CEOs at troubled companies often set their salaries at $1 a year. Lee Iaccoca did it at Chrysler and Steve Jobs did the same at Apple (AAPL). The gesture allows the poor wretches who have been laid off and the impoverished shareholders believe that the commander-in-chief is willing to make a sacrifice

One CEO who should certainly step his pay down to a buck is Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of "dead man walking" hardware company Sun Microsystems (JAVA).

Over the last year, Schwartz has managed to drop the value of Sun’s stock by 45%. The company cut about 5,000 people in 2006. Recently its said it plans to let another 1,500 to 2,500 go. A few more people went in 2007, but the exact head count is hard to come by.

In the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, Sun revenue dropped 1.4% to $3.78 billion. Net income fell to $88 million from $329 million in the same quarter a year ago. The numbers don’t look very much like Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ).

In the meantime, Schwartz has done remarkably well. According to the most recent Sun proxy, he had a base salary of over $981,000 and total compensation of $14.1 million.

Just think. Over 100 engineers could have kept their jobs.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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