Poll of the Day > Does the disparity between CEO and average worker pay

(+) Yeah! (+)

Make you upset? I for one cannot understand how someone can make 300 or 400 times that of an average employee. That to me is insane and I am shocked Americans are not outraged by that.
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It kills the economy. Every time the disparity gets too great, the economy goes in the tank. We are humming right along to another cliff right now thanks to the Republican tax plan.
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Yes. Especially when you look at places like Amazon and Wal-Mart.

The CEO could easily afford to give ALL their workers (from the lowliest little janitor....to the board of directors) the best health insurance plan imaginable.....AND a good, non minimum wage......and the only thing it would hurt.....is that the CEO can only buy 5 yachts this summer....instead of 10.

The sheer amount of greed and narcissism in capitalism is staggering and disgusting.

Income disparity is a huge problem.....and people can't do much about it....because that 1% is soooooo powerful, they can influence laws to further protect themselves.
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GreenKnight127 posted...

Yes. Especially when you look at places like Amazon and Wal-Mart.

The CEO could easily afford to give ALL their workers (from the lowliest little janitor....to the board of directors) the best health insurance plan imaginable.....AND a good, non minimum wage......and the only thing it would hurt.....is that the CEO can only buy 5 yachts this summer....instead of 10.

The sheer amount of greed and narcissism in capitalism is staggering and disgusting.

Income disparity is a huge problem.....and people can't do much about it....because that 1% is soooooo powerful, they can influence laws to further protect themselves.

This is my problem with it. Money is one thing but when you can provide decent benifits because it might make you 1% poorer then you're a shit bag.

It just reflects the size of the planet compared to the individual.

When a company is global you end up with like 50 ranks from the bottom and everyone demands at least 10% more than the person below them because their work influences more of the organisation. Adding 10% 50 times means the top dog gets mad mula, and this is assuming a modest increase every time (comparatively).

What disgusts me is that governments don't take this in to account and have tax brackets at the super high end because they're scared other countries will let them in when it's in everyone's best interest to raise the rates collectively. When the big companies have to pay out big taxes, governments can enact balances and greatly improve national productivity and happiness.

Of course, politicians being politicians, they're interested in personal gain and a mega corporation has the capital to buy off every politician personally and keep them happy not working.
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Depends on if that CEO is reinvesting their income back into the company... which helps EVERYONE
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Lokarin posted...

Depends on if that CEO is reinvesting their income back into the company... which helps EVERYONE

Typical practice is to pay out dividends to the top brass who spend it on stock in the company, which means the stock owners still hold just as much wealth which they can cash out whenever, but the company keeps the profits without corporation tax.

So if the companies actually spend the profit, any stock owner can pull out their years of stock payout and just destroy the company so it operates with large amounts of unspent capital as insurance.
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GreenKnight127 posted...

The CEO could easily afford to give ALL their workers (from the lowliest little janitor....to the board of directors) the best health insurance plan imaginable.....AND a good, non minimum wage......and the only thing it would hurt.....is that the CEO can only buy 5 yachts this summer....instead of 10.

I'm against the income disparity too, but based on this article, it wouldn't help that much. $38 for a year isn't a lot. Though this doesn't take into account things like stock options and other non-cash benefits.

https://www.vox.com/2014/8/6/5970815/what-if-walmarts-ceo-took-a-pay-cut-for-his-workers

With that said, I think Walmart can do more to improve conditions and pay for their employees. Amazon can do even more. Walmart has the excuse that they have to maintain stores and stores are expensive, but Amazon really doesn't.
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Of course it's a problem. It's why our world is in trouble. There are far too many that think only looking out for themselves is the best course of action for everyone.
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It doesnt make me upset

I think folks at the bottom should make a living wage though, I think that would benefit society overall
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Unregulated capitalism will always lead to these situations. Money accumulates when allowed to. The more you have, the more you can buy out, and the more you buy out the more you control. The problem is we don't tax the high incomes nearly enough, and our regulatory system has been utterly destroyed. There used to be this thing called anti-trust laws....technically they still exist, but haven't been updated in a century to keep up w/ new schemes and are never really enforced. We used to restrict companies from forming virtual monopolies. Now we not only allow the mergers and acquisitions to happen, we reward them for it by bailing them out of their own fuck ups because now they're "too big too fail" and them going down would cause a catastrophe. Gee, sounds like they never should've been allowed to grow that big! Nah, that's crazy talk!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Lokarin posted...

Depends on if that CEO is reinvesting their income back into the company... which helps EVERYONE

Typical practice is to pay out dividends to the top brass who spend it on stock in the company, which means the stock owners still hold just as much wealth which they can cash out whenever, but the company keeps the profits without corporation tax.

So if the companies actually spend the profit, any stock owner can pull out their years of stock payout and just destroy the company so it operates with large amounts of unspent capital as insurance.

On a related note...
We all just treat corporate stock buy backs like it's some normal thing that's been the case for as long as there's been a stock market. About that...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/10/investing/stocks-week-ahead-buybacks-mark-yusko/index.html

Veteran hedge fund manager Mark Yusko is deeply skeptical of the stock buyback boom set off by President Donald Trump's tax overhaul.
"I call it the tax deform bill. It was just a free handout to rich people who pay a lot of money to lobbies," Yusko, the founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital, told CNN Business.
Instead of using its tax savings to speed up the economy, Corporate America is just "buying back stock to stimulate their stock price," Yusko said from the sidelines of the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit.
Yusko noted that prior to 1982, share buybacks were outlawed by the SEC. "I think they should still be deemed insider trading and illegal," he said.

