$3,000 an hour -- is that fair?

05.25.12 - 12:57 pm | Tim Redmond |

(51)

Does anyone really think it's ok for the average CEO to make so much more money than the average worker that a person earning the median income in this country would have to work 244 years to earn what the median CEO earns in a year?

I mean, I think $3,072 an hour is pretty excessive pay for anyone, but let's give the conseratives their due: The person worked hard, and deserves to earn what the maket will pay him or her. If the typical worker in this country earned $500 an hour, that would be fine -- the person at the top ought to earn more than his or her employees (at least, that the capitalist way) -- but multiples of 244-1 are excessive an unstable.

Why not link CEO pay to the pay of the average worker? Why not say that no CEO can get more than 10 times (or even 20 times) what the lowest-paid person at that company makes? Nice incentive to pay your workers more.

Have at it, trolls.

Comments

The only people who should be asking that question are the

shareholders of that company. Executive compensation is approved by shareholders.

And while a few million a year for a salary might strike you as a lot, if billions in shareholder value is added, then a few million is neither here or there.

That's the real point, i.e. that the guy at the top can make such a difference, while the ordinary working stiff cannot. That's why they get the big bucks.

Interestingly, the hip and groovy Ben and Jerry's used to have a set ratio between the pay of the highest and lowest paid employee, along similar lines to what you suggested. They abandoned it because they quite simply couldn't attract top people.

Salaries are determined by the market and if you are paid 3 grand an hour and you
don't deliver, you're fired. It's not like a city job where you can't be fired no matter how bad you are.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 1:58 pm

You live in a fantasy world.

You live in a fantasy world.

Posted by Guest on May. 27, 2012 @ 8:07 pm

Why? So you can limit the

Why? So you can limit the amount of money someone else makes?
I don't make anywhere near that much, and probably never will, but that doesn't mean that other people shouldn't. I go on living my life without spending time agonizing over who makes what.

Posted by Greg on May. 25, 2012 @ 3:18 pm

As always, Tim is more concerned with what others have

than he is with producing anything. And as always, extremists on both sides of the politcal spectrum find it necessary to stereotype and paint a class of people as "evil" or "greedy" in order to demonize them and fight a class war against them.

See how Tim states that it's "trolls" who disagree with him? More stereotyping.

Envy never created any jobs nor built prosperity. And constantly comparing yourself to others is unhealthy.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 4:51 pm

As always, you're more

As always, you're more concerned with trolling and deliberately missing the point (the signature of a troll) and coming on here to disagree with and rant against Tim. You can always leave, you know. You won't be missed.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 5:39 pm

So, as usual, dismiss as a troll anyone who tries to

develop any argument that is counter to the "party line".

I'll take that, as usual again, that you cannot refute the points made.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 5:52 pm

No. What's trolling is complaining about not having your points

answered without your having made any points.

Trolling is incorporating into your attacks layers of false assumptions each of which successively further limits intelligent discourse.

Being a troll is conducting yourself in such a way as it absolutely demands you be branded with such a label.

Posted by lillipublicans on May. 25, 2012 @ 6:30 pm

I'm a troll who agrees with Tim on this issue

Your blanket use of the phrase "troll" shows a lack of understanding of the nuance of the word. It also shows a willingness to denigrate the mythology of the Celtic people in a manner you would never do with similar archetypes of African or Asian peoples.

Posted by Troll II on May. 25, 2012 @ 8:39 pm

Of course Lucretia Snapples,

Of course Lucretia Snapples, Right-On-Sister-Snapples and now Troll II (all the same person) had to show up.,..to troll.

Lucretia Snapples always denied the troll identify while writing the most flaming and septic posts possible. Now she owns the troll identity as Troll II. At least she no longer denies it (admitting one has a problem is the first step) and had to go off on some tangent...to troll.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 9:22 pm

Troll Snapples is one of a kind - Guest

She seems to have you very flummoxed as that post of yours made no sense. Troll Snapples agrees with Tim and is arguing with the other commenters who disagree with Tim. Therefore she's a troll who's gone off on a tangent?

Please explain the fact pattern in your argument. Right now I think Troll Snapples may have gotten the better of you.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 9:51 pm

Self portrait

Sorry...don't mean to be cruel but it really made me laugh the way that Liliwhatever tries to define what a Troll is and then he goes on to describe himself exactly.

