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Bring Back Stock Options And Million Dollar Secretaries

Employee Stock Options And Greed Are Good For Markets

There are two types of forces in the world: the acute and the
chronic. We are obsessed with the acute, but the chronic is far more
powerful.

A 1% increase a day will turn $1,000 into one  billion in under four
years, yet no one is interested in 1% daily moves. The ambient can be
much more influential than the dramatic.

I put this forward as it occurs to me that an engine of the American
bull run of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s is dead and gone. No one even
remembers what it was.

Could something small that’s been removed have created a hole in the
bottom of the American boat that is slowly but surely sinking it?

Do you remember old style employee options? Do you remember tales of
the hosts of Silicon Valley secretaries becoming millionaires at their
garage start-ups? These were the same start ups powered by engineers
working night and day on their bleeding edge projects, obsessed by their
option packages.

The change of accounting treatment for options pushed their financial
impact to the profit line of the company. The new rules meant profit
was smashed by employee option grants. This change killed the options
culture. Has the U.S. economy followed the  more http://bit.ly/aamIlR