Companies forced to disclose CEO-workforce pay gap

[Pulsar]

CEO's simply can't go home and forget about the job every night like Rank-and-file workers can at 5.

And if you could negotiate a salary for yourself and have a severance package of some sort, you wouldn't do it?

Jealous hypocrites need to worry about what's in their won paycheck..

You continue to be full of shit. Totally. Do you work? Do you have a professional job?

Because I'll tell you what. Just about every <value added> white collar worker in the country will tell you the job doesn't stay at home. As an engineer I get called at all times of the day. Programmers will tell you about the insane hours they work. I don't get compensated past 8 hours. And so on. It doesn't turn off when we go home. Maybe if you're totally worthless at your job and have no real responsibilities that might be true.

Seriously. Your world view, like your religious view, is fucked.

 

[Pulsar]

This. If you want to know the pay of a CEO at a publicly traded company, the information is already out there. The ratio is simple pandering to people who think companies are all evil.

If that was entirely true, then this wouldn't have been an issue for the Republicans to vote 'ok' for.

Our CEO claimed to have worked for 1 dollar a year for quite a while. Yet they handed him stock options that totaled millions. He tried to play the "I'm contributing too" game while he talked out of both sides of his mouth.

 

[MongGrel]

I don't get this fixation on CEO pay. Yes, they make more than the average worker. They also provide more value than any single average worker.

You can type that and try to sound serious ?

 

[MongGrel]

plenty of CEOs go home and forget about the job every night because they have low paid rank and file workers who work around the clock for them and aren't privileged enough to have a normal schedule.

i have no doubt that you would squeeze every penny into your paycheck if you were a CEO, i however, wouldn't.

and when your pitiful argument fails, just attack me and call me a jealous hypocrite, lol. take a look in the mirror robert.

Many probably don't show up for work at all on a daily basis, and spend a lot of time on the golf course etc.

 

[Auric]

Eat the rich. :awe:

 

[smackababy]

You can type that and try to sound serious ?

Are you serious in that any single worker provides more value to a company than a CEO? If we are only talking about measurables, CEOs can easily influence more than any single worker, bar some kind of destructive accident. We can, for arguments sakes, ignore any non measurable income, such as deals retained rather than lost. A CEO can influence that with company direction.

Do I think they should be paid millions, regardless of their performance? No. But, that isn't what this thread is about. People bellyaching because someone, in a more important position (even if it only requires more experience and a different skill set), is beyond stupid. I don't give two shits what a CEO for any company makes, and for the most part, neither does the board so long as the company is making money.

With that said, a CEO requires an amount of risk, which is why they get those golden parachutes. They must steer the company in a favorable direction without actually knowing the future. So, it makes sense they want to be taken care of regardless of their performance and companies (board members, at least) are obviously swayed in that direction. A good CEO can easily grow your company far beyond the millions you will spend on him and a bad CEO can do the same. Both are trying to go in the direction they think is best and are rewarded as such.

And, public perception of CEOs is beyond stupid. Quite a few people (on this board even) think Ballmer was a terrible CEO, regardless of how MS actually grew.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I don't get this fixation on CEO pay. Yes, they make more than the average worker. They also provide more value than any single average worker.

Yeah Ballmer was an awesome well deserving CEO who made great deals. like buying companies for billions only to write down the entire thing 2 years later instead of paying out that surplus money towards dividends or maybe investing in organic growth.

The just Former CEO of Cisco (Chambers) is another huge joke that was way overpaid and pretty much caused damage to the franchise over his term.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

^^^ that is very debatable.

That is in NO way debatable. To suggest such a thing is completely moronic.

A CEO is the life of a company - they are what is necessary to drive and deliver a JOB that the average worker can handle. There is no way in fuck you can grab an average worker and toss him in the CEO Chair for a day. They would cry themself to sleep

 

[DrPizza]

That is in NO way debatable. To suggest such a thing is completely moronic.

A CEO is the life of a company - they are what is necessary to drive and deliver a JOB that the average worker can handle. There is no way in fuck you can grab an average worker and toss him in the CEO Chair for a day. They would cry themself to sleep

In many dynamic companies, that may be true. But, I used McD's above as an example. It's McD's. You really think it would be tough to be CEO of McD's? Tough decisions: "should we bring back the McRib or not?"