Share buybacks are a common practice where companies repurchase their own shares as a way to return excess capital. Buybacks boost demand for shares and artificially inflate per-share earnings.
US companies announced a record-shattering $1 trillion worth of share buybacks in 2018, the first full year since the tax law took effect, according to TrimTabs Investment Research.
After perking up in the first quarter of 2018, business investment on job-creating items like factories and equipment decelerated.

Like the repeal of the Glass-Stteagall Act, yet another case where a fairly recent change to financial laws opened up the floodgates of abuse, and where the solution to fix it is easy and blatantly staring us in the face.

It doesn't bug me too much. Your pay reflects what you're responsible for, and how much you can provide to the company. A janitor, for example, if he totally fucks up it's not gonna do much. Maybe as an extreme example some one could get hurt and cost the company $50k in damages. If a CEO fucks up, the company could lose millions, and hundreds or thousands of people could lose their jobs. At the same time, a janitor isn't going to save a company much money or increase profits by a significant amount. A CEO can (and should). Therefore, higher pay.
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That article is bunk.

I did the math, I forget if it was for amazon or walmart (think it was for walmart...pretty sure), and if they took 10% of the recorded profit the company made last year and split it with the 1.5 million employees, each employee would get over $8000 extra a year.

The profit is btw AFTER everyone gets paid including the top brass etc.

Profit sharing should be standard, you make ANY profit because of your workers. You take a risk in investing money to pay them (hopefully) a living wage, but you should share some of the profit with them as well. 10% is not unreasonable, and in the above example it would probably increase most of the employees wages by 50%.

It would certainly increase the average wage well above min wage.

That being said, walmart did increase it's pay average recently. Currently averaging about $14.50 an hour (which includes many places with less then $12 min wage). That does already put it ahead of most other companies. If they added a profit sharing options $8,000 a year for an average 34 hours week for employees *52 weeks = 1760 or so hours. 8000/1760 = about $4.50 more per hour worked (about a 33% total increase in wages). This would also put the lowest paid employees ($11 is the current minimum at walmart) at over $15 an hour (if barely).

Should be the norm, but it's never gonna happen.
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Well, blah, did a bit more research and it looks like most positions at walmart start at the base $11 an hour, only being higher if forced by a higher min wage (like it's $12 here in olympia/lacey washington).

Still better then it used to be as higher positions get paid more and the average is more then it used to be, you can get paid more with experience/staying with the company etc.

But not great for someone just starting at the job.
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wolfy42 posted...

Well, blah, did a bit more research and it looks like most positions at walmart start at the base $11 an hour, only being higher if forced by a higher min wage (like it's $12 here in olympia/lacey washington).

Yeah, the average of $14.50 is factoring in hourly managers and people who have been with the company for 40 years. The majority probably make under $13.
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So you want more companies like what Ben & Jerry's used to do when it comes to pay scale (really limiting the pay the CEOs get and for raises, those at the bottom get them concurrently)?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-wall-street-why-ben-jerrys-endorsement-rings-hollow/
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Anyone who refers to the current typical wage as a living wage needs to be made to live on it for a while. With what you can afford on such a wage, you wouldn't be able to get the job in the first place, typically having to eschew amenities like your own car, a decent cell phone and plan for it, a decent wardrobe, and a place to live that isn't a tarpaulin tent in the forest behind a truck stop.

Oh wait, they expect everyone making crap money to cohabitate. Great for families, too. When mom and dad are each at work for overlapping hours, the children can more easily be indoctrinated to believe whatever political BS is being rammed into their heads, without parents to temper the children with a proper upbringing first.
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wolfy42 posted...

Profit sharing should be standard

So, should the employees getting docked pay in the case of their company losing money also be standard?
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Beats the usual pattern of companies gaining record profits, and slashing benefits while rolling out layoffs at the same time.
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BUMPED2002 posted...

Make you upset? I for one cannot understand how someone can make 300 or 400 times that of an average employee. That to me is insane and I am shocked Americans are not outraged by that.

lol, just fucking lol. In many cases, even if a CEO's entire salary went to the rest of the company it would be a nominal amount -- like an extra hundred bucks per year. How much a CEO makes is largely inconsequential, unless the company isn't making money.

GreenKnight127 posted...

Yes. Especially when you look at places like Amazon and Wal-Mart.

The CEO could easily afford to give ALL their workers (from the lowliest little janitor....to the board of directors) the best health insurance plan imaginable.....AND a good, non minimum wage......and the only thing it would hurt.....is that the CEO can only buy 5 yachts this summer....instead of 10.

The sheer amount of greed and narcissism in capitalism is staggering and disgusting.

Income disparity is a huge problem.....and people can't do much about it....because that 1% is soooooo powerful, they can influence laws to further protect themselves.

Wal-Mart's CEO makes $24m per year (total compensation, so technically it's not even $24m cash). Wal-Mart has 2.2m employees. Even if you took the CEO's entire salary, it would only be about an extra $10 per employee. How much health insurance can $10 buy? But seriously, this is EXACTLY the kind of stupid nonsense you get when you start talking about CEO salaries. It's all bullshit.

The sheer amount of stupidity in the arguments whining about CEO compensation is staggering and disgusting.

ASlaveObeys posted...

This is my problem with it. Money is one thing but when you can provide decent benifits because it might make you 1% poorer then you're a shit bag.

...and yet another person who doesn't understand math.

wolfy42 posted...

I did the math, I forget if it was for amazon or walmart (think it was for walmart...pretty sure), and if they took 10% of the recorded profit the company made last year and split it with the 1.5 million employees, each employee would get over $8000 extra a year.

...except they can't afford to do that because they need to reinvest in the business, especially given that they're losing ground to Amazon and other competitors.
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