CEO Excesses Under Scrutiny

A lot of people who own stock have been screaming about what they see as excessive compensation given to some corporate CEOs.

Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering new regulations that would require corporations to make public a lot more details about what they're paying their top executives, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.

It is the iconic image of CEO excess: the former head of Tyco, Dennis Kozlowksi's million-dollar birthday party — thrown for his wife but paid for by his company — right down to his own personal Jimmy Buffett concert.

Call it what you want — waste, greed, wretched excess. The new head of the SEC, Christopher Cox, wants to call it "compensation" and add a dollar figure, so investors get a better picture of just what top execs are making.

"Investors have a right to know how money in the companies in which they invest is being spent," Cox says.

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"The shareholders own the company," Cox says. "They have a right to ensure that their money is being wisely spent. And that's just as true when it comes to how much executives are paid as it is to how much they're paying for their raw materials and their inventory."

To longtime shareholder advocate Sarah Teslik, it's about time.

"I am more optimistic about this regulation having a significant and a positive effect than any regulation I've seen out of the SEC in 25 years," she says.

Teslik says it's about giving investors some sunshine as they consider if the boss is worth what he or she is getting.

"If you can know only thing about a company, you probably shouldn't pick the stock price. You should probably pick what this regulation is going to tell you, what the CEO is getting paid," Teslik says.

The old rules made it impossible to know how much top management was making — no dollar signs on perks like limos, company jets, and artwork. How do you know if the CEO is worth what he's earning if you don't really know what he's earning?

"This is not a populist demand for reduced compensation. This is a demand for more accountable compensation that in effect allows investors to relate pay to performance," says John Coffee of Columbia University Law School.

So why the changes now? A decade ago, two thirds of a CEO pay package was cash. The rest was stocks, options, and perks — all those things reported without a dollar figure attached. Today, that's just about the reverse. Most of a pay package is compensation that flies under the radar and that's what the SEC wants you to see in the sunlight.