CEO pay has gone from 40 times avg. workers' to 400 times

[Eric J in MN]

Sam Seder on "The Majority Report" radio show just said that from 1980 to 2003:

average CEO pay has gone from 40 times average workers' pay

to 400 times average workers' pay.

[jpgray]

1. No, no, the outsourcing allows companies to innovate

Tom Friedman told me so. Surely they wouldn't simply pad the over-stuffed salaries of top executives.

[Eric J in MN]

3. If they included overseas labor, the difference would be

If they included overseas labor, the difference would be even greater.

[jpgray]

5. Yes. The above was heavy sarcasm, of course (nt)

[patrice]

2. What's that I feel trickling down my back?

Urine!!!!

[Cleita]

4. Yes, it has. No one is worth the money some of these

turkeys are robbing. Yes, I say robbing because that is what it is. How come market competition doesn't come into play when appointing CEO's? I am sure if Boards of Directors didn't have the conflicts of interest that they do with deregulation today, the guy with the best resume and who demanded the least money would get the job. That doesn't mean they would be underpaid, but they wouldn't be overpaid either.

[Eric J in MN]

6. Millionaires deciding each otherrs' salaries, sitting on each

Millionaires deciding each otherrs' salaries, sitting on each other "compensation committees."

[Yupster]

15. Agree Eric

Corporate trustees are supposed to be looking out for the owners (stockholders), but it's become an incestuous game.

Fat cats and politicians and ex-politicians sit on the boards doing favors for each other knowing that they will need a favor some day too.

Take Hillary Clinton or Bob Dole. You think they're going to vote against a compensation package for a CEO? No way. They know there's a campaign in their future and they'll want these same CEOs and their friends raising millions of dollars for them.

It's just a circle jerk and the investors get screwed.

How about Vernon Jordan, Trustee at Revlon. Revlon has now lost money for 20 consecutive quarters and is barely alive. It's been a basketcase long before that. So what was Vernon Jordan doing to protect the stockholders assets in the company he's Director of? He used his position to get a $ 90,000 job offer for his friend's bimbo. And here's the funny part.

He's still on the Board today and he's also on the Board of American Express, and who knows how many other companies.

Until the Boards of Trustees can become responsible to the stockholders, I don't see much hope. I thought the growth of mutual funds would help.

Growth Fund of America may have $ 50 billion in it. I thought weight like that would be able to curb the excesses of the "Fat Cats' Circle Jerks," but so far it hasn't happened.

PS - I'm a stockbroker, so I actually pay attention to things like this.

[maggrwaggr]

7. if the min. wage went up as much, it would now be $53.00 an hour

think about it

[candy]

10. Wonderful figure---thanks for figuring it out.

Now I'm really angry. The bastards don't have a clue,do they?

[DebJ]

11. sounds like a great line for an editorial

[LittleApple81]

8. Two years ago I had some Disney stock. I got the stockholders

voting ballot. Included in that vote (and this was after the Enron,Tyco scandals) was executive pay. The RECOMMENDATION was for stockholders to vote FOR THE INDECENT salaries they wanted for their executives because OTHERWISE THEY COULD NOT HIRE QUALIFIED management talent!!!!!! I voted no, but (as you can guess) I did not have enough stock to make a difference. Then I sold the few shares I had... what a relief.

[Cleita]

9. Yes, unless you own a meaningful block of stock, your little

piddling vote doesn't mean much. We need to roll back the deregulation of corporations to where they are accountable again to the American way.

[brokensymmetry]

12. Well...no.

Even if you own lots of stock, it doesn't mean much.

Say you own 30% of Disney, or some other public company. You vote for the directors, who - in most cases - decide the salaries. You can vote against the directors, but even if 99.9% vote against, they STILL get elected.

You could offer an alternate slate of directors, but that costs millions of dollars - you must send out, at your own expense, the alternate set of directors to the shareholders. Meanwhile, the company can use corporate funds to try to defeat your alternates!

Stalin used to say (paraphrased) "You can vote for whomever you wish, so long as I choose the candidates."

And that's the tragedy. The CEO's cheat everyone; the workers, the shareholders who actually own the company, the tax collector, the community they function in.

Ultimately, they will be as well off, compared to the rest of us, as Louis the XVI was to the French peasantry. Perhaps they shouldn't work toward such a day.

[Cleita]

13. So you are saying the stockholders have no say in anything

anymore. So I thought. I don't own much stock anymore since Bush got elected. I guess I will dump the rest of it soon and keep what little money I have under the mattress. It seems safer to me there, right now.

[Yupster]

16. I'd like to see a candidate make an issue of this

My opponent, while serving on the board of XYZ Corporation voted to give the CEO a bonus of $ 60 million while the company stock fell 8 % and the owners of the company, you the small investors lost money.

Until this happens, and works, there's no inentive for the Fat Cats to not scratch each other's backs.

PS - this is not a partisan issue. Look at any Board of Trustees and you'll see former Democratic and Republican congresscritters and cabinet officials. There's no difference.

[Terry_M]

14. Yeah

Neither the republican nor the democratic party has really tried to change the direction, and I believe neither intends to at this point.

[proud patriot]

17. Disgusting , Infuriating

:mad:

[Bombtrack]

18. Yup, that is one of the most damaging stats against deregulation. It's an

increase of 10 THOUSAND percent.

[Yupster]

19. Were CEO salaries ever regulated?

maybe during Nixon's wage freezes, but that was only a brief time.