Why do people complain about CEO compensation? (1 Viewer)

[Ilov80s]

Cmon man.  

I thought you did. I replied to you in different threads once or twice since then and you didn’t respond. Plus obviously I posted a bunch here. I apologize for the comment. 

 

[Ilov80s]

Costs associated with pregnancy and child birth over the last 10-20some years has already made it unaffordable for a not insignificant portion of the population. I'm trying to be more open minded to ideas that dont fit my preconceived bias, but this one is going to test some limits. 

If you want to talk about that further we should go to the health care thread in the other forum. 

 

[AAABatteries]

I am not. Pull the cord? 

Notice I didn't pull from any liberal media outlets trying to push political agendas.

You tell me.  

Guy has an agenda and should have started this in the PSF.

 

[Godsbrother]

I have a friend who says he is disgusted with show biz because of what actors make and of sports because of the greed of the players but he isn't outraged by greed of the owners and of CEOs of large corporations.  

I am fine with everyone trying to get the most they can but one thing that bothers me is the high compensation the CEOs of many "non-profits".   For instance, the head of UPMC Healthcare in Pittsburgh received almost $7 million last year and 26 executives made over $1 million.     To me if you want non-profit status then there should be a cap on what executives can earn.

 

[Arizona Ron]

Why does the left make everything about race?

 

[AAABatteries]

Why does the left make everything about race?

I had no clue chet was a leftist and I’m shocked the thread has taken this turn.  SHOCKED.

 

[Jayrok]

It’s all relative. No problem with a CEO making huge bank if the company and shareholders are handsomely rewarded from his/her performance. It’s the CEO’s making huge bank driving companies into the ground. Think Immelt/GE. 

This is how I feel as well.  A well compensated CEO is not a problem as long as he/she is successful at managing the company and steering it in the right direction.  When his/her salary continues to go up but equity and return on IC are going down and debt is increasing, the CEO isn't doing a very good job.  It's relative.  

 

[Mario Kart]

That's the way the market works.

The market doesn’t work. HTH

 

[Insein]

This is how I feel as well.  A well compensated CEO is not a problem as long as he/she is successful at managing the company and steering it in the right direction.  When his/her salary continues to go up but equity and return on IC are going down and debt is increasing, the CEO isn't doing a very good job.  It's relative.  

I get confused by Jayrok and Tripitup because they both have the same avatar. Unless they're different personalities of the same person.

 

[Jayrok]

I get confused by Jayrok and Tripitup because they both have the same avatar. Unless they're different personalities of the same person.

Different folks different personalities.  

 

[Alex P Keaton]

IMHO, Boards pick the candidate they think will do the best job.  

This is pretty cool shtick.

 

[Alex P Keaton]

This is how I feel as well.  A well compensated CEO is not a problem as long as he/she is successful at managing the company and steering it in the right direction.  When his/her salary continues to go up but equity and return on IC are going down and debt is increasing, the CEO isn't doing a very good job.  It's relative.  

Exactly.  But most Boards are incompetent, so quite often you get people who flat out fail as a CEO, but then still get paid big bucks repeatedly.  Using sports as an analogy, it would be like if the NFL had a team paying Tim Tebow $30M/year today to be a starting QB.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

It’s all relative. No problem with a CEO making huge bank if the company and shareholders are handsomely rewarded from his/her performance. It’s the CEO’s making huge bank driving companies into the ground. Think Immelt/GE. 

So you're saying we can't make broad, sweeping proclamations, sitting in judgment of others' opinions, and apply those judgments broadly to all instances across a wide spectrum of corporate circumstances, all while proudly proclaiming, "You don't hear me #####ing" in a discussion in which that is OP's sole purpose?

 

[GregR]

BooHoo...Shaquille ONeal has physical advantages that I don't have.   Jeopardy James has IQ advantages I don't have.  

You don't hear me #####ing.

We've heard you #####ing for most of this thread.



But seriously you have.



Really

 

[bigbottom]

I have a friend who says he is disgusted with show biz because of what actors make and of sports because of the greed of the players but he isn't outraged by greed of the owners and of CEOs of large corporations.  

I am fine with everyone trying to get the most they can but one thing that bothers me is the high compensation the CEOs of many "non-profits".   For instance, the head of UPMC Healthcare in Pittsburgh received almost $7 million last year and 26 executives made over $1 million.     To me if you want non-profit status then there should be a cap on what executives can earn.

