Breakaway Wealth With executive pay, rich pull away from rest of America

[dtotire]

Special Report: Breakaway Wealth
With executive pay, rich pull away from rest of America

Peter Whoriskey/WASHINGTON POST -

It was the 1970s, and the chief executive of a leading U.S. dairy company, Kenneth J. Douglas, lived the good life. He earned the equivalent of about $1 million today. He and his family moved from a three-bedroom home to a four-bedroom home, about a half-mile away, in River Forest, Ill., an upscale Chicago suburb. He joined a country club. The company gave him a Cadillac. The money was good enough, in fact, that he sometimes turned down raises. He said making too much was bad for morale.

Forty years later, the trappings at the top of Dean Foods, as at most U.S. big companies, are more lavish. The current chief executive, Gregg L. Engles, averages 10 times as much in compensation as Douglas did, or about $10 million in a typical year. He owns a $6 million home in an elite suburb of Dallas and 64 acres near Vail, Colo., an area he frequently visits. He belongs to as many as four golf clubs at a time — two in Texas and two in Colorado. While Douglas’s office sat on the second floor of a milk distribution center, Engles’s stylish new headquarters occupies the top nine floors of a 41-story Dallas office tower. When Engles leaves town, he takes the company’s $10 million Challenger 604 jet, which is largely dedicated to his needs, both business and personal.

The evolution of executive grandeur — from very comfortable to jet-setting — reflects one of the primary reasons that the gap between those with the highest incomes and everyone else is widening.



more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/with-executive-pay-rich-pull-away-from-rest-of-america/2011/06/13/AG

[Scuba]

1. link failed.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. Thanks. The link didn't work for me but....

I Googled to find this link...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/specialreports/inequality

and see it's a series.

:thumbsup:

Thanks, and K&R.

:)

[txlibdem]

3. The peasants are revolting!

Then Groucho Marx says, "They've always been revolting. Now they're rebelling."

[Demeter]

5. I wish that were true

give it 6 months.

[txlibdem]

7. That was a line from the movie "Duck Soup" (Groucho Marx, 1933)

But I thought it summed up the contempt with which the wealthy hold the other 98% of us. The play on words: revolting versus rebelling...

I agree with your assessment but the timeline is too short. We won't have sunk low enough into the sewers for any sort of action by the masses entranced by organized religion, sports, reality tv, and whatever clone of American Idol is popular this week. They'll have to be kicked in the head by hard realities for a while before they wake up. We're all still dreaming the American Dream (that never came true).

[Demeter]

8. A really bad Christmas, after last year's disappointment

it could happen, especially with the election fracas.

[txlibdem]

9. We've lost our Democracy, that much is clear to me

So whenever a movement starts that will take back Democracy for the citizens of this country, I'll be all for it.

[Karenina]

10. Underdog poses the same question...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE-YSFjurOE

[Wilms]

4. Here a link to the OP article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/with-executive-pay-rich-pull-away-from-rest-of-america/2011/06/13/AGKG9jaH_story.html

[Scuba]

6. Thank you!