[PassedOut]

Following up on LukeWarm's suggestion that executive pay be limited, I think this chart is interesting:



This chart is from an article in The Middle of the Road:

Quote

In the 1950′s the pay separation between the average worker and CEO’s in what we now call the Fortune 500 companies used to be about 20 to 1 (for every dollar a mid level manager made, a CEO made 20 dollars. ) 20 to 1 was here in American and extreme compared to the rest of the world where even now it is more commonly about half of that. During the 1980s the pay gap between CEO’s and average workers grew from 42:1 to almost 85:1. By 2004 it had jumped to 301 : 1. And now???… well now, right here in the good old US of A, the ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay is running 475 to 1 while in Japan, a very profitable nation with a very good standard of living, the ratio is 11 to 1. The average Japanese CEO would kill himself in shame if his company failed so badly that it needed to be bailed out by the government in order to stop the world economy from crashing. American CEO’s take bonuses of 15 million dollars for doing that.

In case you need somebody to characterize that for you… that’s a bad thing. This level of greed is not a sign of American business success and superiority. It is an example of institutionalized insanity because these companies can and do lose billions of dollars in a single year and the CEO’s still make the monster money.

LukeWarm hasn't said what ratio he'd find acceptable, but it seems to me that all compensation above the 20:1 ratio could be heavily taxed to support a nation-rebuilding program in the US.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on 2011-October-10, 11:59, said:

Following up on LukeWarm's suggestion that executive pay be limited, I think this chart is interesting:

you made me go back and look, cause i couldn't imagine ever making such a suggestion... i found this quote from me, in answering one of your posts, "nope, i'd not be for a system where the gov't sets salaries for anyone in the private sector..."

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on 2011-October-11, 15:46, said:

you made me go back and look, cause i couldn't imagine ever making such a suggestion... i found this quote from me, in answering one of your posts, "nope, i'd not be for a system where the gov't sets salaries for anyone in the private sector..."

Okay, but seems to me you brought the matter up in the first place. Are you saying now that this disparity is not a problem for the US?

[mike777]

Income disparity seems to be a very minor issue to most people.

There is always an easy solution that is to claw the money back to the government through closing gift tax loopholes and raising the rate much higher.


If the owners of capital want to grossly overpay their ceo's then it simply becomes a transfr to the govt when they try and gift the money or die. Most of these CEOs are not young and it just means the govt has to wait a few years.

In the meantime the govt can tax them when they earn the income or try and spend it.

[blackshoe]

The Taxman.

[kenberg]

Speaking for myself, not Jimmy, I may question the taste of a nation that makes Lady Gaga or Sarah Palin rich, but I don't really care. That is not the same as saying I have no concerns about the ways of the rich.

Here, in a nutshell, is my problem:

People bought houses they can't afford on mortgages that never should have been written. If 500K was paid for a house that is worth 300K, someone gets stuck with the 200K. The guy who bought the house has no money so he's not going to pay it. The mortgage folks have highly paid people watching out for their interests, they will not be suffering a loss. That seems to leave me holding the bag.

This has many variants: Mary Landrieu will make sure that no oil company makes any contribution to any of the nations problems, Charles Schumer will watch out for the New Yorkers. (These two examples courtesy of the Washington Post.)

I have never spent thirty seconds worrying about someone making more money, or a lot more money, than I do. Someone can blow a grand on box seats at a game if they want to, just as long as they do not stick me with the tab. I think a lot of this resentment we see is because people are getting the idea, probably pretty close to accurate, that we who do not buy what we cannot afford and do not lend money to people who cannot pay it back are going to get stuck with the losses of the idiots who do. And I guess if they get us to do such a thing, we are the idiots.

[helene_t]

phil_20686, on 2011-October-06, 12:27, said:

Its been done in the netherlands, maximum salaried earnings including bonuses are capped at the level of the prime ministers salary. about 200000 euros. This does not include money earned from investors, so small business owners can earn much more. So can the owners of capital.

Source? This Dutch page: http://nl.wikipedia..../Balkenendenorm says that it only applies to companies owned by the government, and that it is allowed to pay more than the PM salary, they just have to publish details about such high salaries.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on 2011-October-11, 16:51, said:

Okay, but seems to me you brought the matter up in the first place. Are you saying now that this disparity is not a problem for the US?

i guess it depends on how you define "problem"... you (and i) may disagree, but someone in a privately held company decided at sometime that the jobs some people did were worth X number of dollars... it is not the gov't's purview to get involved in this... it isn't the gov't's money, it belongs to private citizens, who can (or should be able to) do what they want with what is theirs

[Zelandakh]

mike777, on 2011-October-11, 17:47, said:

Income disparity seems to be a very minor issue to most people.

This might be true at face value. However there is a very strong correlation between "happiness" in a society and the difference in standard of living between the wealthiest and least wealthiest in that society.

That said, I do not agree in a pay cap for senior executives. If nothing else such individuals are in such high demand that they will simply go elsewhere if necessary with a potential "brain-drain" to follow. The income disparity in the US probably reflects the success of companies there in attracting the best managers rather than a fundamental breakdown of society, naturally in combination with America being a highly competitive market and thus there being internal competition as well as international competition.