I guess I can sort of understand the distinction between CEO pay for a charity organization, and CEO pay for a non-profit hospital system that employs thousands of employees and delivers billions of dollars in health care services.

 

[chet]

I had no clue chet was a leftist and I’m shocked the thread has taken this turn.  SHOCKED.

 

Not even close.  Please quote my words that gave you the mistaken belief I am a leftist and I will correct you.

 

[Buck Bradcanon]

Eat the poor!

 

[Ilov80s]

Why does the left make everything about race?

I think it does a real disservice to many of their causes. There is real solid evidence to make a strong case when it comes to things like CEO compensation or the current President but so many people ignore the big things and instead harp on a lot of the same tired arguments. It hurts their efforts. 

 

[Tom Skerritt]

I don't understand it so I'll hang up and listen.

My stance has always been, if you want to be a CEO, go out and become one.  If you aren't capable of being one, that's on you, not on the CEOs.  I don't complain about Tiger Woods' compensation because I know I'm not as talented as him and the market determines his worth...same goes for Jamie Diamond, I'm not in the same stratosphere of his business/finance talent.

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan got a 5 percent pay raise for leading the troubled bank last year. The executive received$18.4 million, including a $2.4 million salary, $14 million in stock awards and $2 million in incentive awards, according to a regulatory filing.

Here’s a brief history of Wells Fargo ripping off people in America.

1. Fake accounts, but with real fees attached

Wells Fargo’s most famous scam ended with a bang. After employees were caught opening millions of accounts without customers’ permission, the bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), City of Los Angeles, and Office of the Comptroller brought down this penalty on the company in late 2016.

It was quite simple. Wells Fargo directed employees to take customers’ money from actual accounts and open new accounts. Everyone knows what happens when you ignore a bank account: Fees pile up fast. Using this technique, Wells Fargo bankers took bonuses and ran up profits by bringing in millions in fees from unsuspecting customers.

2. Wells Fargo’s foreclosure hustle

In 2016, Wells Fargo agreed to pay over $5 billion in order to settle claims of mortgage abuses during the recession. The country’s biggest banks and lenders automatically authorized foreclosures, deceived homeowners on loan changes, and failed to offer any alternatives before people lost their houses. Basically, they forced people out of their homes any way they could after issuing loans the buyers had little chance of affording.

3. The overdraft scam

How do you rack up overdraft fees? Wells Fargo figured it could pull in the most by charging the highest payments first. So, instead of posting purchases of at the drug store, electronics store, and supermarket in the order they happened, Wells Fargo picked the biggest purchase (usually a check) and sent it through. Naturally, this practice led to many more overdrafts and plenty of extra cash. In 2013, the bank had to pay $203 million to settle a lawsuit for this scam.

4. 800,000 fake auto insurance policies, 25,000 car repossessions

Now that we know how Wells Fargo employees pushed fake bank accounts, stories of fake auto insurance sound quite believable. This scam, which took place from 2012 through 2017, involved 800,000 car buyers getting insurance they never wanted or needed as part of a Wells Fargo loan. Since the policies raised costs and extended the car owners, nearly 275,000 borrowers became delinquent, The New York Times reported.

Since many could not pay, Wells Fargo ended up repossessing some 25,000 cars under these wrongful circumstances. While the bank worked to identify how much it had taken from unknowing customers, the early estimate was $73 million. The lives ruined just came with the territory.

5. Illegally seizing service members’ cars

You might say this Wells Fargo scam is the opposite of “Thank you for your service.” Between 2008 and 2015, the bank repossessed over 400 cars of active servicemembers without the legal right to do so. In the case that first caught investigators’ attention, Wells Fargo took the car of an Army National Guardsman about to deploy to Afghanistan. After bank employees sold his car at auction, they still tried to collect more than $10,000 from him.

It turned out Wells Fargo pulled the same illegal scheme on hundreds more servicemembers. When the Justice Department concluded its investigation, the bank had to pay $4.1 million to reimburse the members of the armed forces it had scammed.

