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http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/1...pay/index.htm?hpt=T2

CEOs earn 343 times more than typical workers

By Jennifer Liberto

quote:
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- In 2010, chief executives at some of the nation's largest companies earned an average of $11.4 million in total pay -- 343 times more than a typical American worker, according to the AFL-CIO.

"Despite the collapse of the financial market at the hands of executives less than 3 years ago, the disparity between CEO and workers' pay has continued to grow to levels that are simply stunning," said Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president.

In an effort to shine a light on CEO pay, the AFL-CIO examined chief executive salaries at 299 firms traded on the S&P 500. Their compensation was up 23% in 2010, compared to 2009. AFL-CIO used Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data to define typical worker pay, which was $33,190 for all occupations in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available.

That and more data is posted on the website paywatch.org, which is run by the union group. The site will eventually post CEO pay for all 500 companies, as that data is released in proxies submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)....

"Apparently Wall Street doesn't want people to know that while working Americans paid for the economic crisis with their jobs, their homes and their retirement savings, these Teflon CEOs escaped unscathed," Trumka said.

According to the AFL-CIO, in 1980, CEOs at the largest companies received 42 times the pay of the average worker. In 2000 the gap hit a high, with CEOs making 525 times the average worker.

In 2010, the gap narrowed with CEOs making 343 times the average worker, said Trumka, who himself makes roughly four times the average worker.

"If (CEOs) go down to four-to-one, I'd take it," Trumka said.
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quote:
Originally posted by Ronnie P.:
Do you seriously not understand the difference between the public and private sector. If you don't like what a CEO makes don't buy their products or stock and then you won't be paying their salaries or pensions. So simple a Obamatard could do it.


I lean right on most issues but you are wrong on this GM workers were vilified for their earned pension benefits. Meanwhile it is ok for CEO's to be the only ones in the country "besides politicians" to be made whole salary wise. It is nothing but a good old boys club where they all sit on each others boards so they look out for each other. Even Warren Buffet agrees that CEO compensation is out of control.
quote:
they've negotiated

If the company stock holders approve of it, what do you want to do?

What is your ratio TB? How much more do you make than your lowest paid employee?

Walmart CEO makes about 20mil, starting wage is around $7.50. You want the high school dropout running the company? That salary has a lot of responsibility, but you should already know that as CEO yourself.
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
quote:
they've negotiated

If the company stock holders approve of it, what do you want to do?

What is your ratio TB? How much more do you make than your lowest paid employee?

Walmart CEO makes about 20mil, starting wage is around $7.50. You want the high school dropout running the company? That salary has a lot of responsibility, but you should already know that as CEO yourself.


No one is advocating a high school dropout but there is a disconnect between pay and performance. Name one CEO whose company tanked and he was fired without a generous severance package. The stockholders are in the dark about the true pay packages CEOs get. Remember no one knew other than the board the retirement perks Jack Welch of GE received until his wife revealed the details during their divorce.
I agree the pay is very high. But the pressure is high as well.

Why do we pay athletes a million to toss a ball around? Why do we pay entertainers a few more million to make us laugh for 2 hours? Why do we pay politicians hundreds of thousands to work 90 days out of the year?

How do you determine the actual worth of the occupation vs the dollar amount?
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
quote:
they've negotiated

If the company stock holders approve of it, what do you want to do?

What is your ratio TB? How much more do you make than your lowest paid employee?

Walmart CEO makes about 20mil, starting wage is around $7.50. You want the high school dropout running the company? That salary has a lot of responsibility, but you should already know that as CEO yourself.


What if all those high school dropouts stocking the shelves and ringing up the sales vanished, and the CEO then had do all that himself? He would soon realize how valuable all those high school dropouts are.

Unless, of course, you have 13.5 million unemployed hanging around, just in case you might need somebody to, you know, fill in sometime.
quote:
Originally posted by The Propagandist:
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
quote:
they've negotiated

If the company stock holders approve of it, what do you want to do?

What is your ratio TB? How much more do you make than your lowest paid employee?

Walmart CEO makes about 20mil, starting wage is around $7.50. You want the high school dropout running the company? That salary has a lot of responsibility, but you should already know that as CEO yourself.


What if all those high school dropouts stocking the shelves and ringing up the sales vanished, and the CEO then had do all that himself? He would soon realize how valuable all those high school dropouts are.

