Too Much Money Can Make the Boss Mean

[Donnachaidh]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/01/25/too-much-money-can-make-the-boss-mean/#more-43158

Here’s another reason to do away with runaway CEO pay. A study shows bloated CEO pay can make the boss mean.

The study examined the corporate behavior of 261 companies and found a close correlation between pay inequality and poor treatment of workers. In companies where CEOs made much more than their average workers, the companies were more likely to underfund pensions or cut corners on health and safety. Often, according to the study, the bosses engaged in a cost-benefit analysis, calculating that a fine would be a cost of doing business, compared with the profits they could make.

“You end up basically thinking of those at the bottom as numbers,’’ Sreedhari Desai, a Harvard research fellow who co-authored the study, told The Boston Globe columnist Joanna Weiss. “You feel somehow that they aren’t even worthy of the normal people that you’d meet. They’re disposable.’’

More at the link -- including link to pdf findings.

[Hannah Bell]

1. kr

[RainDog]

2. and the U.S. has the largest gap b/t ceo and worker compensation in the western world n/t

no wonder so many people wish they could leave the U.S. and find work in a civilized country.

[soleft]

3. My boss made me cry on Monday

He makes 200K+

[Reader Rabbit]

4. Is that the result of getting too much money, though?

Or do people like that just gravitate to a work situation where they can screw their underlings and make crap-loads of money?

[phantom power]

5. +1

I suspect that sociopathy draws people to positions like that.

On the other hand, it may be one of those feedback loops, where the initial cause could be either, but they two reinforce each other.

:shrug: