Some of you companies out there have about a year before all hell breaks loose.

That's when the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed executive compensation disclosure rules are expected to take effect. The new rules will require every public company to explain in a single, plain-English report the actual value of what they give their CEO, CFO, highest-paid executives and directors.

Disclosures resulting from the new rules will add fuel to rising public ire over the idea that top execs are paid a hundred times or more than the average worker -- and that many of these packages go to people who failed to build business or shareholder value. As New York Times columnist Joseph Nocera wrote, this next level of post-Enron forced transparency won't bode well for many of our nation's corporate citizens:

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