Unless, of course, you have 13.5 million unemployed hanging around, just in case you might need somebody to, you know, fill in sometime.


You don't think he did that himself at one time? Was he born a CEO? So what should he make and what should be minimum wage?
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Why do we pay athletes a million to toss a ball around? Why do we pay entertainers a few more million to make us laugh for 2 hours? Why do we pay politicians hundreds of thousands to work 90 days out of the year?

Good point. How much are the people who clean up the stadium, the sound set, or the White House paid? Why don't we hear about the "unfairness" they suffer?
Ah, to be the head of a large American corporation... can you imagine what life must be like at the top?

CEO pay has increased 45% in the past ten years. Contrast this with the fact that the federal minimum wage increase, which just went into effect, gives bottom-rung workers roughly 7% less money, in real terms, than they were making a decade ago.

http://www.wisebread.com/how-m...ey-should-a-ceo-make
It's mostly rigged anyway you look at it. When you get to that level you find that the Board of Directors usually set the raises for the CEO's. Most large companies find a way to put various CEO's on their own Boards and then the ones that are given Board positions then, in turn, find a way to get those CEO's into their Boards and each one scratches the others backs by giving them fat salaries.

The sad thing is that very few, ultra few, actually know anything about what the workers that work for them actually do. They are so far removed that they make decisions that are usually horrible on the people.
quote:
Originally posted by The Propagandist:
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:

You don't think he did that himself at one time? Was he born a CEO? So what should he make and what should be minimum wage?


No, I don't.

No, he wasn't.

Not that much.

More than that.

Now you acting like a liberal, complain about what is happening but have no ideas on how to fix it. So no idea what wages should be or what CEO compensation should be.
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
quote:
Originally posted by The Propagandist:
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:

You don't think he did that himself at one time? Was he born a CEO? So what should he make and what should be minimum wage?


No, I don't.

No, he wasn't.

Not that much.

More than that.

Now you acting like a liberal, complain about what is happening but have no ideas on how to fix it. So no idea what wages should be or what CEO compensation should be.


Ok I will bite American CEO wages should be on par with CEOs worldwide just like the American worker is being forced to accept. You do realize that this is a American issue, CEOs in Japan ie Honda etc for example make far less than their American counterparts.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/...-executive-pay_N.htm
http://cbr.sagepub.com/content/35/3/68.abstract
quote:
Originally posted by HIFLYER2:
quote:
Originally posted by Winston Niles Rumfoord:
CEO's have 10,000 times the job responsibility of the typical union worker.

This is not a union issue but since you brought it up, it is easier to get rid of a bad union employee than a non-performing CEO. Wink

Did you miss this in Communist Propagandist's initial post?

"According to the AFL-CIO, in 1980, CEOs at the largest companies received 42 times the pay of the average worker. In 2000 the gap hit a high, with CEOs making 525 times the average worker.

In 2010, the gap narrowed with CEOs making 343 times the average worker, said Trumka, who himself makes roughly four times the average worker." (before kickbacks and bribes}
quote:
Originally posted by The Propagandist:
quote:
Originally posted by Winston Niles Rumfoord:
CEO's have 10,000 times the job responsibility of the typical union worker.


Really? 10,000 times? He's working too hard. What do all those people between the CEO and the typical union worker do?

Handle between 1 and 10,000 times the job responsibility of the typical union worker. And many times are not paid as much as a union worker, but have ambition for advancement.
quote:
Originally posted by HIFLYER2:

Ok I will bite American CEO wages should be on par with CEOs worldwide just like the American worker is being forced to accept. You do realize that this is a American issue, CEOs in Japan ie Honda etc for example make far less than their American counterparts.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/...-executive-pay_N.htm
http://cbr.sagepub.com/content/35/3/68.abstract


Did you read any of the first article?
quote:
But other experts say there's a reason the Japanese management model fell from favor after Japan entered a long economic slump at the beginning of the 1990s: Japanese compensation packages don't give CEOs much incentive to look out for shareholders — the people who own the firm. No wonder Japanese firms are typically about half as profitable as U.S. firms, according to the Japanese government.