6. Preying on elderly and underage Native Americans

In a 17-count federal lawsuit filed in December 2017, The Navajo Nation listed the many ways Wells Fargo targeted elderly and underage Native Americans. As was the case with other scams, this complaint focused on the bank’s thirst for new accounts. According to the Courthouse News Service report, the lawsuit will seek damages for downright predatory activities.

Employees lied to Navajo consumers, telling elderly Navajo citizens who did not speak English that in order to have their checks cashed, they needed to sign up for savings accounts they neither needed nor understood. Wells Fargo representatives stalked local events like basketball games and flea markets to sign up consumers for unnecessary accounts en masse … They opened accounts for underage Navajo citizens, going so far as to falsify birthdates to avoid obtaining necessary parental consent.

In the cash-centric Navajo culture, these tactics had a brutal effect on the population. As for the accusation of faking birthdates for new accounts, we ask: Can you go any lower?

7. Overcharging business owners on credit card fees

This scam dates back to 2005, when retailers sued Wells Fargo and credit card companies for setting high swipe fees on certain cards. By favoring some cards over another, the banks basically forced merchants to penalize customers. After dozens of lawsuits flooded in, the credit card companies and big banks paid out well over $6 billion back to merchants for the charges.

8. Ripping off the government, too

Wells Fargo didn’t just rip off individual Americans over the years; it also took advantage of the biggest customer of all: the U.S. government. In 2016, the bank admitted to deceiving the government to insure risky mortgages between 2001 and 2008. Wells Fargo claimed the loans qualified for Federal Housing Authority (FHA) insurance when they didn’t, leading to massive payouts funded by taxpayers. The damages in the settlement came to a record $1.2 billion.

So why is this Republican Congress giving back the taxpayer money Wells Fargo coaxed from the government in the past? We’ll have to hear straight from them. If you look at it the way most people will, it seems like rewarding a company with a long record of scams for nothing else than corporate profits. Maybe Americans will send Congress their feedback in the 2018 elections.

 

[chet]

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan got a 5 percent pay raise for leading the troubled bank last year. The executive received$18.4 million, including a $2.4 million salary, $14 million in stock awards and $2 million in incentive awards, according to a regulatory filing.

Here’s a brief history of Wells Fargo ripping off people in America.

1. Fake accounts, but with real fees attached

Wells Fargo’s most famous scam ended with a bang. After employees were caught opening millions of accounts without customers’ permission, the bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), City of Los Angeles, and Office of the Comptroller brought down this penalty on the company in late 2016.

It was quite simple. Wells Fargo directed employees to take customers’ money from actual accounts and open new accounts. Everyone knows what happens when you ignore a bank account: Fees pile up fast. Using this technique, Wells Fargo bankers took bonuses and ran up profits by bringing in millions in fees from unsuspecting customers.

2. Wells Fargo’s foreclosure hustle

In 2016, Wells Fargo agreed to pay over $5 billion in order to settle claims of mortgage abuses during the recession. The country’s biggest banks and lenders automatically authorized foreclosures, deceived homeowners on loan changes, and failed to offer any alternatives before people lost their houses. Basically, they forced people out of their homes any way they could after issuing loans the buyers had little chance of affording.

3. The overdraft scam

How do you rack up overdraft fees? Wells Fargo figured it could pull in the most by charging the highest payments first. So, instead of posting purchases of at the drug store, electronics store, and supermarket in the order they happened, Wells Fargo picked the biggest purchase (usually a check) and sent it through. Naturally, this practice led to many more overdrafts and plenty of extra cash. In 2013, the bank had to pay $203 million to settle a lawsuit for this scam.

4. 800,000 fake auto insurance policies, 25,000 car repossessions

Now that we know how Wells Fargo employees pushed fake bank accounts, stories of fake auto insurance sound quite believable. This scam, which took place from 2012 through 2017, involved 800,000 car buyers getting insurance they never wanted or needed as part of a Wells Fargo loan. Since the policies raised costs and extended the car owners, nearly 275,000 borrowers became delinquent, The New York Times reported.

Since many could not pay, Wells Fargo ended up repossessing some 25,000 cars under these wrongful circumstances. While the bank worked to identify how much it had taken from unknowing customers, the early estimate was $73 million. The lives ruined just came with the territory.

