Jerry Marks (AutoRetailStocks.com) submits: Many board members award themselves (yes, that's how it's done) gold-plated pay packages even though they regularly play hooky in ways that would get the average worker canned in a heartbeat. More than 520 directors from Equilars database of about 4,000 companies missed 25% or more of their board meetings in the last two years. Most of those meetings last just two days.Source: Michael Brush, MSN Money, December 16, 2005 "Pay soars in the board room"One of the things I said with this quarter's rankings was that I need to do a better job understanding the board of directors of each of the companies in the auto retail stocks index.    Complete Story »