• Linda Guyer comments. Full excerpt: The package that we (the Alliance@IBM) received showed 494 people let go in the AMS part of IGS, so IBM is lying by omission. Maybe 65 were let go yesterday and the rest last week?... Two of the affected individuals I happen to know personally and they were 100% billable so this "skills" excuse is another lie.

Some people in and out of the company say Mr. Gerstner is the real power on the board. When he was in charge of I.B.M., Mr. Gerstner used aggressive accounting techniques to strengthen operating results, and some say they believe he is not about to punish Mr. Dolan for being aggressive himself. In 1999, when Mr. Gerstner was chairman and chief executive, I.B.M. used the proceeds from the sale of its Internet unit to offset reported operating costs — a practice that the S.E.C. found so troubling that the agency wrote a special "staff accounting bulletin" in December 1999 to ban similar conduct in the future.Last year, while Mr. Gerstner was still chairman of I.B.M. but no longer its chief executive, I.B.M. was again using gains from asset sales to offset operating costs.

Mr. Gerstner also used employee pension-fund assets to bolster operating results. The S.E.C. asked I.B.M. to amend its financial statements in 1999 and 2000 over concerns about the company's tax rate, pension fund and other assets. I.B.M. refused to make the changes until last year. The S.E.C. has never taken formal regulatory action against Mr. Gerstner. WHILE Mr. Gerstner is widely credited with having saved a floundering I.B.M., his use of such accounting devices was one reason he was able to increase I.B.M.'s earnings by double digits annually while sales grew, on average, 5 percent a year.

“We continue to see many examples of enormous pay packages awarded by boards to top executives,” committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said at the start of the hearing. “These kinds of excesses are making a lot of Americans angry,” he warned after hearing testimony from pension fund officials and other experts. Sean Harrigan, president of the administrative board of California's public-employee pension fund, said extravagant executive pay “continues to have an impact on investor confidence.” CEO salaries now average 400 times what a production worker earns, and they continue to rise, he testified. Harrigan denounced what he called “an attitude of entitlement in the executive suites of corporate America.” Sen. John Breaux, D-La., while opposing legislative action on stock options, observed that some executive pay packages “have very little to do with performance” by companies.

• "just_a_bean_counter" comments. Full excerpt: Dear Watson Wyatt: Did you really think going to CB was the panacea to fix your baby boomer problem? So CB is going to cost you a lot more than originally schemed? Well, cry me a river. BTW, I don't agree with your misguiding falsifications below. Do you even know how to spell 'truth-in-media'? If the FASB does what needs to be done, you'll wish you had never put us on CB. Why? because you will have to recognize liabilities as they accrue, which is what should have happened all along! (readers: notice Watson Wyatt qualifies this piece of trash with "according to experts at Watson Wyatt". Remember, never ask an insurance salesman if you need insurance.)

• Janet Krueger comments. Full excerpt: Interesting isn't it, that corporate lobbyists are so focused on what this change might do to corporate earnings -- we sure wouldn't want to forego any of those vapor profits! What they don't mention, and the reason this change is so critical, is that the current funding rules don't require plans to carry anywhere close to enough funds to pay off all the vested cash balances if they go bankrupt. The proposed change still doesn't require enough funding to pay off vested balances, but it brings them closer.