Arrogance? Hubris? Insanity? ... or Just Plain Stupid?

Sometimes you have to laugh. Either the CEOs are just plain arrogant or they have determined the average walking-around Joe is just plain stupid.

Morgan Stanley reported a stunning fourth-quarter loss fueled by $9.4 billion of losses in subprime mortgages and other assets. The CEO John Mack did not step down, but said he would just skip his yearly bonus. Wow. Is that generous, or what?! Arrogance? Perhaps.

I guess he will have to live off his $37M he made last year. Plus, he had to sell 10% of the company to the Chinese to shore up the capital, and they're paying almost 10% interest on that!

So, what was his answer to all of this? "The results we announced today are embarassing for me." This was Mack's response to a conference all of the investment bank's first quarterly loss in its 72-year history.

So, what are the shareholders going to do about all this? Nothing. Not a thing.