberg can do isask the company not to pay the bonuses and rattle his sabre about thepay he can control going forward, hoping that the threat of clampingdown on the 25executivesat each of the covered companies he does haveauthority over will be enough of an incentive to force achange.  这个All..can do is 后面可以用原形?
If a private entity had been asked for emergency funds, it is unthinkable that any money would have been advanced without establishing some control overcompensation.
S&P到底是什么呢...
Athletes, movie stars and recording artists, who have a much greater range and far greater elasticity 弹性 in compensation,engage in vigorous arm's length negotiations on pay; their pay is not set by boards they appoint, as CEOs' is.   
And it is hard for me to understand how anyone could point to the US or UK government authorising excessive pay as a validation of the system. As noted above,the government has repeatedly failed as regulator or as provider ofcapital in curbing outrageously destructive executive compensation.

My comment
I’d happy to say that finally there are not too much new words to me,at least in today's assignment. Those sentences I copied is reallywonderful. I really got some points in this article to support theauthor's opinion which is sound. From the article, it can be seen that CEO actually takes a big burden which connects with his company. If the author is saying truth, that CEO could appoint the people who decide their pay, I think he will appoint a fair man to not only satisfy his employees and make himself get the most benefit.

豆腐店的86UID: 2512956

Rebuttal statements
Oct 23rd 2009 | Adrian Wooldridge  
生词
读多遍才懂的句子
好句子，好表达法
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The moderator's rebuttal remarks
It seems that experts are just as passionate on the subject of executive pay as the general public.

Mr Kaplan argues that the most powerful criticism of executive pay-that bosses get upside and no downside-is simply false. He points out that three of the most maligned bosses in the financial services sector, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, John Mack of Morgan Stanley and Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America, all lost small fortunes in 2008. CEOs as a group lost roughly 40% of their wealth in 2008.

Ms Minow argues that her rebuttal is being written by the headlines. Financial service companies are once again paying huge bonuses despite the fact that their companies have been propped up by public money. She points out that CEOs enjoy the unique privilege of being able to appoint the people who decide their pay. She also reiterates the point that there are plenty of devices such as golden parachutes that cannot possibly be justified by performance.
In his expert evidence Rakesh Khurana tries to focus on fundamental questions such as what the purpose of compensation is. He argues that the market for CEOs is a highly distorted one because CEOs themselves can influence the process and performance is hard to measure. He suggests that extreme pay differentials can damage companies by attracting the wrong sort of bosses and demotivating the rank and file. He also worries about the legitimacy of the system. One survey suggests that only 13% of people trust what CEOs say.

So far the voting is going heavily against the motion. But I wonder how far this is driven by emotion rather than a reasoned assessment of the evidence. I would urge the participants to pay close attention to the wording of the motion-particularly the key phrases 'one the whole' and 'deserve'. We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes. And we need to think more closely about the word 'deserve'. Mr Kaplan's best chance of turning the voting around is to demonstrate that outstanding bosses can boost the performance of the organisations that they head, not only earning their pay but also benefitting workers, shareholders and consumers.


The proposer's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 | Steven N. Kaplan

Nell Minow argues that top executive compensation was a major cause of the financial crisis. She bases her conclusion on two "outlier" examples, Angelo Mozillo and Aubrey McClendon, that she calls "anecdotes". The plural of anecdote is data. And the data, that is the pay at a broad sample of financial companies, simply do not support her conclusion. Ironically, neither do her two anecdotes.
Ms Minow makes the following claims. (1) Incentive compensation rewarded top financial executives for the quantity of transactions, not the quality. (2) Top CEOs, like Mr Mozillo, took large amounts of money out of their companies before their companies failed. (3) The CEOs knew they were making bad investments, but did so anyway because they could make more money doing so. (4) CEOs get upside, but no downside. (5) The post-meltdown awards create incentives that reward management, but damage shareholders and everyone else.

These claims are false. As David Yermack of NYU pointed out in a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, John Mack of Morgan Stanley and Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America:
"all lost small fortunes in 2008. The 2008 compensation of Messrs Pandit, Mack, and Lewis was approximately minus $105 million, minus $40 million, and minus $108 million, respectively, after taking account of the losses on the stock that each CEO owned in his firm. Other CEOs in the financial industry had similarly bad years. Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual lost more than $25 million before being ousted in September, Kennedy Thompson of Wachovia lost more than $30 million before being fired in June, and Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric lost more than $60 million ... These CEOs' financial reversals were part of a robust system of pay-for-performance widely used by most U.S. companies."

Yermack also points out that James Cayne lost most of his billion-dollar fortune when Bear Stearns failed and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The fact is that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share of their pay in stock and options. And they kept most of that pay as shares in their companies which they never cashed in. When the crisis hit and their stock prices sank, those CEOs lost a large fraction of their wealth and, in many cases, their jobs.

As I wrote in my first entry, this is true, in general, of the overall CEO market. CEOs earn a lot and their stock appreciates when their companies perform well. CEOs lose large amounts of wealth and their jobs when their companies perform poorly. It is irresponsible to claim that CEOs do not bear any downside risk. In 2008, CEOs as a group lost roughly 40% of their wealth.

In direct contradiction to Ms Minow's conclusion, the financial CEOs were compensated in the end for the quality of their transactions. The CEOs did not take much off the table. The CEOs had a substantial amount of downside risk. In fact, those CEOs would have been much better off if they had not engaged in the transactions they did.

It is worth adding that David Yermack is a noted researcher on CEO pay who studies large samples over long periods. He has written several articles highly critical of specific CEO pay practices, like corporate jet usage. Nevertheless, his conclusion on the relation of CEO pay to the financial crisis is diametrically opposed to Ms Minow's (as is his characterisation of the CEO market in general).

A study of CEO incentives in a broader group of financial institutions during the crisis by Rudi Fahlenbrach and Rene Stulz of Ohio State (and a former president of the American Finance Association) confirms Yermack's analysis and also clearly refutes Ms Minow's conclusion.

Ironically, even her two anecdotes about Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide and Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy fail to support her case.
Unlike the other CEOs mentioned above (and most financial-institution CEOs), Mr Mozillo did manage to sell a lot of his stock. Unfortunately for him, the SEC has charged him with securities fraud and insider trading. And it is unlikely to lead to a good outcome for him. If found guilty, he potentially will end up paying three times what he took out. Clearly, he appears to have behaved badly, but he did not get away with it.

As for Mr McClendon, he runs an energy company. How could he possibly have had anything to do with the financial crisis?
The preponderance of the data and, even Ms Minow's "outlier" "anecdotes," therefore, fail to provide any evidence that top executive compensation had much to do with the financial crisis.

