If I owned stocks in a company that over paid it's CEO by a gross margin like this, I'd be pissed!
Why should I invest in a company that would piss my profit away on the CEO?

Cenk is right, The decision maker is worth more pay. He makes the life or death decisions that affect the company and the jobs of the employees. But don't let it get out of control.

-One-million per year ($83,333/month or $69,444/week) is lots.
-Two-million($166,666/month or $41,666/week), maybe.
-Five-million per year ($416,666/month, $104,166/week), it starts to get out of hand.

-At 55-million per year ($4,583,333/month, 1,145,833/week), it is pure absurdity. That's just robbing and bankrupting.

If a company is making that kind of profit off the backs of it's employees, then it should be setting up better benefits for their employees, profit sharing programs, and re-investing back into the company by creating new products and services (R&D). Those new developments would create new industry, jobs and in turn profit - not to mention returns to the shareholders.

there is already a show rubbing this fact in peoples faces, Undercover Boss.

The worst part is the excuse that a CEO is sooo smart that they need to pay them a premium to stay on so they'll use their intellect. Fuck that, CEOs ain't any smarter than anyone under them...they're just bastards.

Pretty funny scam they got going on. Weird how it doesn't quite translate over to the really skilled employees, the ones who make the CEO look good. If it did, they wouldn't be steadily increasing their multiplier over the average wage.....because it'd be raising the average.


This is why you can't believe anything that amounts to "trickle down". Unless by trickle you mean slowly choke off and restrict the previous near deluge proportions in comparison to now.

I have a theory: Replace every CEO in existence with MBA graduates, just out of school. Nothing would change.

Hold it. The title says, "salary," but the data he is showing is "pay."

There is a difference. Salary is what you get as described in the first commenter's post. Granted, salaries are in the millions for these executives, but a large large amount of their earnings is in bonuses and stocks from said companies that shareholders (i.e., a board) typically vote on.

With that said and the state of the stock market from today compared to 1980, yes it's no wonder why executive pay is 380x the average worker's pay; the average worker does not invest as much or get stocks/bonuses from said company.

>> ^Edgeman2112:

...yes it's no wonder why executive pay is 380x the average worker's pay; the average worker does not invest as much or get stocks/bonuses from said company.


You say "invest" but is it really investing if said CEO is still guaranteed a huge bonus whether the company tanks or not? I know they get shares of stock, but I think most CEOs get paid either way.

Still demonstrates a lack of profit sharing. If you're getting paid more when profits are high and less when profits are low, fine and dandy. But if you're getting bonuses when profits are high and then still when they are non-existent.....they aren't really bonuses based on anything...because performance is measured in dollars. They say it to the normal employee, demonstrate how you are making us money......how often do we hear IT is a money sink so it needs to be cut back?

Regular worker A working harder and more efficiently is not going to make his stock holdings jump by any measurable amount. But if all the workers were getting stock and earning more due to their labors off that increased value...they wouldn't be falling behind. It's a lack of profit sharing anyway you cut it, and keeping all the money at the top for people who are there to manage over the actual work being done. It's hardly any epic tale of someone whose pulled a company out of the gutter....yet it gets them millions a month in pay.

Guys, most times companies *don't* hand out stock as a bonus/award and you get them the day they are announced.

There are different ways to award employees. For example, you sign a contract that in turn for meeting performance expectations for x amount of years, you get x amount of stock on this date X years in the future.

Another one is a stock option agreement. A larger and larger pool of stock options are available for purchase at a discount price as each year passes by.

These are policies that are in place before the crisis began. Both the company and the individual sign contracts such as these so they are legally binding.

Besides, *it's not YOUR money*, so you can't do a thing about it. Even with companies that got bailouts/lines of credit, once the money is out of our hands, we can yell and scream all we want, but they can do what they want.

This is unpopular, I know. But that's how it goes.

I wasn't referring to stock as a bonus, they give these people pure cash as bonuses. Hell they used the bailouts to pay bonuses, that's not "performance based" anything and it was using tax dollars to pay them.

But it's still a race to the bottom for the majority of businesses, they pay less and less and move the jobs overseas when they can no longer lower them here. And yet at the top, the salaries continue to go up or at least be maintained to create the larger multiplier.

And we should be complaining, because they continue to complain about "free market", lower taxes, and subtly implying they are creating more jobs than they are eliminating in the pursuit if higher and higher profit margins. Lots of companies are posting record profits while using the same arguments. The CEO margin is just another indicator that what the people have spent their lives and tax dollars on are being coopted by business interests and funneling the money into the hands of a few. It's not trickling down, it has steadily been cut back.

>> ^Porksandwich:

I wasn't referring to stock as a bonus, they give these people pure cash as bonuses. Hell they used the bailouts to pay bonuses, that's not "performance based" anything and it was using tax dollars to pay them.
But it's still a race to the bottom for the majority of businesses, they pay less and less and move the jobs overseas when they can no longer lower them here. And yet at the top, the salaries continue to go up or at least be maintained to create the larger multiplier.
And we should be complaining, because they continue to complain about "free market", lower taxes, and subtly implying they are creating more jobs than they are eliminating in the pursuit if higher and higher profit margins. Lots of companies are posting record profits while using the same arguments. The CEO margin is just another indicator that what the people have spent their lives and tax dollars on are being coopted by business interests and funneling the money into the hands of a few. It's not trickling down, it has steadily been cut back.


*promote