Investors should be forever grateful to Robert Nardelli, the chief executive of Home Depot who has just walked off with a $210m severance package in exchange for years of lacklustre share price performance. For while it is galling to see failure so handsomely rewarded, he has at least demonstrated beyond all doubt how the arguments used by corporate America to justify the stock options culture are palpable nonsense.

Mr Nardelli’s pay since taking office at the giant retailer in 2000 has been valued at more than $240m with much of it in the form of options. This, according to options advocates, aligned his interests with those of shareholders. Some alignment: shareholders in Home Depot lost real money, while Mr Nardelli secured a king’s ransom. Alignment with or without options is anyway a pipedream. Shareholders are a disparate bunch with different balance sheets, time horizons and risk appetites. The same applies to CEOs, who have differing personal balance sheets and operate under different behavioural constraints. No pay package will ever pull off the alignment trick, whatever pay consultants – an unregulated and conflicted bunch – may claim.