Good debate. The last few years have proven that if the market is left to fend for itself, that is deregulating the financial sector, then people in financially influential positions (Wall Street) WILL funnel cash to themselves. They did do it. They took so much money that the economy broke. The Obama Administration in combination with the lingering effects of the Bush Administration allowed businesses to be excruciatingly hostile toward consumers. Now everybody except the top 10% of Americans are paying for it.
Again, you guys are viewing this through some kind of a party affiliation. Freethinker's point is that the assertions made by the Republicans about tax-cuts solving the current economic malaise is baseless. He is not defending Obama nor the Democrats.
Bloomberg's Al Hunt recently did a story on the Koch Brothers, who I haven't really read about before. But there are other articles that are interesting on them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/08/koch-brothers-lobbying "Across a range of activities â from the birth of the Tea Party to undermining unions in Wisconsin, to opposing efforts to curb global warming â they have been believed by many Democrats to be forever lurking behind the headlines." Apparently there is a Republican "George Soros" type sponsor. Though the Koch Bros apparently inherited their money, while Soros didn't.
Money went to the corporations. Almost all of them are public corporations and means anyone can buy shares in their company and become part owners. In fact, the largest shareholders of many of these companies are public unions, they benefit from good profits. The other issue of the left is this great envy of CEO's. Yes, some are unfairly over compensated, but the overall cost to a multi-billion dollar corporation is very small. There are no more then a few thousand people who can run an international corporation with 100,000 employees. It is one position that if you get a bad CEO it will do much harm to a company. Just like pro athletes the pool of choices is small, this causes relatively high wages. Most compensation is in the form of stock or stock options, so the costs go against the value of the company and not the cash flow of a company. It means a top executive gets a penny or two for every product sold.
I don't think it's envy - I think it's a reaction to theft - theft from the shareholders. CEO pay is ridiculous. The obvious question is - If the CEO was to be hit by a bolt of lightning tomorrow, would the company collapse? If "No", then there are very few CEO's like Steve Jobs that can really add value to a company on a scale that warrants so high a compensation. And Jobs helped START Apple - so he is more than a CEO - he is an entrepreneur. That isn't the same as a baby-sitting teet sucker that thinks he's entitled to be paid like LeBron James when he performs like Woody Allen on the basketball court.
All CEO pay is approved by the board of directors and those decisions are approved in annual shareholder votes. One can justify the pay of a Tiger woods or Derek Jeter because we all have a sense of how difficult their talents are. Few people have any sense of the impact of a CEO. Look at RIM or Nokia, they are falling behind because they have not kept up with the competition. The result may be thousands of jobs lost. The Left is so ignorant of the effort needed to run a successful company. Many feel that if a bolt a lighting hit a CEO it wouldn't effect the operation of a company, when the truth is that if it hit any other employee that employee is the one that is expendable.
For most companies, a bolt of lightning hitting the CEO wouldn't affect the company much - though the self-aggrandizing CEO's would like you to think otherwise. RIMM and Nokia stock are in the toilet. What about their CEO pay? The CEO's are a drain on the company - and being paid so well makes them among the biggest drains. But they think they are ENTITLED no matter their performance. It's CEO Entitlements. No - most are just baby-sitting a company they didn't found and the executive board sucks the teet of the company along with them. Then they pay for "consultants" to tell them they are underpaid.
Look man, everybody sees that the skill to be a CEO needs to be adequately compensated. We all know that EVERYONE works hard in a company. The issue really is that the difference in compensation is so vast and made worse with executive bonuses that the question of fairness arises. If management and workers together produced a product...and the company makes a profit by selling that product, why should the profits not be evenly distributed among management and workers? We are not asking about a lower base pay for the CEO we acknowledge that to attract talent the base pay has to be competitive. However, where is the justification for the bonuses being focused only on the top-tier of management?
Michael Lazaridis Co-Founder, Co-Chairman, Co-Chief Executive Officer, President and Member of Strategic Planning Committee Salary $1,175,664 Total Annual Compensation $1,175,664 STOCK OPTIONS* Restricted Stock Awards $2,708,340 All Other Compensation $10,777 Exercised Options Value $3,628,503 Total Value of Options $8,973,864 Total Number of Options 350,000 TOTAL COMPENSATION* Total Annual Cash Compensation $2,391,202 Total Short Term Compensation $1,175,664 Other Long Term Compensation $2,719,117 Total Calculated Compensation $5,112,128 RIM has revenue of 20 billion. The cash outlays for top management is nothing. The rest comes from stock compensation that does not effect any working capitol. If youwant to take the pay from the CEO and give to to the shareholders I am ok with that if the board approves, but I think it will hurt the company in the long run. If a CEO can double or triple revenue , grab market share, I would double his pay.