Rick Wagoner is getting some judicious downsizing of his retirement package. The parachute is a little less golden, down to a mere $8.2 million from the original $22 million.

Soruce: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...cleId=152767#2

Wow, an annual payments of $1.64 million, plus an annual pension of $74,030 for the rest of his life. Not bad for running down a trillion dollar company into the ground. Where can I get a job like that

He's lucky they didn't garnish his pension payments, based on his performance.

I am surprised he cut his pay pack. Nothing left to lose

x2......he got paid ENOUGH to do NOTHING.......

That's not really that much of a pension, considering his high position. I won't divulge the exact amount, but my own CSRS Federal pension and benefits, based on 33 years of service and my grade, is not a whole lot less that that...and I'll get that for the rest of my life. And, while I did have a difficult and demanding job that was critical to air safety (and earned the pension I got), I sure didn't have the responsibility of running General Motors, and didn't have to manage one of the world's largest auto corporations like he did. The arguement has often been made that he "ran GM into the ground", but an equally intense argument is that the UAW ran GM into the ground. I have carefully avoided taking sides on that issue, realizing that while Wagoner may have indeed have made some mistakes, auto workers also, IMO, deserve good benefits and a good retirement, too.

(BTW, for the record, newer Federal employees are no longer on the same retirement plan I am. They now get a lower pension, but, unlike me and the older ones, get Social Security to compensate. We don't get Social Security because we never paid into it under our program).

Seriously, sign me up to. A job where you are rewarded to fail, that's almost a dream job. But for him, it was a reality.

acting like GM failed because of him, it was already setting sail for fail over a decade before him, not that he helped out tho.

Yeah, but do you really think that Obama should have been the one to fire him, rather than GM's Board of Directors? To have the government step in and start running private companies could be dangerous precedent.

Of course not, that is gross misuse of power, and frankly I'm not surprised it was done. What better way to make the Government look amazingly capable, than to remove the top dog from company that is hemorrhaging money. It's like a virus that comes into a body, and destroys part of a tumor only to take control of the rest of the tumor and ruin things some more.

Obama didn't exactly fire wagonner. Sure, he resigned under pressure from the Obama administration, but, the reality is, Wagonner could have stayed. The board would have eventually removed him, though, because he was the only thing standing between GM and much needed government money.

Wagners days were numbered either way. And his modest pension is offset by the other millions of dollars he received in his compensation package. GM should have never taken government money if they wanted no additional government input and control. Although it's obvious how poorly GM was run over last decade. Yeah this or that can be blamed, but the historical results speak for themselves.

In most Asian countries, they would have took away his pension and put him in jail for causing shame to his country, and we wonder why the American car companies are doing so bad.

It would be very convenient to blame Wagoner for running GM into the ground but the truth is far from that. GM as a whole ran itself into the ground for decades based on horrible decisions, horrible engineers/engineering, and corruptness and unrealistic demands from the UAW, which happened way before Wagoner ever took over. GM has been on a steep downward slope since the 70's. Wagoner may not have helped much or did not turn things around as well as he should but you have to admit GM vehicles have been much improved in the past 3 or 4 years or so under Wagoner then then they were in the 70's, 80's, 90's, early 2000's. Still for a company that was in such bad shape, has received billions in taxpayer bailout money that has failed, and is now bankrupt, none of the CEO's or Executives deserve or should be getting high salaries anymore and GM should not be giving Wagoner millions to retire. He is already rich and has enough money, 74K a year for the rest of his life is plenty without a couple million on top of that.

The bottom line is Wagoner took over GM which was the #1 auto maker in the world and he left it in bankruptcy. I say throw him in jail to set a good example for all those other greedy and overpaid CEOs, not reward him with millions.