[Night Hides Not]

Mr. Carty has repeatedly apologized, saying he was "enormously naive" about employee reaction to the disclosure. The company canceled the retention bonuses on Friday. The protected pension fund stands.

Why is AMR paying so many $$$ to such an 'enormously naive' officer. I thought that paying Mr. Carty the big bucks would prevent such a thing.

How enormously naive of me!!!!

Sorry gang, the BS surrounding executive compensation has worn me down. When I see highly educated, and very talented, men and women sidelined because of the current slowdown, I have to ask myself about the current corporate leadership, 'is this the best these companies can do?'

[xJones]

AMR director Michael Miles and Mr. Carty both sit on the boards of Sears Roebuck & Co. and Dell Computer Corp. Another AMR board member, Edward Brennan, was chairman of Sears until 1995.

Mr. Brennan was chairman of and Mr. Miles sat on the AMR board's compensation and nominating committee, according to the company's 2001 proxy statement to the SEC. AMR hasn't released its 2002 proxy statement.

Mr. Brennan and Mr. Miles also are members of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co.'s board, whose chairman and chief executive, Philip Purcell, is an AMR director. The financial services giant also has done work for AMR.

The highly educated and very talented people sidelined during the current recession that you mentioned lacked one qualification; the incestuous "good old boy" network.

[Dialup Llama]

>Sorry gang, the BS surrounding executive compensation has worn me down.

The whole exec compensation bonanza started out with a nice libertarian premise- that you pay someone big bucks to deliver profits. Now its just a cash grab.

They just buy growth by levering the balance sheet. Grab the money and bailout. Many times execs are raiding companies that cannot afford it. Often their compensation continues years and years after they've left.