GM - More of the same

I predict that I will be having lunch today, or at the grocery store, or at yoga class and someone will say to me, "Can you believe that they gave the joker who ruined GM $21 million dollars to leave?"

The following WSJ headline, if that's all you read, gets one precisely to that spot:

For Wagoner, $21 Million at the Exit

If you do read the article, you will see that $20 million (of the $21) is pension and benefits (he worked at GM since 1992). The remainder is deferred comp and stock that he earned in prior years.

If the Journal wasn't interested in engendering outrage, a more accurate headline would have been, "GM's Wagoner had a pension plan, but then again so did every GM employee."