Top executive compensation did not cause the financial crisis. Instead, the crisis was caused by loose monetary policy, a global capital glut, over-high leverage at investment banks, mandates from Congress to provide mortgages to people who could not afford them, flawed ratings from the rating agencies and poor incentives at mortgage origination (not the CEO) level. Consistent with this, the financial crisis has spread to financial institutions in other countries with very different pay practices.


The opposition's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 |  Nell Minow

The headlines are writing my rebuttal for me.
GoldmanSachs set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46% from a year ago. While its net income has tripled, its core investment banking business is down 31%. The Toronto Star quotes Goldman's CFO, David Viniar, using an unforgivable oxymoron in a conference call with reporters: "Our competitors are paying people quite well [and are] very willing to pay employees guaranteed bonuses of very high amounts." (emphasis added)

MrViniar also showed that he has a very short memory, arguing thatGoldman is operating without any government guarantee, ignoring the reality of the government guarantee that kept the system going just a year ago.

These bonuses have nothing to do with paying for performance. How much of Goldman's bouncing back is due to the government's guarantees and the hundreds of billions of dollars it poured into Goldman, Wall Street, and other subsidies and out right welfare payments to the very institutions that came close to bringingdown the entire economy? Shouldn't the American people expect some sort of discounted calculation of the bonuses that reflect a market-based assessment of performance? Once again, Wall Street is all about capitalism when it comes to the upside, but all about socialism when it comes to the downside, that is, from each, according to his ability, to each, whatever he can get away with.

Also this week, we had the testimony of Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the government's financial rescue programme before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The serial offender AIG has promised $198m in bonus pay to its employees next March, according to the testimony, and there is very little the government or anyone else can do about it. Because the bonus agreements were entered into before the bailout, the government has no legal authority to stop them. All Special Master Kenneth Feinberg can do is ask the company not to pay the bonuses and rattle his sabre about the pay he can control going forward, hoping that the threat of clamping down on the 25 executive sat each of the covered companies he does have authority over will be enough of an incentive to force a change. In the meantime, once again,pay is uncoupled from performance. Even the company has given up on trying to make that case, relying instead on opportunity costs to justify the bonuses and arguing that these kinds of payments are necessary in order to keep the employees from leaving. Based on their past performance and their unwillingness to tie future pay to genuine measures of sustainable growth, I suggest that the best choice for shareholders is to let them leave.

Mr Barofksy gave the committee a Treasury Department report on the last set of outrageous AIG bonuses. It concluded in part that "Treasury invested $40 billion of taxpayer funds in AIG, designed AIG's contractual executive compensation restrictions, and helped manage the Government's majority stake in AIG for several months, all without having any detailed information about the scope of AIG's very substantial, and very controversial, executive compensation obligations." If a private entity had been asked for emergency funds, it is unthinkable that any money would have been advanced without establishing some control over compensation. There are two reasons for this. The first is agency costs. Anyone (other than Secretary Henry Paulson, apparently) putting money at risk will want to ensure that it will not be inappropriately appropriated. The second is the high likelihood that the previous incentive structure was a significant factor in the bad decisions and catastrophic risk management that created the need for the funds in thefirst place.
And really, that is all the argument one needs. By definition, the incentive compensation was badly designed, as proved by the results. However, I will respond to some of the points raised by Professor Kaplan.
First, we disagree on the calculations tha tsupport the conclusion that CEO play has been declining. Our figures,based not on theoretical pay but on realised pay, are as follows.

Clearly actual pay is the better measure of pay effectiveness. I also question the validity of the Equilar survey figures. They are based on the reported total compensation in the summary compensationtable, which is even further from reality than the "expected pay", a sit is just an accounting cost.
I do not understand why he brings up the net worth of CEOs; that has no relationship whats oever to their pay, its relationship to performance, or its effectiveness ataligning CEOs' interests with shareholders'.

Second, ProfessorKaplan states, "The typical CEO is paid for performance. Board sincreasingly fire CEOs for poor performance." The second sentence has no relationship to the first. Boards may fire CEOs for poor performance, but they pay them boatloads of money for that performance on the way out of the door. Just look at Ken Lewis's departure from Bank of America. Disastrous performance that apparently included lying(about what else? bonuses) and an unprecedented vote of no confidence from shareholders that removed him as chairman,(语义表达清晰，复杂内容整合在一个句子) may indeed have caused him to be fired (though the board did not use that term). But his $53m retirement package does not feel like pay for performance to me.

ProfessorKaplan tries to obscure the point by bringing in law firm partners,athletes and other highly-paid professionals. Partners in law firms are paid according to formulas set by the partnership. As in any other private firm, there are no agency costs to worry about and they can do whatever they like. Athletes, movie stars and recording artists, who have a much greater range and far greater elasticity in compensation,engage in vigorous arm's length negotiations on pay; their pay is not set by boards they appoint, as CEOs' is.

And it is hard for meto understand how anyone could point to the US or UK governmentauthorising excessive pay as a validation of the system. As noted above, the government has repeatedly failed as regulator or as provider of capital in curbing outrageously destructive executive compensation.
Here are seven deadly sins found in executive compensation plans. Each of them is conclusive evidence that the system is out of whack.
1.    Making up for losses in stock value with other grants of cash or stock.
2.    Imputed years of service to increase retirement benefits.
3.    Setting the performance goals too low or other phony metrics to trigger bonuses.
4.    Dividends on unvested stock.
5.    Outrageous departure packages.
6.    Stock options that are not performance-based or indexed.
7.    Perquisites and gross-ups.