Posted by Troll on May. 25, 2012 @ 10:02 pm

I don't think it's fair nor good for business

CEO compensation is completely out-of-control in this country. It's indefensible.

Posted by Troll II on May. 25, 2012 @ 3:46 pm

And who would"control" wages? A government bureaucrat?

Pay is up to the person who pays the bills. That's either your boss or the shareholders. If they're both happy, then it's none of anyone else's business what you make.

Posted by Guest on May. 25, 2012 @ 4:48 pm

Extreme income inequality

especially that which is completely unrelated to company performance (like we've seen the past 20 years owing to The Cult of the CEO) speaks very ill of a company's ability to survive and thrive long term. Or a country for that matter.

CEO pay is totally unrelated to performance. It's become unhinged and indefensible.

Posted by Troll II on May. 25, 2012 @ 6:04 pm

I disagree. The US has more inequality simply because we

have the most successful people here. Our poor are not particularly poor, and better off than most other places.

So instead of obsessing about what somebody else makes, which is little more than petty envy, focus instead of what the average American has, which compares well with the rest of the world.

In other words, worry about yourself, not what others have, because that is really none of your business, and nor can you control it. And moreover, the success of Apple etc. raises the standards of all of us.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:22 am

We have more income

We have more income inequality because we have more corruption than most places. Our so called "successful" people here were born with more wealth than anywhere else and we have a more insular and aristocratic oligarchy than in most developed countries.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 26, 2012 @ 2:17 pm

Nonsense. Inequality is not a problem per se but only if

the poor people are too poor.

So if we had famine like in parts of Africa, and there were billionaires, then that would be the bad form of inequality.

But if our inequality simply means that we are not all billionaires, then that is not a problem but rather an opportunity. You may not be a billionaire but you are not poor. More importantly, with hard work, you have a better chance of being a billionaire than anywhere else.

Poverty is the problem, not wealth. And you do not eradicate poverty by eradicating the rish - Russian proved that.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 4:22 pm

Class mobiliy in America

America has less class mobility than any other developed society. You have a great chance to become a billionaire than anywhere in the world if you were already born into the 1%.

If you were born poor, then you have a greater chance of ending up in prison than anywhere else in the world.

According to you that is just peachy. I bet I can guess which class you were born into.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 27, 2012 @ 9:50 am

There is not a country on the planet where it isn't better to

be born rich, or for that matter to be born smart, or attractive, or healthy, or anything else. Some people get more breaks than other people, and nobody promised you that life is fair in every way.

However, there are plenty of people in the US who were born poor, or who came here as immigrants, and became successful. There are also people who were born rich and failed and lost it all.

So your over-simplistic, sterotyping fails at the first hurdle. Hard work and aptitude can give anyone here as much success as they can handle. What won't succeed is sitting on your backside whining about unfairness and expecting the government to bail you out.

Posted by Guest on May. 27, 2012 @ 10:35 am

I notice you refuse to answer

I notice you refuse to answer the question. Were you born to wealthy parents?

Stop making excuses for a broken system.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 27, 2012 @ 9:12 pm

...or a nice incentive to hire fewer workers...

If you have to hire a worker who is going to start cleaning off his or her desk at 4:55PM so that they can be out the door at 5PM sharp and you have to pay them 10% of what you pay the person who has to live, sleep and breathe the most intricate details of the company.

So if you are in an industry where the good CEOs get $2 million a year you would have to pay each new clerk $200,000? Or even $100,000? Or try to get by with a cheaper CEO?

Posted by Troll on May. 25, 2012 @ 4:23 pm

Outsource the CEOs!

I have an idea that would save shareholders a lot of money. Outsource! But outsource where it really counts. Save tens of millions of dollars in one pop. I'm sure there are plenty of knowledgeable, educated, and hardworking folks in India or somewhere who will gladly take over that CEO job for a "mere" 200K per year. They'll probably make the company more profitable and save jobs at the same time. Think of the money the shareholders could make by outsourcing unproductive CEOs (and probably other high officers -there's a lot of bloat and waste at the top).

