Top 1% Up $21 Trillion. Bottom 50% Down $900 Billion.

[Cheerful Charlie]

If it's the board of directors that determine the income of the CEO and the board, this is like putting the pigs in charge of the trough. Of course they'll pay themselves a handsome salary package, perks and bonuses regardless of actual performance.

It is common for some people to be on the board of directors of a number of companies. Such a person who is so very generous to CEOs will be in great demand to sit on boards who can benefit greedy CEOs. It is a racket. A greed fest circle jerk of vast dimensions.

 

[DBT]

If it's the board of directors that determine the income of the CEO and the board, this is like putting the pigs in charge of the trough. Of course they'll pay themselves a handsome salary package, perks and bonuses regardless of actual performance.

Do you live in a cartoon? Have you ever actually met a CEO or been in an office that had a Board? Here in New York, at least, it is so fucking cut-throat you'd think it was a pirate's den. Watch the show Succession on HBO. It is exactly like that precisely because they are all pigs at a trough, but they aren't altruistic pigs and the trough is very very small and by no means all-inclusive. They are not all in one giant happy club just randomly deciding that Bob gets to be a billionaire now and next week it will be Sally's turn.

Ted Turner nailed it when he was asked back in the late nineties, if memory serves, "When is enough enough?" He said (and I paraphrase), "When you're at my level, it's not about money. You know what number I look at? The Forbes 500 and where I rank on that list. That's the only number that people like me care about."

WE all get mesmerized by the amounts, but to them it's all relative. Do you deserve a 5% bonus this year because of your hard work and how you helped improve your company? Then you should get one for those reasons. Why is it suddenly different when you switch from percentages to amounts and scale up from worker in one particular branch responsible for one small component to worker responsible for ALL branches and ALL components?

And this idiocy about CEOs not doing any actual work is just insipid ignorant bullshit. No, they don't lift heavy objects. What they do is lift the entire company--and all of its affiliates--onto their shoulders and if they fuck up, the entire company gets fucked as do they. If a worker in a factory fucks up, maybe one product or a handful are fucked. If the CEO fucks up, EVERYTHING gets fucked.

Yes, cry me a river, but you don't get to call others pigs at a trough when you're arguing from the standpoint of one of those pigs, just one that doesn't get to eat as often as the others do at the trough.

Either it's fair to be given a percentage bonus based on your performance and workload, or it's not. If you wouldn't argue that a janitor doesn't deserve to be given a bonus then you can't argue that any other employee (and yes, a CEO is an employee) doesn't deserve to be given a bonus. Just imagine saying, "It's criminal that a janitor gets paid a 5% bonus every year when all he does is smear the dirt around with that disgusting mop all day!"

When I look at t lhe situation the world is in economically, politically and ecologically, it certainly does feel like I am living in a cartoon....no doubt about that.

 

[RVonse]

Everybody complaining about CEO pay would gladly take the job and pay if offered to them.

So, why even complain in the first place? No one's gonna say, "No thanks, I don't need $15 million!"

I know I would. I know I would also take a million dollars if you want to give that to me too. But that's got nothing to do with the discussion of whether the price point of a CEO salary is competitive in a truly free market. I'm pretty sure it is not. And the fact that society chooses to ignore this obvious fact does not make it better. All it says is that society cares more about certain kinds of stealing than others.

 

[Half-Life]

Everybody complaining about CEO pay would gladly take the job and pay if offered to them.

So, why even complain in the first place? No one's gonna say, "No thanks, I don't need $15 million!"

I know I would. I know I would also take a million dollars if you want to give that to me too. But that's got nothing to do with the discussion of whether the price point of a CEO salary is competitive in a truly free market. I'm pretty sure it is not. And the fact that society chooses to ignore this obvious fact does not make it better. All it says is that society cares more about certain kinds of stealing than others.

But nobody has refuted my point about billionaires donating billions to charity. They donate more to charity with one check than any person makes over the course of 10 lifetimes. Yet, somehow, they are greedy and selfish and the poor say that's not enough and they want more.

So they hate billionaires but they want billionaires to keep making more money so they can give more to the poor via more taxation via commie Sanders. Makes no sense.

And people always use the stupid, "Why are you defending billionaires? Are you a billionaire? Then shut up!"
But, this logic makes no sense. Imagine someone saying,
"Why are you defending disabled people? Are you disabled? Then shut up!" Makes no sense, right?

 

[RVonse]

Everybody complaining about CEO pay would gladly take the job and pay if offered to them.

So, why even complain in the first place? No one's gonna say, "No thanks, I don't need $15 million!"

I know I would. I know I would also take a million dollars if you want to give that to me too. But that's got nothing to do with the discussion of whether the price point of a CEO salary is competitive in a truly free market. I'm pretty sure it is not. And the fact that society chooses to ignore this obvious fact does not make it better. All it says is that society cares more about certain kinds of stealing than others.