In my next response, I will explain how to do it right.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
prop to support by placing something under or against , often used with up  /  to support by placing against something
/  SUSTAIN, STRENGTHEN , often used with up  *a government propped up by the military*
reiterate to state or do over again or repeatedly sometimes with wearying effect
golden parachutes 提前离职津贴
distort  to cause a twisting from the true, natural, or normal
plural NOT SURE  在原句The plural of anecdote is data.中作何解？
reversal an act or the process of reversing 文中指财政逆转
diametrically completely opposed  : being at opposite extremes  *in diametric contradiction to his claims*
fraud DECEIT, TRICKERY;  specifically   : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right
insider trading 内幕交易 Insider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities (e.g. bonds or stock options) by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company.
preponderance  a superiority in weight, power, importance, or strength / a superiority or excess in number or quantity / MAJORITY
glut an excessive quantity  : OVERSUPPLY
mandate an authorization to act given to a representative  *accepted the mandate of the people*
mortgage  抵押 a conveyance of or lien against property (as for securing a loan) that becomes void upon payment or performance according to stipulated terms
oxymoron a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness);  broadly   : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongrous elements  矛盾修饰法
testimony firsthand authentication of a fact  : EVIDENCE
inspector 检查员 a person employed to inspect something
rattle his sabre 挥舞战刀
contractual of, relating to, or constituting a contract
entity BEING, EXISTENCE;  especially   : independent, separate, or self-contained existence  
boatloads a load that fills a boat / an indefinitely large number  *a boatload of money*
obscure to conceal or hide by or as if by covering
elasticity the responsiveness of a dependent economic variable to changes in influencing factors  *elasticity of demand*  *price elasticity*
Impute to lay the responsibility or blame for often falsely or unjustly
trigger to initiate, actuate, or set off by a trigger  *an indiscreet remark that triggered a fight*  *a stimulus that triggered a reflex*
unvested 引发
Perquisite a privilege, gain, or profit incidental to regular salary or wages;  especially   : one expected or promised
gross-ups NOT FOUND
----------------------------------------------------
COMMENTS
The rebuttal stamens are not as targeted as I thought. Both of the two sides reinforce their own perspectives again by partly refuting the other side’s point. Anyway, the proposer provide his examples in a much more clearer way that readers can easily follow. He cites David Yermack’s opinion on CEO pay which props the pay-performance link. However, even the idea of the opposition side is a little bit hard to understand, she does a impressive work on her rebuttal. For example, when coming to the deduction of the sentence “The typical CEO is paid for performance. Board sincreasingly fire CEOs for poor performance”, she directly name the fallacy that “the second sentence has no relationship to the first” because “boards may fire CEOs for poor performance, but they pay them boatloads of money for that performance on the way out of the door.” This stamen is sharp and conceivable which make me hold the idea that even the proposer’s idea is easy to follow, the opposition did somehow overweight on this debate for such a impressive rebuttal.

miki7catUID: 2533330

My comment
Well, I will continue with my rebuttal of the claims made by the proposer. Mr. Kaplan argues that a robust system of pay-for-performance is widely used by most US companies, on the ground of that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share of their pay in stock and option and these CEOs will lose large amounts of wealth and their jobs when their companies perform poorly. As he also mentioned, CEOs earn a lot and their stock appreciates when their companies perform well. The fact is that a company consists of many people, most of which are the ordinary workers. Performing different roles in the company though, everyone attributes to the success of the company. So I wonder if the ordinary workers' pay is measured in a similar way to their executive's, assuming the measuring way is as reasonable as Mr. Kaplan argued. If not so, why could CEOs themselves earn a lot from the success of their companies while the shop workers could not? I strongly agree with Mr. Wooldridge's point that Mr. Kaplan should demonstrate that outstanding bosses can boost the performance of the organisations that they head, not only earning their pay but also benefitting workers, shareholders and consumers.


蓝色-生词
绿色-认识但组合成专有名词
红色-可借鉴的词句

Rebuttal statements
Defending the motion
Steven N. Kaplan Neubauer Family Prof. of Entrepreneurship & Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Nell Minow argues that top executive compensation was a major cause of the financial crisis. She bases her conclusion on two "outlier【离群】" examples, Angelo Mozillo and Aubrey McClendon, that she calls "anecdotes".
Against the motion
Nell Minow Editor and Co-founder, The Corporate Library
The headlines are writing my rebuttal【反驳】 for me.
Goldman Sachs【高盛，投资银行】 set aside【If you set something aside for a special use or purpose, you keep it available for that use or purpose.】 $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46% from a year ago. While its net income has tripled, its core investment banking business is down 31%.
The moderator's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 | Adrian Wooldridge
It seems that experts are just as passionate【A passionate person has very strong feelings about something or a strong belief in something.】 on the subject of executive pay as the general public.
Mr Kaplan argues that the most powerful criticism of executive pay-that bosses get upside and no downside-is simply false. He points out that three of the most maligned bosses in the financial services sector, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, John Mack of Morgan Stanley and Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America, all lost small fortunes in 2008. CEOs as a group lost roughly 40% of their wealth in 2008.
Ms Minow argues that her rebuttal is being written by the headlines. Financial service companies are once again paying huge bonuses despite the fact that their companies have been propped up【To prop up something means to support it or help it to survive.】 by public money. She points out that CEOs enjoy the unique privilege【A privilege is a special right or advantage that only one person or group has.】 of being able to appoint the people who decide their pay. She also reiterates【If you reiterate something, you say it again, usually in order to emphasize it.】 the point that there are plenty of devices such as golden parachutes【A golden parachute is an agreement to pay a large amount of money to a senior executive of a company if they are forced to leave. (BUSINESS)】 that cannot possibly be justified by performance.
In his expert evidence Rakesh Khurana tries to focus on fundamental questions such as what the purpose of compensation is. He argues that the market for CEOs is a highly distorted【If you distort a statement, fact, or idea, you report or represent it in an untrue way.】 one because CEOs themselves can influence the process and performance is hard to measure. He suggests that extreme pay differentials【A differential is a difference between things, especially rates of pay.】 can damage companies by attracting the wrong sort of bosses and demotivating the rank and file【The rank and file are the ordinary members of an organization or the ordinary workers in a company, as opposed to its leaders or managers. (JOURNALISM)】. He also worries about the legitimacy【合理性】 of the system. One survey suggests that only 13% of people trust what CEOs say.
So far the voting is going heavily against the motion. But I wonder how far this is driven by emotion rather than a reasoned assessment of the evidence. I would urge the participants to pay close attention to the wording of the motion-particularly the key phrases 'one the whole' and 'deserve'. We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes. And we need to think more closely about the word 'deserve'. Mr Kaplan's best chance of turning the voting around is to demonstrate that outstanding bosses can boost the performance of the organisations that they head, not only earning their pay but also benefitting workers, shareholders and consumers.
The proposer's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 | Steven N. Kaplan