I think it could work fantastically well for many companies with underperforming CEOs (and we sure have a lot of those!). Seriously. We outsource just about everything else. And for most of the things we outsource, we're not looking for "better." Just "cheaper." It's not like we have a shortage of people willing and perfectly able to do customer service. We just don't want to pay them a fair wage. But in the case of CEOs, we can actually get cheaper *and* better. If that's not a "win-win" then I don't know what is!

After all, it's a global economy, so it's time that the "workers" at the top (I use the term loosely of course to describe what it is that most CEOs do) learned that they need to compete as well. It'll be good for their self-esteem.

I can't believe we haven't heard about this brilliant idea from anyone in the corporate media, or the business community, or from some libertarian think tank. What? This should be right up their alley.

Well I guess this is where I get all class conscious on you. The reason we don't hear about anything like this, is because globalization is there to benefit the ruling class, the elites. All these CEOs sit on each other's corporate boards and own each others stocks. It's an elite club, and you're not invited. Not even you, trolls. No, not even if you promise to vote Republican (but thanks for that though, you can be sure they appreciate all the nice things you're saying about them as they eat their caviar and throw you out of your jobs and your homes).

No, even if it's "good for business," they won't do something like that to their fellow 1%-ers. If I didn't know any better, I'd call it class solidarity. But of course we all know that it's only called class warfare when the 99% fight back.

Posted by Greg on May. 25, 2012 @ 8:15 pm

It's the shareholders who umtimately pick the CEO.

So all you have to do to get your idea to work is to convince the shareholders.

And as a shareholder in many companies, I'm not convinced that penny-pinching at the top level is accretive to my portfolio. you haven't shown that it's "good for business" which, by your own admission, is the only criterion here.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:24 am

Yes, outsource the CEO's!

What a brilliant idea! Instead of lavishing our American CEO's with big bonuses (after bailing out them out with taxpayer dollars), let them compete for their wages with their counterparts from India, Africa and South America. That's true competition in a capitalist system. Ha... Love it!

And thank goodness the real Greg is back! Next to him, Faux Greg is predictable, boring and uninspired. Pack him off to Siberia with all the other trolls. And send Jamie Dimon along too.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 3:06 pm

We already outsource some CEO positions

Many US CEO's were born elsewhere. Competition for these jobs is global.

Any worker who is overpaid, whether CEO or janitor, is at risk of losing his job.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 4:26 pm

When a CEO fails and loses his job

They lose their job with a golden parachute the size of which, in and of itself, is often enough to never work a day in thair lives again.

And when they're replaced, they're replaced by another member of the same elite club making equally outrageous money. Maybe one of their golfing buddies.

They're not being outsourced like ordinary people are being outsourced.

Posted by Greg on May. 26, 2012 @ 9:15 pm

Anyone is free to negotiate a termination package just as

anyone is free to negotiate a signon bonus. The only difference is that some employees are deemed more valuable and desirable than others, and that is purely a shareholder decision.

Posted by Guest on May. 27, 2012 @ 8:29 am

That's right and 2/3 of the

That's right and 2/3 of the shares are held by 1% of the population and they all look out for each other. Thank you for making my point.

The "shareholders" all scratch each other's back and enrich each other at the expense of everyone else.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 27, 2012 @ 10:01 am

Wrong. Most shareholdings are not held by individuals at all

but by institutions. And what are those isntitutions? Pension funds and mutual funds? And who owns them? You and I and tens of millions of ordinary working Americans.

If you want to change the way a company works, sell your mutual funds and buy their stock directly. Then vote proxies.

Posted by Guest on May. 27, 2012 @ 10:38 am

The overwhelming number of

The overwhelming number of CEOs are there because they were winners of the lucky sperm club, not due to any inherent ability. They screw over the American worker and take outsized risks and when it doesn't work out they get bailed out by the American taxpayer. Congress and The Courts have sold out to corporate greed and don't represent The People anymore.

There is no way out from this: Citizen United guaranteed that reform is impossible: the wealthy own our elections. Institutions like Congress are supported by only 17% of the population. The only way to fix this corrupt broken system is by overturning it and that change is inevitable. It is only a question of when.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 26, 2012 @ 8:09 am

So you'd prefer a revolution like in Russia?

How did that work out?