 

[purbeast0]

this is so dumb. i think the main reason people care about what others make is because they are simply jealous of them and wish they could make that much money.

these are probably the same people who think that athletes "shouldnt" make so much money because all they do is "play a game" for a living.

 

[drebo]

Raising minimum wage isn't going to raise median salary. The two have nothing to do with each other. WTF is this idiocy?

 

[Exterous]

CEOs now run companies that are worth far more.

They also run companies that are far bigger. I have wondered if the consolidation of large companies have contributed a significant amount to CEO pay increase statistics. Take the bank consolidations for example. 37 banks have combined into 4 Major banks since the late 90s. Presumably that would have eliminated 33 lower paid CEO positions to create 4 significantly higher paid CEO positions greatly changing bank CEO pay scales.

Say the CEOs of those 37 banks were making $1 million each. If we did a linear increase in salary those 4 remaining CEOs could make $9.25 mill with no net change in CEO outlay. For easy of numbers lets assume the average household makes 40,000. In the 37 bank scenario the CEOs make 25x the average pay. In the 4 CEO scenario they earn 231x the average salary despite the total CEO pay being the same.

Obviously there are a lot of other factors that come into play and the example above is a very rough one but I think consolidation is a much overlooked part of the equation

 

[Chaotic0ne]

CEO pay back in the 60s used to be closer to 10-20x what the average worker made, and now its a few hundred times. There is no justification for CEOs making that much when wages have stagnated for people at the bottom. People at the bottom are looking up and seeing the rich get richer while their paychecks keep getting worth less and less. Its not rocket science as to why a lot of people have a chip on their shoulder over wages. Wages have stagnated to the point in the US where people can work a full time job and still qualify for welfare benefits. Walmart encourages their employees to apply for food stamps. Everyone is having to pay taxes to support the bottom because Capitalists are too cheap to pay livable wages. Something has to give at some point because things as they are cannot go on forever. This is why previous Capitalist regimes got overthrown and replaced by Communist or Fascist regimes. I think that's ironic as hell that when Capitalism fails, people turn to Socialism or Fascism for solutions.

this is so dumb. i think the main reason people care about what others make is because they are simply jealous of them and wish they could make that much money.

That's the textbook conservative canard I hear parroted frequently by media talking heads like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. The fact is, anyone who's ever been at the bottom knows its not about jealousy, its about making a livable wage. And that's all people are asking for. Nobody is asking for 6 figures and expects to be able to afford a brand new Mercedes Benz while mopping floors or cleaning restrooms. But when you got people working full time jobs and still have to go crawl to the government for food stamps, that's just sad.

 

[JimKiler]

I'm going to go back to the topic of why this regulation shouldn't apply to foreign companies again. I don't know if this regulation does or does not apply. I don't know.

But if it does apply, it's beyond stupid. Yes it's a trivial regulation because the information is already public knowledge.

China's government has demanded both Microsoft and Apple release their OS source code to them for analysis, under the demand that if you do business within our borders, you should follow our laws and regulations. This has happened. It would be colossally bad for Microsoft or Apple to comply with them.

When you create legislation in the U.S. that goes against the tops of foreign businesses it gives power to foreign governments to enact laws and regulations against U.S. businesses. And especially when it's a regulation so trivial as this one. Remember a decade ago when the E.U. kept levying fines against U.S. companies and most here believed it was primarily a money grab? Yea.

It's a two-fer. Businesses become more inclined to structure themselves away from the legislative reach of the United States, and foreign nations have more grounds to demand greater compliance from U.S. companies. And it's a self-feeding cycle, the more this happens, the less power the U.S. has to enforce the important laws.

It will apply for foreign companies listed on a US stock exchange just like they have to adhere to all other SEC regulations.

 

[BoberFett]

They should be compared to their peers around the world.
For example, Japanese car company CEOs provide same or better value than American car company CEOs for about 5% the salary. So I wouldn't say American CEOs are a good value.

Then we should compare everyone to their peers around the world.

Oh my god!!! American workers make 100x more than their counterparts in China!!! They need a pay cut!!!

Stupid "liberals" are stupid.

If you don't like a company, don't buy their product.

