Posted on 12/15/2011 4:48:26 AM PST by TSgt
Exclusive survey shows America's CEOs enjoyed pay hikes of up to 40% last year – with one chief executive earning $145m
Chief executive pay has roared back after two years of stagnation and decline. America's top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year, according to the largest survey of US CEO pay. The dramatic bounceback comes as the latest government figures show wages for the majority of Americans are failing to keep up with inflation.
America's highest paid executive took home more than $145.2m, and as stock prices recovered across the board, the median value of bosses' profits on stock options rose 70% in 2010, from $950,400 to $1.3m. The news comes against the backdrop of an Occupy Wall Street movement that has focused Washington's attention on the pay packages of America's highest paid.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It's not working.
I do what I feel like, when I feel like doing it.
I’m not bound by rules, like you.
Ditto with the shareholders.
Not necessarily true. I can remember owning more stock in a company I worked for than several members of the board....combined. BTW, this was a VERY large Fortune 500 company.
Capitalism, like any other institution, requires maintenance. If capitalists get lazy and greedy (i.e. the corrupt back-scratching satirized in the "Dilbert" cartoon at the top of the thread), the institution decays and becomes incapable of sustaining itself against attack.
Some "capitalists" are a greater threat to capitalism than the entire OWS clown brigade put together.
“It’s not working.”
For you either.
The substance of his comments were on target.
Indeed. The one regulation I would impose would be a ban on "golden parachutes", insuring that if the company fails, the executives personally go down with the ship.
Sadly an indication that the Obama campaign to gin up class warfare in this country may succeed. And our corporate leaders can be counted on to help the effort along with impeccable timing.
More attempts at class warfare, it is no one’s business how much CEOs make. What ever the make is neither taking money from anyone else or giving it to them. This is BS and goes along with the frickin’ OWS BS, trying to bring down capitalism.
Tell us how CEOs making money is causing the down turn in the economy. Don't you think that Government interference is actually the cause of the bad economy or haven't you been paying attention. The reason capitalism doesn't seem to be working is because this country isn't capitalistic anymore, it is fascism at its finest.
Over regulation, over taxation and stupid rules such at Nafta have brought our country to it's knees, not capitalism.
One thing I do notice, when God was instructing the ancient Israelites was that wealth was not meant to be a permanent institution. At the Jubilee, all debts were cleared and all wealth was supposed to be relinquished. A person was free to create as much wealth as they could, but, if it had been obeyed, there could never be a continual concentration of wealth.
Now personally, I don’t care if somebody drives a fancier car or lives in a bigger home or has a much bigger wallet than I do. But I cannot help but wonder if a society can remain stable, if any small group within it is capable of gathering wealth to the point where they become permanently wealthy and is capable of ensuring that the rest of society is incapable of doing the same thing.
You want to look at a permanent wealthy class? Look to your politicians, the same a**hats who decry a CEO for making money use insider trading and other unethical and illegal means to enrich themselves at tax payers expense. They provide nothing in return, they don't create jobs(government jobs don't count as they are dependent on the taxpayer for their paychecks). You are bitching at the wrong bunch of people if you want to end a "permanent wealthy class" in this country.
I know. The effect is the same, regardless of whomever becomes part of the permanent priviliged class.
All my point is that, when that permanent class develops, it eventually destabilizes society. I wasn’t making an entreaty on the evils of wealth.
Wealth, in and of itself, is not an evil thing to have and I am thankful that our society is free to create it.
tu salute. In any event, Some of the directors usually are major stockholders or controlled by large groups of stockholders. Ultimately they can’t hold on if they are not backed by a voting majority.
And of course, not every company is publicly owned. Or a family may retain control with a large percent even if they go public. No reason for the government to control what they make, either.
...and as for that voting majority stuff, anyone who believes in the integrity of those votes is naive.
What capitalism? We no longer have a free market. What we have is crony capitalism that has an incestuous relationship with fund managers and mutual funds as well as the retirement funds held by unions and other entities. None of these are controlled by the real owners of those assets. The progressives on Wall Street have separated the owners from the means of production. In classical fascist fashion it’s not ownership that counts but control. Between them and their cronies in government the rest of us are being screwed big time. We haven’t lived in a free market capitalist system for some time now. The entrepreneurial and middle classes are being wiped out by the corp[orate statist collectivist machine...
Democratically elected Republicanism and capitalism are our saving graces and both are proven successfully American.
Have a better idea?
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