corporate governance and misplaced trust

corporate governance has been kicked around quite a fair bit recently with several high profile corporate failure and corporate fraud. there were some changes made towards ensuring better corporate governance and corporate transparency to protect minority shareholders' interest. and of course there were a lot of cheap talks about corporate governance but with very little attempt to make real changes that will benefit the genuine small shareholders. there have been a few cases of disclosure where absentee directors were kept in the board and continue to be paid generously. are the few cases that were made public all there is or were they only the tip of the iceberg? how many redundant senior management staff have been retained for all kinds of reasons except the right reason in the industries. how many are kept and paid handsomely at the expense of returns to shareholders? at the lower end of the economic structure, workers above 40 are expected to take a pay cut as they grow older, presumably becoming less productive. but at the top management level, many who have outlived their usefulness, or no longer as productive as before, are still being kept and paid continuously increasing salaries. some even have special posts created just to keep them in the payroll. the question is, whose money is used to pay for these senior gentlemen who are no longer shouldering their share of the load? there are of course some senior gentlemen who still worth every cent they received. but not many. does the current corporate governance practices ensure that everyone is being paid his worth and not large wages and perks to recognise past contributions of senior management staff?