Nell Minow argues that top executive compensation was a major cause of the financial crisis. She bases her conclusion on two "outlier" examples, Angelo Mozillo and Aubrey McClendon, that she calls "anecdotes". The plural【The plural of a noun is the form of it that is used to refer to more than one person or thing.】 of anecdote is data. And the data, that is the pay at a broad sample of financial companies, simply do not support her conclusion. Ironically, neither do her two anecdotes.【文中the plural of anecdote即为前文中的anecdotes，只是换了一种表达方式而已。】
Ms Minow makes the following claims. (1) Incentive compensation rewarded top financial executives for the quantity of transactions, not the quality. (2) Top CEOs, like Mr Mozillo, took large amounts of money out of their companies before their companies failed. (3) The CEOs knew they were making bad investments, but did so anyway because they could make more money doing so. (4) CEOs get upside, but no downside. (5) The post-meltdown awards create incentives that reward management, but damage shareholders and everyone else.
These claims are false. As David Yermack of NYU pointed out in a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, John Mack of Morgan Stanley and Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America:
"all lost small fortunes in 2008. The 2008 compensation of Messrs Pandit, Mack, and Lewis was approximately minus $105 million, minus $40 million, and minus $108 million, respectively, after taking account of【If you take something into account, or take account of something, you consider it when you are thinking about a situation or deciding what to do.】 the losses on the stock that each CEO owned in his firm. Other CEOs in the financial industry had similarly bad years. Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual lost more than $25 million before being ousted【If someone is ousted from a position of power, job, or place, they are forced to leave it. (JOURNALISM)】 in September, Kennedy Thompson of Wachovia lost more than $30 million before being fired in June, and Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric lost more than $60 million ... These CEOs' financial reversals【A reversal of a process, policy, or trend is a complete change in it.】 were part of a robust【Someone or something that is robust is very strong or healthy.】 system of pay-for-performance widely used by most U.S. companies."
Yermack also points out that James Cayne lost most of his billion-dollar fortune when Bear Stearns failed and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The fact is that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share of their pay in stock and options. And they kept most of that pay as shares in their companies which they never cashed in【If you cash in something such as an insurance policy, you exchange it for money.】. When the crisis hit and their stock prices sank, those CEOs lost a large fraction of their wealth and, in many cases, their jobs.
As I wrote in my first entry, this is true, in general, of the overall CEO market. CEOs earn a lot and their stock appreciates when their companies perform well. CEOs lose large amounts of wealth and their jobs when their companies perform poorly. It is irresponsible to claim that CEOs do not bear any downside risk. In 2008, CEOs as a group lost roughly 40% of their wealth.
In direct contradiction to Ms Minow's conclusion, the financial CEOs were compensated in the end for the quality of their transactions. The CEOs did not take much off the table. The CEOs had a substantial amount of downside risk. In fact, those CEOs would have been much better off【If you say that someone would be better off doing something, you are advising them to do it or expressing the opinion that it would benefit them to do it.】 if they had not engaged in the transactions they did.
It is worth adding that David Yermack is a noted researcher on CEO pay who studies large samples over long periods. He has written several articles highly critical of specific CEO pay practices, like corporate jet usage. Nevertheless, his conclusion on the relation of CEO pay to the financial crisis is diametrically opposed【If you say that two things are diametrically opposed, you are emphasizing that they are completely different from each other.】 to Ms Minow's (as is his characterisation of the CEO market in general).
A study of CEO incentives in a broader group of financial institutions during the crisis by Rudi Fahlenbrach and Rene Stulz of Ohio State (and a former president of the American Finance Association) confirms Yermack's analysis and also clearly refutes Ms Minow's conclusion.
Ironically, even her two anecdotes about Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide and Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy
fail to support her case.
Unlike the other CEOs mentioned above (and most financial-institution CEOs), Mr Mozillo did manage to sell a lot of his stock. Unfortunately for him, the SEC has charged him with securities fraud【诈骗】 and insider trading. And it is unlikely to lead to a good outcome for him. If found guilty, he potentially will end up paying three times what he took out. Clearly, he appears to have behaved badly, but he did not get away with it.
As for Mr McClendon, he runs an energy company. How could he possibly have had anything to do with the financial crisis?
The preponderance of the data and, even Ms Minow's "outlier" "anecdotes," therefore, fail to provide any evidence that top executive compensation had much to do with the financial crisis.
Top executive compensation did not cause the financial crisis. Instead, the crisis was caused by loose monetary【Monetary means relating to money, especially the total amount of money in a country. (BUSINESS)】 policy, a global capital glut【If there is a glut of something, there is so much of it that it cannot all be sold or used.】, over-high leverage at investment banks, mandates from Congress to provide mortgages【A mortgage is a loan of money which you get from a bank or building society in order to buy a house.】 to people who could not afford them, flawed ratings【A rating of something is a score or measurement of how good or popular it is.】 from the rating agencies and poor incentives at mortgage origination (not the CEO) level. Consistent with this【与此一致的是】, the financial crisis has spread to financial institutions in other countries with very different pay practices.
The opposition's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 | Nell Minow
The headlines are writing my rebuttal for me.
Goldman Sachs set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46% from a year ago. While its net income has tripled, its core investment banking business is down 31%. The Toronto Star quotes Goldman's CFO【首席财务官】, David Viniar, using an unforgivable oxymoron in a conference call【电话会议】 with reporters: "Our competitors are paying people quite well [and are] very willing to pay employees guaranteed bonuses of very high amounts." (emphasis added)
Mr Viniar also showed that he has a very short memory, arguing that Goldman is operating without any government guarantee, ignoring the reality of the government guarantee that kept the system going just a year ago.
These bonuses have nothing to do with paying for performance. How much of Goldman's bouncing back is due to the government's guarantees and the hundreds of billions of dollars it poured into Goldman, Wall Street, and other subsidies and outright welfare payments to the very institutions that came close to bringing down the entire economy? Shouldn't the American people expect some sort of discounted calculation of the bonuses that reflect a market-based assessment of performance? Once again, Wall Street is all about capitalism when it comes to the upside, but all about socialism when it comes to the downside, that is, from each, according to his ability, to each, whatever he can get away with.
Also this week, we had the testimony【In a court of law, someone's testimony is a formal statement that they make about what they saw someone do or what they know of a situation, after having promised to tell the truth.】 of Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the government's financial rescue programme before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The serial offender AIG has promised $198m in bonus pay to its employees next March, according to the testimony, and there is very little the government or anyone else can do about it. Because the bonus agreements were entered into before the bailout, the government has no legal authority to stop them. All Special Master Kenneth Feinberg can do is ask the company not to pay the bonuses and rattle his sabre about the pay he can control going forward, hoping that the threat of clamping down on the 25 executives at each of the covered companies he does have authority over will be enough of an incentive to force a change. In the meantime, once again, pay is uncoupled from【脱节】 performance. Even the company has given up on trying to make that case, relying instead on opportunity costs to justify the bonuses and arguing that these kinds of payments are necessary in order to keep the employees from leaving. Based on their past performance and their unwillingness to tie future pay to genuine measures of sustainable growth, I suggest that the best choice for shareholders is to let them leave.
Mr Barofksy gave the committee a Treasury Department report on the last set of outrageous【If you describe something as outrageous, you are emphasizing that it is unacceptable or very shocking.】 AIG bonuses. It concluded in part that "Treasury invested $40 billion of taxpayer funds in AIG, designed AIG's contractual executive compensation restrictions, and helped manage the Government's majority stake in AIG for several months, all without having any detailed information about the scope of AIG's very substantial, and very controversial, executive compensation obligations." If a private entity had been asked for emergency funds, it is unthinkable that any money would have been advanced without establishing some control over compensation. There are two reasons for this. The first is agency costs. Anyone (other than Secretary Henry Paulson, apparently) putting money at risk will want to ensure that it will not be inappropriately appropriated【If someone appropriates something which does not belong to them, they take it, usually without the right to do so. (FORMAL)】. The second is the high likelihood【If something is a likelihood, it is likely to happen.】 that the previous incentive structure was a significant factor in the bad decisions and catastrophic【Something that is catastrophic involves or causes a sudden terrible disaster.】 risk management that created the need for the funds in the first place.
And really, that is all the argument one needs. By definition, the incentive compensation was badly designed, as proved by the results. However, I will respond to some of the points raised by Professor Kaplan.
First, we disagree on the calculations that support the conclusion that CEO play has been declining. Our figures, based not on theoretical pay but on realised pay, are as follows.

