Morgan Stanley is giving fired executive Phillip J. Purcell a golden parachute of $113 million.

The mind boggles.

This is a man who, in his short tenure as chief executive of Morgan Stanley, was a complete disaster—so much so that he had to be fired lest every other executive at the firm quit.

One wonders what he would have been paid if he’d been even reasonably competent.

But one doesn’t have to wonder why Morgan Stanley announced this late on a Thursday afternoon after a terrorist attack…. The firm clearly hopes no one will notice. Let’s hope they’re wrong.