“Now we know why CEOs didn’t want this data released,”

[Emily Lake]

It is called living and seeing these people and listening to them.

Does this mean that you have personally interacted with CEOs, and have discussed what their jobs entail with them? Do you have first-hand interactions with CEOs?

 

[ZiprHead]

It is called living and seeing these people and listening to them.

Does this mean that you have personally interacted with CEOs, and have discussed what their jobs entail with them? Do you have first-hand interactions with CEOs?

Have you personally interacted with CEOs at the lofty level of making thousands of dollars per hour?

 

[Emily Lake]

It is called living and seeing these people and listening to them.

Does this mean that you have personally interacted with CEOs, and have discussed what their jobs entail with them? Do you have first-hand interactions with CEOs?

Have you personally interacted with CEOs at the lofty level of making thousands of dollars per hour?

Yes. I don't want their job, it's incredibly stressful and there's a lot riding on their decisions. Many CEOs make truly exorbitant incomes... and several of them do seem obscene to me, but having interacted with very highly paid CEOs and having insight into the kinds of decisions they have to make and the breadth of information they need to be able to consider... I don't really complain about it all that much.

 

[ZiprHead]

Have you personally interacted with CEOs at the lofty level of making thousands of dollars per hour?

Yes. I don't want their job, it's incredibly stressful and there's a lot riding on their decisions. Many CEOs make truly exorbitant incomes... and several of them do seem obscene to me, but having interacted with very highly paid CEOs and having insight into the kinds of decisions they have to make and the breadth of information they need to be able to consider... I don't really complain about it all that much.

Care to name names/companies?

 

[ZiprHead]

Penneys, Macys, and Walmart, all from the meme above are all in the process of closing stores. Sounds like their CEOs are making great decisions.

 

[untermensche]

It is called living and seeing these people and listening to them.

Does this mean that you have personally interacted with CEOs, and have discussed what their jobs entail with them? Do you have first-hand interactions with CEOs?

I have listened to them being interviewed and answering questions. I read their writings.

It is sales jargon and nothing else.

They are usually very charming.

CULT OF PERSONALITY.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Some of it really is obscene. I can't think why anyone would be worth such an obscene amount of money.

Nobody seems to have any problems with athletes and musicians and actors having such obscene amounts of money. I've never really been able to figure out why it's okay for artists and entertainers, but not for businesspeople. It seems like the same perspective should apply to any ridiculously wealthy person, regardless of how that wealth was attained.

I can answer that question! Most people don't understand business. They think that the difference between Apple and Motorola is luck. They don't understand that what drives businesses are the 1,000's of decisions made by owners/ceos every day. There were many smart phones superior to the IPhone. But Apple blew away the competition by creating a better brand.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Penneys, Macys, and Walmart, all from the meme above are all in the process of closing stores. Sounds like their CEOs are making great decisions.

Yea, there are bad CEOs and good CEOs. Penny's and Sears (I don't know much about Macy's and Walmart) were horribly managed. But there are many retailers who are thriving today. Companies like Apple, Tiffany, Coach, select Comfort, Home Depot and etc are extremely well managed. Is it just luck? Not really. These companies offer exclusivity, excellent customer service, and are willing to keep on top of trends, and make the decisions to achieve long-term success. These companies embraced technology, understand their customers and supply chain, they value service above all else. The CEOs of Penny's and Sears are probably getting paid well in the short term, but their pay will fall far far less than their competitors because they made horrible decisions.

 

[bilby]

There should be a sliding scale of tax breaks. The bigger the gap, the more the corp has to pay into social services. Stick to 100x and you get no penalties.

Why tax the corporations, who can just restructure to avoid the taxes? Far better to tax individual income.

Close the loopholes on personal income; set a few new tax brackets above the existing structure, and apply very high rates to the top brackets. A person earning $10,000,000 per annum pays less than 40% on earnings over half a million dollars. He can afford to pay (for example)80% tax on income above $1m, 90% above $5m, and 99% above $8m. He's not going to go hungry. And if the top rates are sufficiently high, they set an effective ceiling on earnings.

 

[zorq]

Penneys, Macys, and Walmart, all from the meme above are all in the process of closing stores. Sounds like their CEOs are making great decisions.