Clearly actual pay is the better measure of pay effectiveness. I also question the validity of the Equilar survey figures. They are based on the reported total compensation in the summary compensation table, which is even further from reality than the "expected pay", as it is just an accounting cost.
I do not understand why he brings up the net worth of CEOs; that has no relationship whatsoever【You use whatsoever after a noun group in order to emphasize a negative statement.】 to their pay, its relationship to performance, or its effectiveness at aligning CEOs' interests with shareholders'.
Second, Professor Kaplan states, "The typical CEO is paid for performance. Boards increasingly fire CEOs for poor performance." The second sentence has no relationship to the first. Boards may fire CEOs for poor performance, but they pay them boatloads of
money for that performance on the way out of the door. Just look at Ken Lewis's departure from Bank of America. Disastrous performance that apparently included lying (about what else? bonuses) and an unprecedented vote of no confidence from shareholders that removed him as chairman, may indeed have caused him to be fired (though the board did not use that term). But his $53m retirement package does not feel like pay for performance to me.
Professor Kaplan tries to obscure【If one thing obscures another, it prevents it from being seen or heard properly.】 the point by bringing in law firm partners, athletes and other highly-paid professionals. Partners in law firms are paid according to formulas set by the partnership. As in any other private firm, there are no agency costs to worry about and they can do whatever they like. Athletes, movie stars and recording artists, who have a much greater range and far greater elasticity【弹性】 in compensation, engage in vigorous arm's length negotiations on pay; their pay is not set by boards they appoint, as CEOs' is.
And it is hard for me to understand how anyone could point to the US or UK government authorising excessive pay as a validation of the system. As noted above, the government has repeatedly failed as regulator or as provider of capital in curbing outrageously destructive executive compensation.
Here are seven deadly sins found in executive compensation plans. Each of them is conclusive evidence that the system is out of whack.
1. Making up for losses in stock value with other grants of cash or stock.
2. Imputed years of service to increase retirement benefits.
3. Setting the performance goals too low or other phony metrics to trigger bonuses.
4. Dividends on unvested stock.
5. Outrageous departure packages.
6. Stock options that are not performance-based or indexed.
7. Perquisites and gross-ups.

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In his expert evidence Rakesh Khurana tries to focus on fundamental questions such as what the purpose of compensation is. He argues that the market for CEOs is a highly distorted one because CEOs themselves can influence the process and performance is hard to measure. He suggests that extreme pay differentials can damage companies by attracting the wrong sort of bosses and demotivating the rank and file（普通士兵；老百姓）. He also worries about the legitimacy of the system. One survey suggests that only 13% of people trust what CEOs say.

So far the voting is going heavily against the motion. But I wonder how far this is driven by emotion rather than a reasoned assessment of the evidence. I would urge the participants to pay close attention to the wording of the motion-particularly the key phrases 'one the whole' and 'deserve'. We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes. And we need to think more closely about the word 'deserve'. Mr Kaplan's best chance of turning the voting around is to demonstrate that outstanding bosses can boost the performance of the organisations that they head, not only earning their pay but also benefitting workers, shareholders and consumers.

Nell Minow argues that top executive compensation was a major cause of the financial crisis. She bases her conclusion on two "outlier" examples, Angelo Mozillo and Aubrey McClendon, that she calls "anecdotes". The plural of anecdote is data. And the data, that is the pay at a broad sample of financial companies, simply do not support her conclusion. Ironically, neither do her two anecdotes.（句式）

Incentive compensation（奖金）

"all lost small fortunes in 2008. The 2008 compensation of Messrs Pandit, Mack, and Lewis was approximately minus $105 million, minus $40 million, and minus $108 million, respectively, after taking account of the losses on the stock that each CEO owned in his firm. Other CEOs in the financial industry had similarly bad years. Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual lost more than $25 million before being ousted in September, Kennedy Thompson of Wachovia lost more than $30 million before being fired in June, and Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric lost more than $60 million ... These CEOs' financial reversals were part of a robust system of pay-for-performance widely used by most U.S. companies."
Yermack also points out that James Cayne lost most of his billion-dollar fortune when Bear Stearns failed and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The fact is that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share（最大的份额） of their pay in stock and options. And they kept most of that pay as shares in their companies which they never cashed in（（债券等的）兑现，收到…货款）. When the crisis hit and their stock prices sank, those CEOs lost a large fraction of their wealth and, in many cases, their jobs.

As I wrote in my first entry, this is true, in general, of the overall CEO market. CEOs earn a lot and their stock appreciates（增值，涨价） when their companies perform well. CEOs lose large amounts of wealth and their jobs when their companies perform poorly. It is irresponsible to claim that CEOs do not bear any downside risk. In 2008, CEOs as a group lost roughly 40% of their wealth.

In direct contradiction to Ms Minow's conclusion, the financial CEOs were compensated in the end for the quality of their transactions. The CEOs did not take much off the table. The CEOs had a substantial amount of downside risk. In fact, those CEOs would have been much better off（状况好的；经济状况好的，富裕的） if they had not engaged in the transactions they did.
It is worth adding that David Yermack is a noted researcher on CEO pay who studies large samples over long periods. He has written several articles highly critical of specific CEO pay practices, like corporate jet usage. Nevertheless, his conclusion on the relation of CEO pay to the financial crisis is diametrically（直接地，作为直径地） opposed to Ms Minow's (as is his characterisation of the CEO market in general).

