I Really Don't Think CEOs are worth 354 Times MORE THAN Regular Workers

[jtown1123]

Worker productivity is way up and workers' pay has stagnated for decades.

CEOs have no problem padding their own pockets.

Check out the new Executive PayWatch website: www.paywatch.org for the latest comprehensive info about CEO Pay, Fix the Debt, the Business Roundtable and the other "bipartisan" groups trying to cut our Social Security and Medicare benefits.

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. They call that an example of healthy growth.

An even more telling way to frame this chart is this: Do CEO's contribute almost 9 times more to the economy today than they did in 1982? We have always had CEO's, we didn't always pay them like gods.

[jtown1123]

4. Exactly.

What do they do that makes them worth so much? They certainly arent "creating jobs."

[dmosh42]

2. We used to call it "racketeering", when the CEO gets together with the board and divvies up the.....

revenues, with the stockholders having no recourse. But now with the wealthy controlling everything, the only people prosecuted might be potsmokers.

[Rabid_Rabbit]

3. Alway thought

that if there was a way to regulate that ratio, we would solve many of the problems facing us. Maybe structuring corporate taxes based on the Ceo to Worker pay ratio. That would affect share holder who would then preassure the board to be more realistic with the CEO pay they are approving.
ratio < 30:1 pay x%
ratio < 35:1 pay (x+1)%
etc

[jtown1123]

5. Pretty sure Sweden and other countries do this n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. Depends...

on how many Congressmen and "Regulators" he owns.

[jtown1123]

7. Pretty much the number one reason CEO pay keeps rising n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. And explains other things

[jtown1123]

15. Love that n/t

[cbdo2007]

8. Some CEOs are and some are not.

[Purplehazed]

9. They're not

One might make an exception for a true entrepreneur or visionary that has led a company to greatness, but for the most part CEO's are just managers and the people that approve their pay are hand picked. If the salaries are not outrageous enough, I think that the average share holder would be stunned by the money company money spent on private chefs, dining facilities, private planes and helicopters etc.

All while the lowest paid qualify for assistance from the government. Sickening.

[jtown1123]

14. I think it's safe to say

very few of these CEOs are making something of value or are entrepreneurs.

If they can afford to pay themselves that much, they can afford to pay their workers more.

[Buns_of_Fire]

10. They never have been. They never will be.

But since they often sit on the boards of their vastly overpaid buddies (Google "interlocking directorates&quot , one hand is always washing the other's backside.

So, just replace the boards? Good luck with that. The John Q. Stockholders of the world are vastly outnumbered (sharewise) by other corporations, investment funds, hedge funds, and other dregs of society -- who are ALSO sitting on these boards.

[Cal Carpenter]

11. And hedge fund managers aren't worth $2billion a year

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022675607

How can anyone defend this? How can anyone defend a system that allows this sort of private profit and mass accumulation of wealth along with sabotaging of public infrastructure, schools, workers rights, all in the name of corporate profit in the face of extreme, obscene, and growing inequality?

It's unconscionable, and the people who defend the crumbs that some of us may get as 'good enough' or 'the best we can do for now' or 'a starting point' are carrying water for the one percent whether they know it or not.

[winter is coming]

13. +1. We need a higher minimum wage, but we also need a "ratio".

The highest paid employee at any company shouldn't receive more than X times the compensation of the lowest-paid employee. Want a humongous CEO salary? Then you need to pay the worker bees better, too.