Under the terms of the contract he signed in 1997, American University President Benjamin Ladner could walk away from the job with a package worth more than $1 million. …By the terms of his 1997 contract, Ladner could step down with a one-year leave with full salary and benefits if he were terminated, plus compensation equal to his base salary … It also provides for $50,000 for relocation, as well as a tenured professorship that is always 20 percent higher than the next-highest faculty salary.

[One compensation expert] said he had never seen a contract that specified pay 20 percent higher than the highest faculty salary.

John Mack, the new C.E.O. at Morgan Stanley, initially demanded in the contract he signed June 30 that his total pay for the next two years would be no less than the average pay package received by the C.E.O.'s at Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. If that average turned out to be more than $25 million, Mr. Mack was to be paid at least that much. He eventually backed off that demand after a howl of protest, but it struck me as the epitome of what is wrong in America today. … We are now playing defense. A top C.E.O. wants to be paid not based on his performance, but based on the average of his four main rivals!