Yea, there are bad CEOs and good CEOs. Penny's and Sears (I don't know much about Macy's and Walmart) were horribly managed. But there are many retailers who are thriving today. Companies like Apple, Tiffany, Coach, select Comfort, Home Depot and etc are extremely well managed. Is it just luck? Not really. These companies offer exclusivity, excellent customer service, and are willing to keep on top of trends, and make the decisions to achieve long-term success. These companies embraced technology, understand their customers and supply chain, they value service above all else. The CEOs of Penny's and Sears are probably getting paid well in the short term, but their pay will fall far far less than their competitors because they made horrible decisions.

And yet, despite all the money involved, the boards of directors of these companies WHO DO interact with lots of CEOs can't seem to be able to distinguish the difference between the good CEOs and the bad CEOs-- the good decisions and the bad decisions. What does that tell you?

I'll tell you what that means to ME. It means that every company that fails was lead by a failure who wasn't worth the money the company invested in him/her. It tells me that the failure CEOS are indistinguishable from successful CEOs. It tells me that all the standards, skill sets, and attributes companies are using to select their CEOs are meaningless. Because there appears to be no accurate measure of the quality of a CEO until they are given the reins of a company, this means that I or YOU might very well be exactly as successful at running a company as any proven successful CEO out there. And that means that the work that successful CEOs perform, might be more demanding, (I don't know about that, I work pretty hard in my profession) but it isn't necessarily more difficult, or specialized than the work that goes on in any other skilled occupation.

And if that is indeed true, then CEOs really don't deserve to earn hundreds of times more money than their employees. They are just doing their job, the same as the rest of us.

 

[couch_sloth]

Penneys, Macys, and Walmart, all from the meme above are all in the process of closing stores. Sounds like their CEOs are making great decisions.

Yea, there are bad CEOs and good CEOs. Penny's and Sears (I don't know much about Macy's and Walmart) were horribly managed. But there are many retailers who are thriving today. Companies like Apple, Tiffany, Coach, select Comfort, Home Depot and etc are extremely well managed. Is it just luck? Not really. These companies offer exclusivity, excellent customer service, and are willing to keep on top of trends, and make the decisions to achieve long-term success. These companies embraced technology, understand their customers and supply chain, they value service above all else. The CEOs of Penny's and Sears are probably getting paid well in the short term, but their pay will fall far far less than their competitors because they made horrible decisions.

I think most of the big corporation CEOs get paid way too much... But having said that, the CEOs who manage traditional retailers like Sears, Penny's and Macy's have ended up with pretty difficult jobs; e.g. Trying to breath life into a form of retail that is on the down turn. Sure, they could have made some huge changes to their retail model, but the risk of failure would be high. And sometimes it's hard to figure out why some chain stores are doing well, and others are not. e.g. Why isn't K-Mart as successful as Target or Walmart?
I would think that becoming the CEO of a company that is already doing well, would be a much easier job to succeed at.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

Tom Brady makes the same amount as the link for one of the CEOs and he just throws a brown leather thing around for fun. And Brady is the 12th highest paid quarterback.

His superior talents are clearly seen.

What is superior about these CEOs that justifies their pay?

They fail as often as they succeed. Their so-called talents are not easily seen.

They’re most likely talented at schmoozing and networking.

They are good at politicking and strategizing. If the company is public, they are good at getting their stock sold. Actually, the skill level is quite high and takes the right temperament, education, strategic vision, and very unusual experience sets. Good leaders are rare. Most leaders aren't very good.

None of that justifies a culture that places no limits on the wealth an individual can accumulate. There is no need to prove that Marx was right every generation.

 

[DBT]

CEO's are in a highly responsible position and should be paid well for their work, but not at their current rates and bonuses.
The ratio between those at the top and the rest of us has gotten way out of hand. To the point of obscenity.

I'm surprised that there is, generally speaking, no real sense of outrage. Or any apparent likelihood of addressing the issue in the foreseeable future.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Support your local CEOs!

Tom Brady makes the same amount as the link for one of the CEOs and he just throws a brown leather thing around for fun. And Brady is the 12th highest paid quarterback.

His superior talents are clearly seen.

What is superior about these CEOs that justifies their pay?

They fail as often as they succeed. Their so-called talents are not easily seen.

One of their talents, which we're not supposed to talk about, is their ability to lay off unneeded uncompetitive workers who cost the company more than they're worth, also to resist pressure for higher wages.

