Only need paint, mopboards and mat (Jan 24)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
We are told that one of the reasons John Thain was fired was that he spent $1 million decorating his office, and that he paid his chauffeur $200,000 a year.
Thain was the CEO of Merrill Lynch when it was purchased in September by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch is a firm of stockbrokers based in New York. Bank of America is the bank down the street. We have a B of A in Madera.
Thain was fired this week after Merrill Lynch lost $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, a loss about which he neglected to tell Bank of America.
The last day or two, since finding out about Thain’s million-dollar office renovation, I have been trying to decide how I would spend $1 million decorating my office. So far, I have come up with a coat of paint, some new mopboards and a new chair mat. A chair mat is what you put on your floor to keep the chair from wrecking the carpet.
About the only way you could come close to spending $1 million decorating my office would be to paper the walls and ceiling with $100 bills, but even that, including the wallpaper paste, would require only a mere $567,000. If I did that sort of decorating, I wouldn’t need the paint job or the mopboards.
Mrs. Doud probably would say she didn’t like the color.
The offices of the people at the local Bank of America didn’t cost $1 million to decorate, or if it did, they were cheated. The executive offices look just like the rest of the bank, which is neat and functional, but not high on the fancy-meter.
The executives don’t have $200,000 chauffeurs, either.
Merrill Lynch was founded in 1914 by Charles Merrill, who probably is rolling over in his grave. Did he spend $1 million redecorating his office then? I’d bet not. He probably would have gone for a new coat of paint, new mopboards and a new chair mat.