But nobody has refuted my point about billionaires donating billions to charity. They donate more to charity with one check than any person makes over the course of 10 lifetimes. Yet, somehow, they are greedy and selfish and the poor say that's not enough and they want more.

So they hate billionaires but they want billionaires to keep making more money so they can give more to the poor via more taxation via commie Sanders. Makes no sense.

And people always use the stupid, "Why are you defending billionaires? Are you a billionaire? Then shut up!"
But, this logic makes no sense. Imagine someone saying,
"Why are you defending disabled people? Are you disabled? Then shut up!" Makes no sense, right?

I've never said billionaires are greedy and I don't care anyway. Some of them (like Elon Musk) are even hero's to me.

As far as the OP goes though, society does have to somehow manage to balance things out for the sake of a viable middle class. And that probably does mean taxes but not because billionaires are bad but because the structure of of a peaceful society demands it.

And as far as CEO salary goes, that has even less to do with greed or envy in my eyes. It is just corruption to the core, plain and simple.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As far as the OP goes though, society does have to somehow manage to balance things out for the sake of a viable middle class. And that probably does mean taxes but not because billionaires are bad but because the structure of of a peaceful society demands it.

That's the point I was attempting to make with Harry Bosch but he didn't answer.

Right now the system is set up so that when a person becomes wealthy they get to pay less and less taxes the wealthier they get. Because the tax codes have changed enormously over the past decades this problem has only gotten worse and explains the disappearance of that middle class.

The solution is obviously to tax appropriately.

 

[Harry Bosch]

As far as the OP goes though, society does have to somehow manage to balance things out for the sake of a viable middle class. And that probably does mean taxes but not because billionaires are bad but because the structure of of a peaceful society demands it.

That's the point I was attempting to make with Harry Bosch but he didn't answer.

Right now the system is set up so that when a person becomes wealthy they get to pay less and less taxes the wealthier they get. Because the tax codes have changed enormously over the past decades this problem has only gotten worse and explains the disappearance of that middle class.

The solution is obviously to tax appropriately.

I did answer your question, but you didn't like my answer. At the federal level, I favor taxing income. If you want more taxable income, increase the tax rates.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You work in a particular store, you deserve a performance bonus based on your contribution to that store's profits. No one would argue differently. So why are so many arguing differently when it comes to CEOs?

Because there are a lot of examples of CEO's (in other countries) who are successfully making money who do not make the huge sums.

So what? Because your neighbor makes $100 and you make $20 that means he has to be forced to make $20 too?

They are sufficiently motivated with these far less sums and in many cases do a better job with their companies.

Bully for them. So they are all legit and do what they do without making what you consider to be "huge sums," because they are all altruistically working toward equality of employment pay (including bonuses) and that is their primary ideological drive?

The only reason a CEO makes $30 million in the US is corruption.

Of course. Do you have any evidence supporting such a ludicrous blanket assertion? And exactly how? Every single board member of every single company are all Scrooge McDuck?

If the free market really worked at the top, their salary would be far less.

So, you're arguing that their bonuses are not negotiated before they sign on and the Boards are all just an insider's club where no one gives a shit about the company itself making any profits, they just sit in their offices rolling around laughing on piles of money and every CEO is somehow a magical being that only exists to rotate between companies so the money can all be kept in a tight circle.

Got it.

 

[SimpleDon]

IMO this is a very serious problem that needs to be resolved if our political system is to survive.

If some of you guys don't like Trump.....its only going to get more radical in the future. World wide populism is out of the bag now.

Trump populism is making that problem worse and increasing wealth disparity while fueling white supremacy and xenophobia, b/c dangerously stupid morons believe the con told to them by the wealthy that their problems are the fault of people even poorer than themselves.

You are at least partially wrong, see this article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...departments-new-report-isnt-so-gloomy/599491/ I thought this was being missed by everyone so I started another thread. And it appears I was right because that thread is so far going nowhere.

The wealth disparity has not started to close yet, but the bottom wages ARE beginning to rise. If Trump could be successful with China trade negotiations many more high-value jobs will also increase as supply chains move back to the US.

It will take a long time because this problem took many years of bad government. But I think the light is at the end of the tunnel now.

It is hard to credit Trump with raising wages. A good portion of the increase in wages is still going to the top 10%. A sizable portion of the increase for the bottom 20% is because of the increases above the federal minimum wage by various state and local governments. Trump was out-negotiated by the Chinese, in part because of the reaction of the only part of the that Trump mistakenly believes reflects the health of the economy, the stock market and because of the political heat from the agricultural sector, part of his base of support

You are correct that we are suffering from forty years of bad government. But look at who we have been electing for forty years. Movement conservatives and blue dog democrats, all dedicated to the neoliberal theories that produced the guided age two levels of income inequality. Electing even more neoliberals will not solve the problems created by neoliberals.

 

[DBT]

The system is rigged in favour of the people who benefit most from the system, which includes the policymakers.