Unlike the other CEOs mentioned above (and most financial-institution CEOs), Mr Mozillo did manage to sell a lot of his stock. Unfortunately for him, the SEC（Scurities and Exchange Commission 证券交易委员会） has charged him with securities fraud and insider trading. And it is unlikely to lead to a good outcome for him. If found guilty, he potentially will end up paying three times what he took out. Clearly, he appears to have behaved badly, but he did not get away with it.

The preponderance of the data and, even Ms Minow's "outlier" "anecdotes," therefore, fail to provide any evidence that top executive compensation had much to do with the financial crisis.
Top executive compensation did not cause the financial crisis. Instead, the crisis was caused by loose monetary policy（货币政策）, a global capital glut, over-high leverage at investment banks, mandates from Congress to provide mortgages to people who could not afford them, flawed ratings from the rating agencies and poor incentives at mortgage origination (not the CEO) level. Consistent with this, the financial crisis has spread to financial institutions in other countries with very different pay practices.

Goldman Sachs set aside（留出，不顾，取消，驳回） $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46% from a year ago. While its net income has tripled, its core investment banking business is down 31%. The Toronto Star quotes Goldman's CFO, David Viniar, using an unforgivable oxymoron（【语】（修词中的矛盾修饰法）） in a conference call with reporters: "Our competitors are paying people quite well [and are] very willing to pay employees guaranteed bonuses of very high amounts." (emphasis added)
Mr Viniar also showed that he has a very short memory（健忘）, arguing that Goldman is operating without any government guarantee, ignoring the reality of the government guarantee that kept the system going just a year ago.
These bonuses have nothing to do with paying for performance. How much of Goldman's bouncing back（【俗】卷土重来，恢复过来，（遭受挫折后）很快恢复过来） is due to the government's guarantees and the hundreds of billions of dollars it poured into Goldman, Wall Street, and other subsidies and outright welfare payments（福利金） to the very institutions that came close to bringing down the entire economy?
Also this week, we had the testimony of Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general（检察长，监察长） for the government's financial rescue programme before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The serial offender AIG has promised $198m in bonus pay to its employees next March, according to the testimony, and there is very little the government or anyone else can do about it. Because the bonus agreements were entered into before the bailout, the government has no legal authority to stop them. All Special Master Kenneth Feinberg can do is ask the company not to pay the bonuses and rattle his sabre（以战争恫吓） about the pay he can control going forward, hoping that the threat of clamping down on（施压力于） the 25 executives at each of the covered companies he does have authority over（有权，管理） will be enough of an incentive to force a change. In the meantime, once again, pay is uncoupled from performance. Even the company has given up on trying to make that case, relying instead on opportunity costs to justify the bonuses and arguing that these kinds of payments are necessary in order to keep the employees from leaving.
Anyone (other than Secretary Henry Paulson, apparently) putting money at risk will want to ensure that it will not be inappropriately appropriated. The second is the high likelihood that the previous incentive structure was a significant factor in the bad decisions and catastrophic risk management that created the need for the funds in the first place.
And really, that is all the argument one needs. By definition, the incentive compensation was badly designed, as proved by the results. However, I will respond to some of the points raised by Professor Kaplan.
And it is hard for me to understand how anyone could point to the US or UK government authorising excessive pay as a validation of the system. As noted above, the government has repeatedly failed as regulator or as provider of capital in curbing outrageously destructive executive compensation.
Here are seven deadly sins（七大罪）found in executive compensation plans. Each of them is conclusive evidence that the system is out of whack（紊乱，（机器等）不正常）.

Comments:
This is passage about the rebuttal statements on the controversial debates we have comment on last time. By comparing mine comments on the previous debates with the rebuttal statements, I can learn something usefull for my analytical writing skills.from this passage.
1.        Kaplan’s rebuttal remarks: Frankly speaking, from my personal point of view, his remarks still concise and persuasive to some extent; and have a well-organized framework. To begin with, he enumerates the suspicious claims Minow has makes, then sets out to refute them one by one.
2.        Minow’s rebuttal remarks: As for Minow’s statement, in my personal opinion, I still don't think her remarks are so forcefull; in addition, I am a little confused by her remarks which don’t have so clear structor. Nevertheless, on the whole, there are still a great number of things I should study in her statement. For example, the (luo ji error) she points out that “Professor Kaplan states, "The typical CEO is paid for performance. Boards increasingly fire CEOs for poor performance." The second sentence has no relationship to the first.”

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COMMENT:

To begin with,I will clear up the idears of the two sides on the debate.The proposer,s rubuttal remarks on defending primarily,and then figure out the unreasonable points in the opposition,s arguments.First of all,he concludes the claims Ms Minow holds and reiterates the point that the income of CEOs are decreased and actually related with companies, performance.The fact is that the lion,s share CEOs received of their pay in stock which has been kept as shares in companies proportional matches the wealth they lose in the finacial crisis.Secondly,he demonstrates that his argument is authoritative and credible which is oposite of Ms Minow,s position.Then he points out several limitation in her arguments and indicates the real causes of finacial crisis.

Consistent with Mr Kaplan,s debate,Ms Minow rebut specificially.Her arguments also devided into two parts.She emphasized again that the subsides of government bouncing back the companies illuminates again that the incomes of CEOs is not related with their performance.The reason is that government could not prevent the behavior of shareing bonous and the companies make excuse of it such as keeping the emplyees from leaving.Meanwhile,the funds of Treasury Department has no detailed control on executive compensation obligations.This is an other opportunity for companies to take the agency costs as bonous which has been called risk management.In a wold,the theoretical pay is further from the realised pay.According to Mr Kaplan,s debate, Ms Minow also figures out some defect in his argument.One is the invalid talking point about the net worth,the other is that the high pay with the relavant of CEOs is obscure that they are not set by boards as CEOs.At last she point out seven deadly sins found in executive compensation plans.

Take no consideration of the real truth about the debate,only focusing on the rebuttal remarks of the two sides,it is more intense and hard to decide who win.Compared with their debate before, Mr Kaplan incread the part of disputoin,and thanks to this,we have seen a more exciting debate on the opposition,s arguments that Ms Minow holds.It seems that Ms Minow,s rebuttle remarks is more clear and targeted to some extent in this term.Whatever we really want is a fair and equitable economic market not the same as Ms Minow depicts.

好词好句：

Mr Kaplan argues that the most powerful criticism of executive pay-that bosses get upside and no downside-is simply false.

there are plenty of devices such as golden parachutes that cannot possibly be justified by performance.

He suggests that extreme pay differentials can damage companies by attracting the wrong sort of bosses and demotivating the rank and file.

We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes.

Ironically, neither do her two anecdotes.