CEO's work extremely hard, often 80 hours a week. There isn't so much luck in it.

But of course genes do confer some skills and aptitudes on some mroe than others. Call that a lottery if you want. But then nobody promised you life would be fair. Some people are prettier than me too - see me whining about it?

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 9:27 am

Most CEOs went to Ivy League

Most CEOs went to Ivy League schools and are the children of Ivy League grads. Skill and hard work had nothing to do with it.

We will have a revolution like Russia, it is inevitable. The rich are convinced here that they are well loved and untouchable. So did the Politburo in 1985. How did that work out?

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 26, 2012 @ 2:20 pm

You don't need to go to an Ivy League school to bcome a CEO.

Buffett, for example. While Gates did but dropped out.

And plenty of poor kids go there on scholarships.

CEO's work harder than anyone I know.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for your "revolution".

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 4:24 pm

"And plenty of poor kids go

"And plenty of poor kids go there on scholarships."

For example: Harvard = 6.5%. That ain't "plenty of poor kids."

You're one of the most ignorant people on here. Do you ever read anything?

Google: Study: Brown U. student body still mostly rich kids

Quote: Pell Grants are easily the country’s largest financial-aid program and, as a rule of thumb, they tend to go to students who come from the bottom half of nation’s income distribution. …
I wouldn’t expect 50 percent of Harvard students — or even, say, 40 percent of Harvard students — to come from the bottom 50 percent of the income distribution. But 6.5 percent?
End Quote

Educate your ignorant corporatist self and stop spreading willful-ignorance.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:01 pm

One student in sixteen on a scholarship is generous

and plenty of people succeed without going to Harvard.

Kill all the rich and you won't be a penny richer. Think again.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:36 pm

Warren Buffet is the son of a

Warren Buffet is the son of a Congressman and is a graduate of Columbia. When did Columbia leave the Ivy League? How many CEOs do you personally know?

Nothing lasts forever, not the Roman Empire, not the Spanish Empire, not the English. The American Empire is clearly on the decline; its citizens may take this peacefully but more likely not. One kick and the whole rotten edifice will come down.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 27, 2012 @ 9:56 am

Keep dreaming of that revolution, Daddy

It will keep you smug and complacent, thereby reducing the chance of it ever happening. I'll give credit to one aspect of the American left - they really never try and cause any trouble that can't be ignored, unlike FRance, Greece etc.

The workers in America are far too fat and lazy to ever revolt.

Posted by Guest on May. 27, 2012 @ 10:37 am

If you think it is only "the

If you think it is only "the American left" that is pissed off, you are more clueless than I had even imagined. And I imagine you are pretty stupid.

Posted by GlenParkDaddy on May. 27, 2012 @ 9:13 pm

"CEO's work extremely hard,

"CEO's work extremely hard, often 80 hours a week"

Yeah at lavish parties (with cavier, quails eggs, champagne, and cut glass finger bowls), on the golf course, and on their 1% yachts seeing what corrupt deals they can strike up to make themselves even wealthier at the expense of the 99%. They (CEO's) seem to completely void of any ethics whatsoever. They are as useless as trolls: Both being a blight/plague on the planet.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 4:45 pm

You clearly have not been close to a CEO and believe

what you see on bad TV shows.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:37 pm

I dont understand why the

I dont understand why the amount of money that someone else makes is any of Tim's business?

Its crazy how often I hear this in his writing. With 8 washington he wants to know how much money Simon Snellgrove is going to make.. what kind of person lives his life obsessing about how much money people theoretically might make?

Why no editorial about how much money Bruce made by selling the guardian building to a developer? I believe the "profit" was a couple million over the 4.7 million in mortgages.

Posted by greg on May. 26, 2012 @ 8:22 am

I heard Bruce made 1.8 million on the deal which

apparently doesn't bother Tim at all. It's only rich people who he doesn't know that bother him, evidently.

So the one percent is more accurately defined as the one percent that Tim doesn't happen to personally know and approve of.

Tim should focus on helping the poor and not envying the rich. We don't need less rich people - we need less poor people.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 9:30 am

What we need is less lonely

What we need is less lonely trolls with their head planted in the upper colon of the 1% ("rich people") and trolling for said group.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:04 pm

So anyone who disagrees with you is a troll?

