The damage caused by the undeserving rich (e.g., Carly Fiorina)

[MBS]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/wealth-creators-klepto-rewards-bosses?CMP=share_btn_gp

excerpts:

One of the most painful lessons a young adult learns is that the wrong traits are rewarded. We celebrate originality and courage, but those who rise to the top are often conformists and sycophants. We are taught that cheats never prosper, yet the country is run by spivs. A study testing British senior managers and chief executives found that on certain indicators of psychopathy their scores exceeded those of patients diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders in the Broadmoor special hospital.

If you possess the one indispensable skill – battering and blustering your way to the top – incompetence in other areas is no impediment. The former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina features prominently on lists of the worst US bosses: quite an achievement when you consider the competition. She fired 30,000 workers in the name of efficiency yet oversaw a halving of the company’s stock price. Morale and communication became so bad that she was booed at company meetings. She was forced out, with a $42m severance package. Where is she now? About to launch her campaign as presidential candidate for the Republican party, where, apparently, she is considered a serious contender. It’s the Mitt Romney story all over again.

At university I watched in horror as the grand plans of my ambitious friends dissolved. It took them about a minute, on walking into the corporate recruitment fair, to see that the careers they had pictured – working for Oxfam, becoming a photographer, defending the living world – paid about one fiftieth of what they might earn in the City. They all swore they would leave to follow their dreams after two or three years of making money; none did. . . .The world is wrecked by clever young people making apparently sensible choices.

The inverse relationship doesn’t always hold. There are plenty of useless, badly paid jobs, and a few useful, well-paid jobs. But surgeons and film directors are greatly outnumbered by corporate lawyers, lobbyists, advertisers, management consultants, financiers and parasitic bosses consuming the utility their workers provide. As the pay gap widens – chief executives in the UK took 60 times as much as the average worker in the 1990s and 180 times as much today – the uselessness ratio is going through the roof I propose a name for this phenomenon: klepto-remuneration. . . Our lives are damaged not by the undeserving poor but by the undeserving rich.

[daleanime]

1. Major K&R

[malthaussen]

2. Well, it's worse in the US

Our CEOs would revolt if they were paid a mere 60 times what their employees were paid.

-- Mal

[Triana]

3. CxOs and anyone running for public office should have psych exams

Most would have psychopathic traits equal to or exceeding those diagnosed as sociopaths/psychopaths. And if they had such, they should be disqualified for holding the CxO post or public office.

[Trillo]

4. Would those test results and interpretations be given to the public?

Would the test results and interpretations be given to the person?

Would the psychiatrists or psychologists who created the test tell the same thing to the person tested that they wrote in their private notes or database about the person? Or would their be two "sets of results", one set to be given to the testee (oh, you're fine), and another set that says something else (psychopath with depraved indifference to others)?

[Triana]

14. Likely, law would prohibit public disclosure of results

Person tested should receive actual result though - and be required to withdraw from any position of power such as CxO or consideration for such, or from public office or consideration for such once the doctor reports the findings to DHHS or whomever.

The potential CxO or public office holder could publicly cite other reasons for his/her withdrawal from the race or from the post or consideration for the post, in order to protect his/her privacy and reputation ie: family reasons, ect. - but should be disqualified from holding these positions of power.

Just my .02.

Of course people on either side would find ways to game such a system, no doubt.

[subterranean]

8. Or even 180 times...

Our CEOs in the US now make close to 300 times the average pay of workers.

[A Simple Game]

10. Cap the CEO pay at 1 million dollars and you know who you would have for CEOs?

The same people, it's more the power than it is the money. Besides if CEOs were capped at a million it would probably still be the highest paid job.

Same with our politicians, why do some spend millions of their own money to get a job that to them pays what amounts to peanuts.

[Sanity Claws]

5. The undeserving rich -- a phrase I plan to use over and over again.

[calimary]

11. He had another good one, too - "klepto-remuneration."

"As the pay gap widens – chief executives in the UK took 60 times as much as the average worker in the 1990s and 180 times as much today – the uselessness ratio is going through the roof I propose a name for this phenomenon: klepto-remuneration."

[valerief]

6. The Family rationalizes their success by saying gawd ordained it.

They're successful, because gawd deems them good. Others are not successful, because gawd deems them bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family:_The_Secret_Fundamentalism_at_the_Heart_of_American_Power

Easy peasy, huh?

[Thespian2]

7. K & R

Smashed the Nail Head on this one! Excellent!

[raouldukelives]

9. Not just our lives but all future lives.

They amass all this cash laboring for and investing in the most abhorrent people & industries. Industries guaranteed to doom not just our hard fought for human rights but actually endangering the ability of our planet to support life as we know it at all.

Just to rub the salt into the wound a little more they use that cash to buy beautiful country estates. Large tracts of forest and streams cause you know, they worked hard for it and they love nature. The same ones killing it claiming to cherish it, the same ones killing it the last to enjoy it.

[F4lconF16]

17. +1000 nt

[still_one]

12. I remember it will. She enriched her pocket, bought Compaq, and caused a lot of people to lose

their jobs.

I would hope she gets the same reception she did in California when she ran for public office, and that was thumbs down

[PoliticAverse]

13. "she is considered a serious contender." - who considerers her a 'serious contender'?

This is a vanity campaign.

[ThoughtCriminal]

15. California Republicans actually nominated her for the U.S. Senate

They were clearly incapable of looking beyond pure wealth as a qualifying feature. It should have been blindingly obvious that her campaign would be an epic disaster.

[MBS]

16. yeah, that was quite a list of Repub candidates that year

.. with Meg Whitman for governor, too. So glad that they both lost.