These CEOs' financial reversals were part of a robust system of pay-for-performance widely used by most U.S. companies.

lost a large fraction of their wealth and, in many cases, their jobs.

It is irresponsible to claim that CEOs do not bear any downside risk.

all without having any detailedinformation about the scope of AIG's very substantial, and verycontroversial, executive compensation obligations.

confirms Yermack's analysis and also clearly refutes Ms Minow's conclusion.

First, we disagree on the calculations thatsupport the conclusion that CEO play has been declining. Our figures,based not on theoretical pay but on realised pay, are as follows.

Been propped by 一直支撑

Reiterate the point 反复地强调观点

Plenty of devices
很多策略

Attention-grabbing anecdote
引人注目的轶事

Take account of
考虑

The lion,s share
最大份额

In direct contradiction to
与。。。相反

Have been much better off
已经好得多

Diamentrically opposed to
直接地反对。。。

Consistent with this
与之相一致的。。

Bounce back
卷土重来

Inspector general
监察长

Clamp down on
施压于

fancywwUID: 2583671

My Comment:

Today's rebuttal statement makes me even confused. The main reason is that I barely know the economic terminology and regulations in the USA. Even if I googled them out one by one, it quite difficult for me to put them together in order to figure something out of them. So please allow me to make some irrelevant or even silly comments on this debate.

First of all, according to my observation, there data about the pay of CEO of recent years are not on the same scale. Mr Kaplan adjusts the income of CEO with inflation, while Ms Minow gets her conclusion from the actual pay.

Besides, Ms Minow is mainly attacking the CEO compensation plan. But her argumentation impresses me with reasons, which needs further evidence like data or example. And at this point, I think Mr Kaplan does a better job. At least, his argumentation seems convincing, with quotes and cites from others.

Well, maybe I have had a false impression about their debate. The truth is the economy terminologies and unknown people and strange organizations make me totally lost. Anyway, I will reread the article and ask help from my friends who study economy.

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My Sum-up

The moderator's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 | Adrian Wooldridge  
[Introduction] It seems that experts are just as passionate on the subject of executive pay as the general public.
[1]Opinions of Proposer Mr. Kaplan
[2]Opinions of Opposition Ms Minow
[3]Opinions of Moderator Mr. Wooldridge:
To Voting: Although the voting is heavily against the issue, he wonder how fat this is driven by emotion rather than a reasoned assessment of the evidence
To Issue: We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes.
To Proposer: Mr Kaplan's best chance of turning the voting around is to demonstrate that outstanding bosses can boost the performance of the organisations that they head, not only earning their pay but also benefitting workers, shareholders and consumers.

The proposer's rebuttal remarks
Oct 23rd 2009 | Steven N. Kaplan
【Introduction】
[Conclusion]Top executive compensation caused the financial crisisà [evidence] two "outlier" anecdotes(Data of Pay)à[Thesis]Data and anecdotes cannot support her conclusion
【Sum-Up of Opposition’s Claims】Five claims.
【Counter-examples for the Claims】Vikram Pandit, John Mack and Kenneth Lewis
The fact is that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share of their pay in stock and options.
【Evidence:(Specific to) General】Overall CEO market(Data)
【Quote Authority】(1)David Yermack’s conclusion (though highly critical of CEO pay) is directly opposed to Ms Minow (About the relationship of CEO pay and financial crisis.)(2)A study by Rudi Fahlenbrach and Rene Stulz confirms Yermack’s analysis refuting Ms Minow’s conclusion.
【Denying Examples of Opposition】(1) Angelo Mozillo was charged with securities fraud and insider trading (potentially end up paying three times he took out). (2) Mr McClendon running an energy company cannot do anything with financial crisis.
【Conclusion】Data and "outlier" "anecdotes" cannot provide any evidence that top executive compensation had much to do with the financial crisis.
【Alter Explanation】Loose monetary policy, a global capital glut, over-high leverage at investment banks, mandates from Congress(mortgages to unaffordable people), flawed ratings, poor incentives at mortgage.
【Counter Example—Same result with Different Condition in Discussed Cause】Other countries with different pay practices also suffered from the Financial crisis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sentences and Phrases
Financial service companies are once again paying huge bonuses despite the fact that their companies have been propped up by public money.
Prop up=support

But I wonder how far this is driven by emotion rather than a reasoned assessment of the evidence.
Be driven by emotionßàA reasoned assessment of the evidence

The fact is that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share of their pay in stock and options.
The lion’s share=the biggest part

The preponderance of the data and, even Ms Minow's "outlier" "anecdotes," therefore, fail to provide any evidence
The preponderance of=The majority of

Nevertheless, his conclusion on the relation of CEO pay to the financial crisis is diametrically opposed to Ms Minow's
Diametrically=directly
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Functional Sentence
【Argument-Statement about opposition to criticism】
Mr Kaplan argues that the most powerful criticism of executive pay-that bosses get upside and no downside-is simply false.

【Pointing out Logical fallacies—Unrepresentative Samples】
We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes.

【Argument-Ungrounded Conclusion】

The preponderance of the data and, even Ms Minow's "outlier" "anecdotes," therefore, fail to provide any evidence that top executive compensation had much to do with the financial crisis.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment:
Part One: Perspective on the Moderator
Both the moderator and I tend to support the proposer.
Mr. Wooldridge said “We need to focus more on the overall picture, around the world as well as in the United States, rather than on a few attention-grabbing anecdotes.” ,while I said, “All in all, Steven N. Kaplan is a good scholar. He supported his issue in a boarder view and discuss questions as a whole, while Nell Minow only used two examples, though they are strong, to criticize executive pay. “ And I also said: “Nell Minow’s examples are illuminating and persuasive, but their range for explanation is too limited. “, ”I believe most of people would like to accept what Ms Minow said, but I personally prefer Mr. Kaplan because of his explanatory power.”

Moreover, we find a significant point that Mr Kaplan ignored.
The moderator said “Mr Kaplan's best chance of turning the voting around is to demonstrate that outstanding bosses can boost the performance of the organisations that they head, not only earning their pay but also benefitting workers, shareholders and consumers.”, while I said, “Thus, the author makes significant mistakes when he placed too much emphasis on change and comparison of payment in positions, but ignored talking about how much they create for the company.”

It is very exciting that my opinion is similar to the moderator.

Part Two: Perspective on the Proposer

So, that is argument.

Similar progress to writing an Argument task was used in Kaplan’s first paragraph.  Here is it.
(Opposition’s conclusionàOpposition’s evidenceàThesis: Evidence cannot support the conclusion.)
There is few analysis except for pointing out “The plural of anecdote is data.” The data is the pay at a broad sample of financial companies.