 

[cabri]

CEO pay back in the 60s used to be closer to 10-20x what the average worker made, and now its a few hundred times. There is no justification for CEOs making that much when wages have stagnated for people at the bottom. People at the bottom are looking up and seeing the rich get richer while their paychecks keep getting worth less and less. Its not rocket science as to why a lot of people have a chip on their shoulder over wages. Wages have stagnated to the point in the US where people can work a full time job and still qualify for welfare benefits. Walmart encourages their employees to apply for food stamps. Everyone is having to pay taxes to support the bottom because Capitalists are too cheap to pay livable wages. Something has to give at some point because things as they are cannot go on forever. This is why previous Capitalist regimes got overthrown and replaced by Communist or Fascist regimes. I think that's ironic as hell that when Capitalism fails, people turn to Socialism or Fascism for solutions.

GREED

When it is not for your the other is greedy.

Look in the mirror - you are asking for what they have.

 

[senseamp]

Then we should compare everyone to their peers around the world.

Oh my god!!! American workers make 100x more than their counterparts in China!!! They need a pay cut!!!

Stupid "liberals" are stupid.

If you don't like a company, don't buy their product.

Even US CEOs of companies that make their goods with same Chinese workers get paid 20x as much.
Stupid "conservative" is redundant It's like ATM Machine.

 

[Chaotic0ne]

GREED

When it is not for your the other is greedy.

Look in the mirror - you are asking for what they have.

Asking them to pay people at the bottom livable wages is hardly greed. Seems like a fair compromise to me.

 

[HomerJS]

Then we should compare everyone to their peers around the world.

Oh my god!!! American workers make 100x more than their counterparts in China!!! They need a pay cut!!!

Stupid "liberals" are stupid.

If you don't like a company, don't buy their product.

because that ever growing income gap is so good for the country

 

[CitizenKain]

And, public perception of CEOs is beyond stupid. Quite a few people (on this board even) think Ballmer was a terrible CEO, regardless of how MS actually grew.

How many billions of dollars did Microsoft lose chasing Apple? Ballmer was terrible, hired terrible people, promoted a terrible culture at the company.

That is in NO way debatable. To suggest such a thing is completely moronic.

A CEO is the life of a company - they are what is necessary to drive and deliver a JOB that the average worker can handle. There is no way in fuck you can grab an average worker and toss him in the CEO Chair for a day. They would cry themself to sleep

Hahahahahahah. Hahahahahahahah. Oh my god, please be serious. I'm sure that if HP had picked a person out of their company at random, they wouldn't have tanked the company as hard as Carly.

 

[BoberFett]

because that ever growing income gap is so good for the country

Again, if you don't like the way a company does business, stop purchasing their products. Americans could take down corporations overnight if they'd stop suckling at the corporate teat long enough.

"Grrrrr!!! We hate corporations!!! Down with the wealth... Ooooh, the new iPhone was just announced, I'm going to go stand in line to buy it."

Apple has hundreds of billions of dollars. In cash. Americans clearly love the income gap.

 

[jackstar7]

Again, if you don't like the way a company does business, stop purchasing their products. Americans could take down corporations overnight if they'd stop suckling at the corporate teat long enough.

"Grrrrr!!! We hate corporations!!! Down with the wealth... Ooooh, the new iPhone was just announced, I'm going to go stand in line to buy it."

Apple has hundreds of billions of dollars. In cash. Americans clearly love the income gap.

I think the wealth gap is detrimental to our economy AND I don't buy Apple products because I don't like how they handle their business. But that doesn't change that there are probably 2 people who do buy Apple products for every one that laments their practices AND doesn't buy their products.

Plenty of people put their money where their values are. But way more don't give a shit for a whole host of reasonable reasons.

 

[smackababy]

Yeah Ballmer was an awesome well deserving CEO who made great deals. like buying companies for billions only to write down the entire thing 2 years later instead of paying out that surplus money towards dividends or maybe investing in organic growth.

The just Former CEO of Cisco (Chambers) is another huge joke that was way overpaid and pretty much caused damage to the franchise over his term.

And this is exactly why you're not fit to run a Dairy Queen. For all the risks Ballmer took, as CEO, he also directed MS to mass success. Ever heard of XP? The exact same people who cry Ballmer is incompetent because he understood his company was big enough to take risks, that happened to fail, are the same people who cry EA is a bad company because they always play it safe.

 

[senseamp]

Again, if you don't like the way a company does business, stop purchasing their products.

Agreed, and this will give me info to decide if I like the way a company does business.

 

[Slew Foot]

in all seriousness, i think everyones income should be public. it really helps to eliminate wage gaps between workers doing similar jobs and helps to increase everyones salary.