The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street: March 14

4. Blackstone's Compensation Conundrum

On Wall Street, shoddy work rarely goes unrewarded for long. Exhibit A is BlackstoneBX CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who got $350.7 million in salary and an additional $4.77 billion in stock for his work in 2007.

Before readers get too indignant at the hefty sum, they should note that the stock probably won't stay that high. Shares have sunk from $31 to $16 since the company's June IPO. If they continue their descent, big Steve's wallet will be decidedly lighter by the time Blackstone celebrates its first birthday as a publicly traded company. And, as many of his shares will vest over the next several years, he can't cash in now, while Blackstone is still worth something.

Nevertheless, whoever bought some of the $684 million stake Schwarzman sold when the private equity firm came public might have a few questions for him. In advance of Blackstone's IPO, Schwarzman was reportedly living it up, dining on $40 crab legs and running up $3,000 food bills on a given weekend.

To its credit, Blackstone wisely withheld any bonus for its CEO so his interests would line up with those of shareholders. The board might want to align those interests a little harder; on Monday, the company announced it swung to a fourth-quarter loss of $170 million from a profit of $1.2 billion a year ago.

But the same day as Blackstone's earnings release, news emerged that Schwarzman had made a $100 million personal donation to revamp New York City's Central Library. Shareholders will be comforted to know that their investment will at least net them vastly improved book-borrowing privileges.

Dumb-o-meter score: 82. "Difficult market conditions in the U.S. and Europe continue in 2008 and there is little visibility on when these conditions might improve," Schwarzman said in the company's earnings statement. Schwarzman conditions, on the other hand, will likely remain just fine.