An effective reason of Mr.Kaplan is "The fact is that most financial-company CEOs received the lion's share of their pay in stock and options."

I absolutely agree with it because I wrote the similar paragraphs yesterday:

“In fact, it is well known that the most important component of CEOs’ payment is stock-base pay. CEOs really care the consequence of their decisions which directly affect their stock returns. So it is really ridiculous to treat CEOs as workers who work very passively due to fixed salaries. “

But I once hesitated when I saw the conduct of selling stock in Ms.Nell’s examples. So I said sorry in my comment to Nell for “Misunderstood” her claims. In fact, I am right. Let’s see what Mr. Kaplan said:
“And they kept most of that pay as shares in their companies which they never cashed in.”
Yes, CEOs seldom sold their stock because it is the biggest part of their pay. They are on the same boat of their company. Behavior in Nell’s examples is very rare because those bandits were in premeditation.

Exciting! After providing reason and three counter-examples, Kaplan talk about the overall CEO market with data, which indirectly lampoon Ms. Nell’s narrow view on only two anecdotes.

Moreover, Kaplan quote other authority to support him.

After that, Kaplan begin denying two anecdotes from Nell by showing bad ending of Angelo Mozillo and ineffective use of case about Mr. McClendon.

Finally, Mr. Kaplan not only bring forward the alter explanation of financial crisis, but also strongly use common sense as the proof of what really cause financial crisis: Other countries with different pay practices also suffered from the financial crisis. That indirectly demonstrates that it is not the executive pay which cause financial crisis but other factors. (Same result with Different Condition in Discussed Cause)

I strongly suggest everyone study the method of Mr. Kaplan. Maybe only understanding what he says is not enough. This rebuttal is valuable and worth reading again and again.

P.S. Perspective on opposition is unfinished yet.

emteddybearUID: 2699606

补上
reiterate:重申 Ironically：讽刺的 oust：驱逐  preponderance ：优势 monetary：货币的 oxymoron ：矛盾修辞法 testimony：证词
sustainable growth：可持续发展 accounting cost：会计成本
boatload：1 : a load that fills a boat
2 : an indefinitely large number   obscure：使模糊
elasticity：弹性 out of whack：紊乱

不懂的：
1.The plural of anecdote is data
2.描写金融危机原因的，好多专业词汇
Top executive compensation did not cause the financial crisis. Instead, the crisis was caused by loose monetary policy, a global capital glut, over-high leverage at investment banks, mandates from Congress to provide mortgages to people who could not afford them, flawed ratings from the rating agencies and poor incentives at mortgage origination (not the CEO) level. Consistent with this, the financial crisis has spread to financial institutions in other countries with very different pay practices.
3.The second is the high likelihood that the previous incentive structure was a significant factor in the bad decisions and catastrophic risk management that created the need for the funds in the first place.

MY COMMENTS:
After reading the intensive rebuttal, I find that we can't decide which side to support.When one provide some evidences while other also can fine testimony to attack it. In last rebuttal, Mr Kaplan gave some exact data to tell us the measurement of the CEO pay, and also the declining tendency. While Ms Minow only gave the two examples, which is called anecdotes. And the plural of anecdote should not be data. What's more Mr Kaplan pointed that top excutive compensation is not the main cause of the finacial crisis. And I think that's ture.

Cofronting those question, Ms Minow give vigorous counterattack.Ms Minow lists clearly pay of recently years other than some examples, which makes her debates more cogent. At last, Ms Minow gives us the main seven sins of the out-of-whack system. I think this is the symptomatic problem as well as the cuase of this topic they are debating. If only we find them, can we know the truth.

123runfordreamUID: 2697608

Comments：
Shamefully, I didn’t get this debate quite well. Then I go back to the first piece of comments work, take a glance of it. I do have a better understanding of it. But still not as good as I should be.
The first round of debate is focus on the motion. Mr.Wooldridge conclude the two specialists’ arguments of this debate. Then Mr. Kanplan continues his conclusion by arguing Ms Minow’s view, which is that the top executive compensation was a major cause of the financial crisis. He quotes David Yermack’s words on what” the top CEOs’ financial reversals were just part of a robust system of pay-for-performance widely used by most U.S. companies”. And he says the CEOs’ pay decreased as the financial crisis happened. Also the CEOs were paid by performance. On the other hand, Ms Minow insist that CEOs took a big part of the companies financial supports. And she says the bonuses they had got had nothing to do with paying for performance.
Compared with these two people’s ways for debate, Mr. Kanplan’s article has good and clear structure, while Ms Minow is really good at quoting examples. That’s probably great if I can put them together in my writings. HOPE so.


PS：详细笔记贴日记帖里了。

123runfordreamUID: 2697608

The plural of anecdote is data

这是讽刺的说法。引用Ms Minow 的两个anecdote，说复数的anecdote（it means “two ancedotes”）是个数据而已，不说明什么。

emteddybearUID: 2699606

原来是这样啊
谢谢哈
呵呵
28# 123runfordream

zhengchangdianUID: 2563082

Comment:

The last part of the financial debate report has finally explained the two contrary remarks clearly. Among the rebuttal statements, what the two groups really concern is the effective of pay-performance policy and the main culprit of financial crisis. The murder of global economy is the one who makes use of money from others to invest in his business. In order to realize his plot and secure his legitimacy, he has to create numerous financial instruments, which leads to disastrous capital blankness. What’s more, according to the stubborn facts, it is certain that the executive compensation has nothing to do with financial crisis. Although the opposed group claimed the poor performance executives leaved their position with outrageous departure package, one still needs to consider the possibility of the unemployed executives to be re-occupied and the price they have paid for it.


Golden parachute:

Contractual benefits that assure a high-level employee of generous payments if a company is taken over and he or she is dismissed as a result.

金降落伞:合同中规定的保证高层雇员因公司被收购而遭解职时可获得的一大笔钱的福利。


Leverage:

金融杠杆(leverage)简单地说来就是一个乘号（*）。使用这个工具，可以放大投资的结果，无论最终的结果是收益还是损失，都会以一个固定的比例增加，所以，在使用这个工具之前，投资者必须仔细分析投资项目中的收益预期，还有可能遭遇的风险，其实最安全的方法是将收益预期尽可能缩小，而风险预期尽可能扩大，这样做出的投资决策所得到的结果则必然落在您的预料之中。另外，还必须注意到，使用金融杠杆这个工具的时候，现金流的支出可能会增大，必须要考虑到这方面的事情，否则资金链一旦断裂，即使最后的结果可以是巨大的收益，您也必须要面对提前出局的下场。