That's the best substitution you have for an argument?

But I doubt if Bruce is a lonely one percenter.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 5:38 pm

The trolls need new material.

The trolls need new material. I have been on the Internet for years and ever since I've been online, the trolls have been using the same, old, tired, predicable, cookie-cutter material, such as this whine: "So anyone who disagrees with you is a troll?" I have read that whine hundreds and hundreds of times on message forums. It is such black and white thinking, intentionally missing the point which is what trolls constantly do as part of their trolling routine. They are so transparent.

Isn't there an International Association of Trolls or something like that? (I don't feel like Googling that). The trolls on here would know. And isn't it time for one of your conventions or something? If so, at the next convention please draw up some new material and pass it around for all the trolls to use when trolling, because the crap you're using now and have been using has been used so many times, countless times and is so dated, worn-out, tattered, predictable and tired. You need a new routine badly.

Hope this helps.

Posted by Guest on May. 26, 2012 @ 8:45 pm

I actually did google it

This might help point the trolls in the right direction:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120509225222AAnU45A

Posted by Greg on May. 26, 2012 @ 9:26 pm

We're not members of the Troll Association

We're not related to the Trolls on other sites. They stir up trouble just for the sake of making trouble. We began by criticizing the SFBG's dogmatic approach for running the city and the naivete of it (we don't want any rich people around but we want their money for social engineering). We also don't think that people like Chris Daly and Aaron Peskin are role models for our city.

Look, this paper gives Tim Redmond a platform to say that he doesn't want 8 Washington because he thinks that rich people are boring (which is exactly what he said). That is NO different than saying that Group A is 'lazy' or Group B is 'dishonest' or Group C only wants to live off of welfare payments.

Some of us think that characterizations like that are unhelpful and wrong and the last thing that we need, so we speak up against them. Others tend to follow Redmond's bigoted views. Hence the disagreement and the attempt to disparage us by calling us Trolls.

Posted by Troll on May. 27, 2012 @ 7:08 am

No, you guys fit the definition of "troll" perfectly

It's the same exact tripe over and over. Every time there's an article on economic issues, you come here and bleat the same repetitive dogma like some brainwashed cult follower. I know all the lines already...taxes drive job creators away... socialism didn't work in the Soviet Union... the rich already pay most of the taxes... class warfare... you just hate the rich... class envy... baah... baah... bahhhh.

Now you're going to tell me that's exactly what Tim sounds like to you. Save it. There's a crucial difference. See, I don't go to the FreeRepublic or wherever it is that Nevus spews his diarrhea these days and disturb the shit. I've heard it all before and I'm not inerested.

Yet you come here specifically to stir up shit. When you become outnumbered, you start inventing more aliases, taking other people's identity, and doing all the other shit that trolls do to break down reasoned debate and make people who don't agree with you just give up and leave. You *are* the very defintion of a troll.

The only thing I don't know is why Tim tolerates it.

Posted by Greg on May. 27, 2012 @ 7:45 am

Greg, Tim utters the same "tripe" all the time too, as do you.

The only difference is that you prefer Tim's tripe to the other guy's tripe.

That doesn't make you, him, or Tim to be "trolls". They are just differences of opinion. And dismissing another opinion as "trollish" is simply revealing the poverty of your refutation.

Posted by Guest on May. 27, 2012 @ 8:28 am

Well some of that is true

I personally don't think that taking other people's aliases is helpful and this is the only board I know where it is even possible.

But in terms of why some of us are here? We think that the extreme Progressive dogma is really bad for the city and that it hurt us tremendously during the 8 years of Peskin-Daly and the group of 6. Luckily the voters turned against that tide to continuously reject DCCC and SFBG endorsements and the 'Anyone But Ed Lee' meme of the SFBG. Luckily.

We want to speak up against it wherever it remains. The city will not thrive if we only focus on getting money to the needy while disparaging those who actually make the money. Calling them 'boring' and borrowing the overdone '1%' moniker. We are not cold hearted Trolls by by any means.

I realize that some of you would prefer a 'reasoned debate' where everyone agrees with the Progressive line. I don't think that you have fully accepted your decline in popularity among the electorate of this city.

Posted by Troll on May. 27, 2012 @ 8:49 am