It requires special personal traits to handle the tough decisions to get rid of unneeded workers, when the society puts psychological pressure on companies to hire extra workers and increase the wage levels, all based on emotional impulse rather than data and reason and logic. A good CEO needs the stamina to resist the emotionalism and make the tough decisions, to save on cost and promote the bottom line, for the good not only of the company, but consumers, who are the ultimate beneficiary of the company's cost-cutting.

Those CEOs are actually unsung heroes, who require a mean streak in them so they can do what's necessary, against the screams of the hysterical masses.

If instead the company hired a "nice guy" and paid him half as much or less, he'd end up costing the company more, being sympathetic to the demands for higher wages, i.e., the "good-paying jobs" demanded by Bernie Sanders etc.

 

[barbos]

You should offer to be a CEO for 40X or 45X the average salary and see if you can get Ziprhead's gig.

That doesn't mean a CEO has special talents.

It just means it's hard to get the job.

But they do have talents. They are politicians and lie very easily.

So, if I were hiring a CEO (which I do actually do in my job), why would I want one who is a politician who lies to me?

Not to you, to other people. You hire CEO to lie to other people for profit.

 

[DBT]

Tom Brady makes the same amount as the link for one of the CEOs and he just throws a brown leather thing around for fun. And Brady is the 12th highest paid quarterback.

His superior talents are clearly seen.

What is superior about these CEOs that justifies their pay?

They fail as often as they succeed. Their so-called talents are not easily seen.

One of their talents, which we're not supposed to talk about, is their ability to lay off unneeded uncompetitive workers who cost the company more than they're worth, also to resist pressure for higher wages.

That is a good description of many CEO's, who run a company into the ground, cause untold hardship for countless people, collect their bonuses and move on to greener pastures. Pity they don't get the boot long before that stage.

 

[barbos]

That is a good description of many CEO's, who run a company into the ground, cause untold hardship for countless people, collect their bonuses and move on to greener pastures. Pity they don't get the boot long before that stage.

True, but a lot of old and fat companies find themselves in the situation where they need "restructuring" and some CEOs are specialized in just that - going in and firing lots of people who, truth to be told, are dead weight. Some (smaller companies) CEOs may find it hard to fire people they have known for a long time, better hire someone outside.

 

[DBT]

That is a good description of many CEO's, who run a company into the ground, cause untold hardship for countless people, collect their bonuses and move on to greener pastures. Pity they don't get the boot long before that stage.

True, but a lot of old and fat companies find themselves in the situation where they need "restructuring" and some CEOs are specialized in just that - going in and firing lots of people who, truth to be told, are dead weight. Some (smaller companies) CEOs may find it hard to fire people they have known for a long time, better hire someone outside.

Many CEO's are probably good managers within the context in which they operate, but this still does not justify their overblown salaries and bonuses.

 

[barbos]

That is a good description of many CEO's, who run a company into the ground, cause untold hardship for countless people, collect their bonuses and move on to greener pastures. Pity they don't get the boot long before that stage.

True, but a lot of old and fat companies find themselves in the situation where they need "restructuring" and some CEOs are specialized in just that - going in and firing lots of people who, truth to be told, are dead weight. Some (smaller companies) CEOs may find it hard to fire people they have known for a long time, better hire someone outside.

Many CEO's are probably good managers within the context in which they operate, but this still does not justify their overblown salaries and bonuses.

It's unfortunate but shareholders (who are clueless 99% of time) are ultimately OK with that. But CEO compensation of big companies is usually pretty inconsequential as far as overall company spendings is concerned. Speaking of shareholders, I personally had indirect interaction with a scam artist CEO/company, and I can tell you, these shareholders are raging idiots, once you get their money they will stay with you no matter what.
At one AGM (annual general meeting) their CEO threatened suing me and other fairly anonymous critics for calling him names

 

[untermensche]

Tom Brady makes the same amount as the link for one of the CEOs and he just throws a brown leather thing around for fun. And Brady is the 12th highest paid quarterback.

His superior talents are clearly seen.

What is superior about these CEOs that justifies their pay?

They fail as often as they succeed. Their so-called talents are not easily seen.

One of their talents, which we're not supposed to talk about, is their ability to lay off unneeded uncompetitive workers who cost the company more than they're worth, also to resist pressure for higher wages.

No that is the last resort of a scumbag without any ideas.

If you have labor and cannot find something productive for them to do then you have failed at leadership.

CULT OF PERSONALITY.