CEOs don't get paid for "working hard." They get paid for increasing the value of the company. Period. Whether they work 5 minutes a week or 100 hours a weeks is irrelevant.
The reason the threshold is $200k-single/$250k couples is because that's where the money is. So Obama says "millionaires and billionaires' but its really about the upper middle class, hell maybe even just middle class in some cities for a couple with 2 kids in college. I'll make a prediction: Just wait, before its all over I'll wager we see a tax on retirement accounts in the name of a "wealth" tax. Again, look at all the money in IRA's and 401k's, most of it from people in the middle income group. Don't think its possible? What party came up with a tax on SS benefits?
in theory, yes. but look at yahoo CEO bartz earned millions. did she increase the value for shareholders? I don't think so. still earned millions? check. could anybody else actually have done worse? i don't think so. i think ceo's are more replacable than you think, just like and average employee. and that's why there should be no reason to overpay. maybe only ceos like jobs. but he has a 1$ salary and gets stock options taxed at 15%, lower than avrage worker, which is what obamas tax will battle.
Ed Whitacre earned $30MM a year while his company languished in a bull market. So what's your point exactly? There (presently) is zero correlation between CEO pay and corporate performance. How many examples would you like...? I have hundreds.
If you believe in capitalism, then it's up to the investors in such companies to decide whether or not the CEO's are overpaid, deservce their pay, or they should be sacked. If you don't like such companies, don't invest in them and don't buy their products. It's not your business really, if you are a not owner, as long as tax money is not involved (assuming that you are in the group that actually pay income taxes)
excuse me but the real issue here is: the government is using buffett to sell us higher taxes instead of doing what needs to be done (cut entitlements, get out of wars) redistribution of wealth is nothing more than robbery propagated by the middle and lower income brackets. redistribution of wealth is probably the most unamerican thing i can think of: imagine someone who graduated high school valedictorian, went on to double major in economics and finance at harvard with a 3.5gpa and gets an incredibly rare but sweet job opporunity that pays out 350k his first year out of college why is she/he suddenly robbed, what has he done at any point in his life, that justifies a 35% tax on his earnings? meanwhile why does a person who dropped out of high school, refuses to take "shitty jobs" at macdonalds and on highway construction teams get to take the harvard grads money? you can be sure of 1 thing: the government these days is backwards as f***, they could solve the debt crisis in one foul swoop, but they choose to do the most stupid thing possible....warp any incentive people had to risk their capital and be entrepreneurs and wipe out the upper middle class so that lower income america can continue to put rims on their cars and macdonalds in their bellies while voting democrat
Someone set up a website that shows number of days since Buffett asked to pay more taxes without him sending a big fat check to the Treasury. You'd get A TON of hits & make nice ad revenue.
The government should just announce a one time wealth (wealth redistribution) tax of 50% on anyone with a net worth of a billion dollars or more. I gurantee ya, wealth may not go to the government or the poor, but there would be a lot of redistribution before the law went into effect.
This is exactly what I thought until AAA posted an opinion on the subject recently. Now I'm not as certain as I was.