Survey: Employees Angry About Bosses Pay

At least there's one thing that employees can agree on. Most think their bosses are way overpaid.

Indeed, the vast majority of adults think their bosses make too much money. What's more, employees say they're angry about the situation.

These are the conclusions of a recent Harris Poll of 2,023 workers conducted online by Harris Interactive between.

Specifically, 87 percent think top company managers are paid more than they deserve, and that they become rich at the expense of ordinary workers.

Just 1 percent think the top managers earn less than they deserve while 12 percent think they make what they deserve.

Moreover, 85 percent of those who think top managers become rich at the expense of ordinary workers are angry about it, and 46 percent are very angry.

Indeed, 66 percent of all adults believe that rewards in the workplace are distributed less fairly today than they were five years ago.

This anger is especially strong among the 37 percent of the individuals who say they are worse off today than they were five years ago (34 percent say they are better off and 29 percent say "about the same").

In general, the older people are, the more likely they are to say they are worse off, and to feel angrier.

Take the 18-to-24 year-old group. A majority (53 percent) say they are better off and only 21 percent are worse off. As a result, just 49 percent of this group feels angry about the level of top managers' pay (and only 19 percent are very angry).

But for workers age 65 and over, half feel worse off today than five years ago. About 86 percent of the respondents say they're angry about the situation -- and 59 percent are very angry.

In addition, 66 percent of all respondents think rewards in the American workplace are distributed less fairly than five years ago. Just 7 percent think they are distributed more fairly while 27 percent believe they are distributed just as fairly.

SEC Probing Atlas Air
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. said the Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting an informal inquiry in connection with the company's decision to initiate a re-audit of its financial results for fiscal years 2000 and 2001.

"The company intends to cooperate fully with the Commission in respect of this inquiry," it said in a regulatory filing last Friday.

As CFO.com reported Friday, Atlas Air said it will restate and re-audit its financial results for fiscal 2000 and 2001 after determining that certain adjustments were required in a number of areas.

The company's management said it arrived at this decision while conducting a systematic review of its financial records and accounting policies.

In April Atlas named Ernst & Young to replace Andersen as its independent auditor.

Speculative-Grade Default Rate Falls
Here's further proof that the economy might have already bottomed.

The global default rate for speculative-grade issuers fell to 9.2 percent in September from 9.6 percent in August. That's the seventh time the speculative-grade default rate has declined in the last nine months, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Further, Moody's predicts that the global speculative-grade default rate will drop to 8.4 percent by the end of the year and drop to 7.4 percent by the end of the third quarter in 2003.

Moody's cautioned, however, that fundamental credit quality is still under pressure and that aggregate default rates, while trending down, will remain high for the foreseeable future.

"The forecasted improvement in the default rate is largely being driven by the fact that the pace of default activity reached a peak in the first half of 2002," said David T. Hamilton, director of default research at Moody's. "While we expect default activity to be high in nominal terms, it will be relatively less intense in 2003."

Moody's said seven rated issuers defaulted on a total of $13.2 billion of bonds in September.

The three largest rated defaults were Telewest Communications ($5.2 billion), AT&T Canada ($3 billion), and NRG Energy ($3 billion).

In addition, the dollar-volume-weighted speculative-grade default rate fell for the first time in 16 months.

Moody's also pointed out that three defaulters in September totaling $6.2 billion held investment grade ratings within a year of default, according to Moody's.

Altogether, defaults in 2002 by issuers carrying investment-grade ratings within a year of default totaled $41.7 billion. Of the 10 investment-grade defaults this year, WorldCom's bankruptcy accounts for $23.2 billion, or 56 percent, of the total.

In the third quarter of 2002, 25 Moody's-rated issuers defaulted on a total of $56.9 billion of debt worldwide. This compares with 40 rated issuers that defaulted on $21.3 billion in the third quarter 2001.

In the first three quarters of 2002, 115 Moody's-rated issuers have defaulted on a total of $138.8 billion of debt, compared to 139 issuers that defaulted on $71.5 billion in the first three quarters of 2001.

In other rating news, Moody's downgraded the senior unsecured debt ratings of The Walt Disney Co. to Baa1 from A3. In addition, the ratings subsidiaries Disney Enterprises and ABC, Inc. were downgraded to A3 from A2. The ratings of ABC Family were downgraded to Baa2 from Baa1.

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