"I emphatically don't think U.S. firms should adopt Japanese-style compensation plans," says Brian Heywood, whose firm invests in Japanese companies. "In general, I do not believe that the current Japanese compensation system aligns management with shareholders effectively."
Japanese CEOs have little financial stake in how their company's shares perform. Waseda University's Kubo and Takuji Saito of Kyoto Sangyo University have calculated that an improvement in stock market performance that would earn a typical U.S. CEO $1.8 million would bring a Japanese CEO just $27,000. "Japanese presidents' pay does not change, even when they achieve very good or very bad performance," Kubo says. "In sum, the financial incentives of Japanese presidents have become more like those of bureaucrats."
While it is true that on average the modern US CEO receives more overt compensation than an overseas CEO or US CEO's of the past, the CEO of the past and a foreign CEO might live as large financed by business expense accounts.

quote:
But in fact, the tax rates of the 1950's didn't necessarily reduce CEO consumption; it just reduced their reported taxable income. The high income tax rates in the 1950's were paired with a corporate tax system that allowed companies much more generous deductions for things like business lunches, business-travel-with-spouse, and so forth. Right now you pay Rick Wagoner a squillion dollars, and he entertains important people on his own dime; in 1955, you paid him less, but he expensed all his entertaining to the company. Descriptions of 1960's expense account procedures for even entry-level management are enough to make this journalist rather faint with envy.

This difference also explains some of the difference between American executives and those in Europe; among my American friends in international finance, European expense accounts are the subject of something close to awe. This is not to say that the tax code is the only explanation; almost no phenomenon has a single cause, and I have no doubt that there has been an actual, as well as an apparent, increase in CEO compensation. But I greatly doubt that it is anywhere near as large as the taxable income figures seem to make out. Leaving founder-owners like Larry Ellison and Bill Gates aside, it's hard for me to detect massive lifestyle differences between F. Ross Johnson (the CEO of RJR Nabisco described in Barbarians at the Gates) and the current CEO of Kraft Foods (which bought Nabisco). The difference is, the current CEO gets his in cash and stock.

Though $18 million in compensation is a figure that wounds the soul of most journalists, this is probably a better deal for shareholders. A tax system which encourages the CEO to take his compensation in non-cash forms probably induces all sorts of distortionary decisions that make us all, in the long run, worse off. Now, by contrast, he has an incentive to minimise such waste in order to ensure that there will be ample money to fund his compensation.

But why not design a tax system that discourages CEO pay and discourages such lavish business deductions? The answer is, again, those Laffer effects. In order to recapture most executive compensation right now, you'd have to slap on heavy capital taxes. This is generally regarded as bad form by even centre-left economists; capital is mobile, and moreover, even if it weren't, heavily taxing it would discourage investment. Or you'd have to ban stock-based compensation, which is an even worse idea. We presumably want our executives to have their personal net worths tied up in the performance of the stock.
http://www.economist.com/blogs...ich_really_different
Let's see...if the "typical" worker were only earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour, that would mean the Ceo's were earning $2,486.75/hour for the same forty hour week. Now I know they usually put in more hours than forty. Let's double that to eighty hours per week. That means they are earning $1,243.33/hour.

Is ANYBODY worth that much?
The people that bytch never ever want to mention what "celebrities" or atheletes make. They can go to jail and when they get out a large segment of the American people make them even richer than they were. Look at the homes they build, the cars they drive, their lifestyle. They aren't demonized because of that, they're envied. People dress and live their lives by their example. Look at Oprah, how many women hang on to her word like it was the "gospel"? If anyone bytching about what a CEO makes had the chance to make the same amount of money,or have the CEO's jobs, they'd step on their own mother's face to take it.
quote:
Originally posted by HIFLYER2:
quote:
Originally posted by Ronnie P.:
Do you seriously not understand the difference between the public and private sector. If you don't like what a CEO makes don't buy their products or stock and then you won't be paying their salaries or pensions. So simple a Obamatard could do it.


I lean right on most issues but you are wrong on this GM workers were vilified for their earned pension benefits. Meanwhile it is ok for CEO's to be the only ones in the country "besides politicians" to be made whole salary wise. It is nothing but a good old boys club where they all sit on each others boards so they look out for each other. Even Warren Buffet agrees that CEO compensation is out of control.


