[shrinkermd]

Thomas Sowell takes a difficult subject, makes it interesting and then explains it in an inimitable way.

[kinghorse]

We aren't. That's up to the stockholders.

[proxy_user]

No one is objecting to pay negotiated in the free market between a willing employee and a willing employer.

However, if you put all your buddies on the Board of Directors, and they vote you the CEO of the year, that is a different matter. He who does that is just conspiring to transfer the output from capital the stockholders have put up into his own pocket.

I have no quarrel with guys like Blll Gates and Warren Buffet--they have spent their lifetimes creating enormous wealth.

But the guy who signs on today with a company that already has a capitalization of $10 billion, what did he do to earn a big stake? I would at least like to see a little performance first, and I mean compared to other companies in that sector.

[r9etb]

Worth $25 million/year?

[1rudeboy]

This thread was needed a few days ago.

[i_dont_chat]

Who Are We To Say Who Is Overpaid?

I have an opinion, and because we have free speech in this country, I can voice my opinion.

You don't have to like my opinion or agree with it.

I think there are many people who are overpaid for what they do. So, there!

[PeterFinn]

Sorry, Mr. Sowell. I do not see the worth of paying some 'tard millions of dollars while his company goes in the shi**er and has to layoff 20-25% of it's workforce - as in the case of Paul Otellini at Intel. Paying this jerkoff a fortune to act as a corporate raider by selling off valuable assets of the company *just as they are set to turn a profit* is NOT doing a service to the shareholders of Intel.

The current Business Roundtable ethos of the CEO's purpose being to deliver profits this quarter (whatever quarter that may be) while not caring f*ck all for the future of the firm is destructive in the extreme.

I am blessed to work for a multi-billion dollar family-owned firm that has been in business for 140 years and they steadfastly refuse to hire jerkoffs like Otellini because they want to be in business 140 years from now.

It's the mindset that is obsessed with short-term corporate profits over long-term corporate survival that will be the downfall of this country.

Were livestock firms run by Wall Street they'd slaughter everything in order to return "record profits" for one quarter and then next quarter they'd move on to ruin another business.

I'm no leftie, but having corporate raiders run our national infrastructure is never going to come to any good. We need responsible men with a commitment to their company, their product, and their employees and the profits will happen on their own.

[Beckwith]

At $15 million per year, Katie Kouric is waaayyyy overpaid.

Says me.

[Waco]

Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, Tom Cruise, etc, etc,

[gcruse]

Sorry, Thomas, but when Pfizer pays a departing CEO a $180 million bonus and the price of prescription drugs is so high people have to go out of the country to get them, someone's salary is too high.

[Trajan88]

Read in today's Dallas Morning News that J.C. Penney's newest COO (on the job less than a year) was *hit canned yesterday and received a $10,000,000 "golden parachute" to get the heck out of Plano (Texas). I can see Penney's building from my office... I bet there a lot of career Penney corporate folks grumbling today (this COO was an outsider that honed her "skills" in the non-retail corporate world). Me thinks Penneys learned a very costly lesson over this.

[rebelyell7]

I think athletes are more reasonably paid than CEOs. With athletes there is a direct correlation between success and compensation and you can clearly see how much money their efforts are generating. CEOs (of the ultra-high paid, hired gun type) tend to be paid hugely whether or not they perform and hired based on guesswork about whether their previous success was due to luck, situation or talent.