[kenberg]

I don't see why anyone's pay should be artificially capped. However, given the remarkable good fortune of CEOs who get large sums of money for running a company into the ground, a person does not have to be a raving paranoid to suspect the game is rigged. We all have a stake in having our major corporations be successful, and a little checking into whether shareholders are getting the options, information and the control that they rightfully should have might improve matters all around.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on 2011-October-12, 06:59, said:

I don't see why anyone's pay should be artificially capped. However, given the remarkable good fortune of CEOs who get large sums of money for running a company into the ground, a person does not have to be a raving paranoid to suspect the game is rigged.

Capping pay seems both wrong and impractical to me. But, after looking at these charts, it seems to me that a more progressive tax structure won't hurt the high earners at all, and the US needs the money to pay down the debt racked up since the Bush tax cuts.

In fact, the surcharge proposed by Reid and Schumer won't affect me at all (by a long shot), nor will it affect many more of us who can afford to help pay down the debt. Better to combine that surcharge with the expiration of the irresponsible Bush tax cuts so we can chop down the US debt at a faster clip.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on 2011-October-12, 03:58, said:

it isn't the gov't's money, it belongs to private citizens, who can (or should be able to) do what they want with what is theirs

In the face of the huge US debt, that's like the person who has racked up huge credit card bills saying, "It's not the bank's money, it belongs to me and I should be able to do what I want with it."

[Zelandakh]

PassedOut, on 2011-October-12, 07:35, said:

and the US needs the money to pay down the debt racked up since the Bush tax cuts.

Talking of the Bush tax cuts, has anyone in the US considered taking the Ukrainian route and locking him away for 7 years for "Misuse of Public Resources"? Surely if spending cash to provide your people with gas when they are freezing through a Russian winter is misuse then giving it away to those who do not need extras (other than perhaps to donate back to political organisations) has got to be worth at least as long!

[PassedOut]

Zelandakh, on 2011-October-12, 07:44, said:

Talking of the Bush tax cuts, has anyone in the US considered taking the Ukrainian route and locking him away for 7 years for "Misuse of Public Resources"? Surely if spending cash to provide your people with gas when they are freezing through a Russian winter is misuse then giving it away to those who do not need extras (other than perhaps to donate back to political organisations) has got to be worth at least as long!

Well Bush didn't do it alone; he got congress (including a number of democrats) to go along with it.

[mike777]

Zelandakh, on 2011-October-12, 07:44, said:

Talking of the Bush tax cuts, has anyone in the US considered taking the Ukrainian route and locking him away for 7 years for "Misuse of Public Resources"? Surely if spending cash to provide your people with gas when they are freezing through a Russian winter is misuse then giving it away to those who do not need extras (other than perhaps to donate back to political organisations) has got to be worth at least as long!

Interesting idea, if you give tax cuts to rich people you should be sent to jail.

Perhaps we can extend this idea to if you dont increase taxes on rich people you get sent to jail.

[blackshoe]

Personally, I think anyone who runs for or is currently in political office should be sent to jail.

[luke warm]

Zelandakh, on 2011-October-12, 07:44, said:

Talking of the Bush tax cuts, has anyone in the US considered taking the Ukrainian route and locking him away for 7 years for "Misuse of Public Resources"?

and what about those in congress who voted to do it? and those who voted to extend them (with support from obama)?

PassedOut, on 2011-October-12, 07:39, said:

In the face of the huge US debt, that's like the person who has racked up huge credit card bills saying, "It's not the bank's money, it belongs to me and I should be able to do what I want with it."

mknot

PassedOut said:

Well Bush didn't do it alone; he got congress (including a number of democrats) to go along with it.

and, if i remember correctly, an extension agreed to by obama

blackshoe, on 2011-October-12, 11:04, said:

Personally, I think anyone who runs for or is currently in political office should be sent to jail.

what about just having them live by the same laws as everyone else? i don't mean most laws they pass, i mean *all* laws they pass

[PassedOut]

The US transportation system is crumbling around us and lots of people who could and should be working on fixing it do not have jobs. The Post has an article describing the magnitude of the problem: ‘Gargantuan large’ investment in infrastructure needed, experts say

Quote

The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that an investment of $1.7 trillion is needed between now and 2020 to rebuild roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems and dams that are reaching the ends of their planned life cycles. The Urban Institute puts the price tag at $2 trillion.

Last year, a report by 80 experts led by former transportation secretaries Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel K. Skinner called for an annual investment of $262 billion.

Fail to invest now, and the cost will increase later. Already, the civil engineers said, infrastructure deficiencies add $97 billion a year to the cost of operating vehicles and result in travel delays that cost $32 billion.

Failing to raise taxes for essential infrastucture improvements is foolish.

[blackshoe]

Failing to make the improvements is foolish. Taxes aren't the only way of funding things.

[y66]

From Occupy DC



Second that.