My sentiments exactly. And then there are those CEO's who are passing out bonus' and large pensions on our tax dollars via bail outs. And lets not forget those Bush tax breaks they get. I don't understand how you can villify blue collar workers for wanting to be paid fairly, get a pension, and have safe working conditions. If they don't deserve these thing why do CEOs deserve all this AND tax breaks. As for the public employees, Congressman in Washington get paid $174,000.00 a year, plus expenses, kick backs, and very nice pensions. Why do they deserve this for the 80 days a year their in session and teachers, firefighters and cops don't?
quote:
Originally posted by Jennifer:
The people that bytch never ever want to mention what "celebrities" or atheletes make. They can go to jail and when they get out a large segment of the American people make them even richer than they were. Look at the homes they build, the cars they drive, their lifestyle. They aren't demonized because of that, they're envied. People dress and live their lives by their example. Look at Oprah, how many women hang on to her word like it was the "gospel"? If anyone bytching about what a CEO makes had the chance to make the same amount of money,or have the CEO's jobs, they'd step on their own mother's face to take it.


Somehow I can picture YOU stepping on your own mother's face, but I doubt most of us would want anything that much.

As far as that kind of money or a CEO's job, I can honestly say, "No thanks". Not interested in any kind of job where I wouldn't be able to look in the mirror every day, and I certainly don't want or need that kind of money.

I learned long ago that living simply will lead to happiness far deeper than a bunch of money and the headaches that go along with it would.

You can believe me or not, but it's true. A while back I came into some fairly serious money and most of it is gone now. I spent a little on myself and gave the rest to a couple of my favorite charities. And it felt GOOOOOOD!
quote:
Originally posted by Winston Niles Rumfoord:
quote:
Originally posted by HIFLYER2:
quote:
Originally posted by Winston Niles Rumfoord:
CEO's have 10,000 times the job responsibility of the typical union worker.

This is not a union issue but since you brought it up, it is easier to get rid of a bad union employee than a non-performing CEO. Wink

Did you miss this in Communist Propagandist's initial post?

"According to the AFL-CIO, in 1980, CEOs at the largest companies received 42 times the pay of the average worker. In 2000 the gap hit a high, with CEOs making 525 times the average worker.

In 2010, the gap narrowed with CEOs making 343 times the average worker, said Trumka, who himself makes roughly four times the average worker." (before kickbacks and bribes}


Listen you can throw out the communist label if you like but it will not stick on me. I am about as far right as a normal person should be. There has been so much documented abuse and scandal that most people know CEO compensation is out of control. I also believe there are 2 types of CEOs, the first is like my current CEO Fredwick W. Smith. He created a entire sector of the transportation business with his vision and deserves every dollar he makes even-though the company is public. The 2nd is the CEO that has no personal interest in the company and focuses on short term gain, instead of the long term. Then he cashes out and the company tanks but he received his golden package regardless.

It does seem odd that every worker in the U.S. except CEO's have to compete pay-wise with a worldwide labor force.

Now off the Banana Republic of California and back in 8 hrs or less.
quote:
Originally posted by Jennifer:
The people that bytch never ever want to mention what "celebrities" or atheletes make. They can go to jail and when they get out a large segment of the American people make them even richer than they were. Look at the homes they build, the cars they drive, their lifestyle. They aren't demonized because of that, they're envied. People dress and live their lives by their example. Look at Oprah, how many women hang on to her word like it was the "gospel"? If anyone bytching about what a CEO makes had the chance to make the same amount of money,or have the CEO's jobs, they'd step on their own mother's face to take it.


As usual, you have totally misunderstood the discussion. Why you defend CEO's, who care nothing about you, and disparage hard-working people is very strange, indeed. Being a Republican has taken away all of your ability to reason.
quote:
Originally posted by Jennifer:
The people that bytch never ever want to mention what "celebrities" or atheletes make. They can go to jail and when they get out a large segment of the American people make them even richer than they were. Look at the homes they build, the cars they drive, their lifestyle. They aren't demonized because of that, they're envied. People dress and live their lives by their example. Look at Oprah, how many women hang on to her word like it was the "gospel"? If anyone bytching about what a CEO makes had the chance to make the same amount of money,or have the CEO's jobs, they'd step on their own mother's face to take it.


Then WHY such the fuss over what teachers, cops, firefighter and factory workers make?

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