5. Illegally seizing service members’ cars

You might say this Wells Fargo scam is the opposite of “Thank you for your service.” Between 2008 and 2015, the bank repossessed over 400 cars of active servicemembers without the legal right to do so. In the case that first caught investigators’ attention, Wells Fargo took the car of an Army National Guardsman about to deploy to Afghanistan. After bank employees sold his car at auction, they still tried to collect more than $10,000 from him.

It turned out Wells Fargo pulled the same illegal scheme on hundreds more servicemembers. When the Justice Department concluded its investigation, the bank had to pay $4.1 million to reimburse the members of the armed forces it had scammed.

6. Preying on elderly and underage Native Americans

In a 17-count federal lawsuit filed in December 2017, The Navajo Nation listed the many ways Wells Fargo targeted elderly and underage Native Americans. As was the case with other scams, this complaint focused on the bank’s thirst for new accounts. According to the Courthouse News Service report, the lawsuit will seek damages for downright predatory activities.

Employees lied to Navajo consumers, telling elderly Navajo citizens who did not speak English that in order to have their checks cashed, they needed to sign up for savings accounts they neither needed nor understood. Wells Fargo representatives stalked local events like basketball games and flea markets to sign up consumers for unnecessary accounts en masse … They opened accounts for underage Navajo citizens, going so far as to falsify birthdates to avoid obtaining necessary parental consent.

In the cash-centric Navajo culture, these tactics had a brutal effect on the population. As for the accusation of faking birthdates for new accounts, we ask: Can you go any lower?

7. Overcharging business owners on credit card fees

This scam dates back to 2005, when retailers sued Wells Fargo and credit card companies for setting high swipe fees on certain cards. By favoring some cards over another, the banks basically forced merchants to penalize customers. After dozens of lawsuits flooded in, the credit card companies and big banks paid out well over $6 billion back to merchants for the charges.

8. Ripping off the government, too

Wells Fargo didn’t just rip off individual Americans over the years; it also took advantage of the biggest customer of all: the U.S. government. In 2016, the bank admitted to deceiving the government to insure risky mortgages between 2001 and 2008. Wells Fargo claimed the loans qualified for Federal Housing Authority (FHA) insurance when they didn’t, leading to massive payouts funded by taxpayers. The damages in the settlement came to a record $1.2 billion.

So why is this Republican Congress giving back the taxpayer money Wells Fargo coaxed from the government in the past? We’ll have to hear straight from them. If you look at it the way most people will, it seems like rewarding a company with a long record of scams for nothing else than corporate profits. Maybe Americans will send Congress their feedback in the 2018 elections.

Imagine how much worse it would have been with someone else at the helm.

 

[Ilov80s]

Sounds like the issue really got out of hand in the mid 90s after the government tried to intervene. Maybe others know more and can correct or add:

The government wanted to get a handle on CEO salaries so they put in place regulations saying if a CEO was to get a salary over X that the corporation needed to provide documentation to support why they deserved it. To get around this, CEOs were given more stock options and of course being the mid 90s, the tech boom hit and the stock value exploded. The CEO compensation went way up and this became the new precedent for what CEOs expected in salaries. It sounds like a lof the spikes were due to manipulation of the system and lucky timing.

Any know more about this?

 

[coyote5]

Imagine how much worse it would have been with someone else at the helm.

 

[Ilov80s]

Imagine how much worse it would have been with someone else at the helm.

Maybe...he took began working at Wells Fargo in 87 and worked his way up. He has been COO and President and then CEO. He was a high ranking member of Wells Fargo through many of their major blunders.

 

[chet]

Maybe...he took began working at Wells Fargo in 81 and worked his way up. He has been COO and President and then CEO. He was a high ranking member of Wells Fargo through many of their major blunders.

He learned from the best.

 

[AAABatteries]

I've worked for companies where the CEO and board made mad money and got bonuses and the company made like  4 billion dollars in profit, yet they cut all bonuses, 401k matches and even 5 % pay cut across the board.

I have problems with those dooshes

You should work harder.

 

[AAABatteries]

 

Not even close.  Please quote my words that gave you the mistaken belief I am a leftist and I will correct you.

You brought race in to the conversation, according to Ron that makes you a leftist.  No need to correct me - I have no doubt you are not on the left.

 

[chet]

Then how do you explain the disproportionately lower number/percentage of women and/or black CEOs?

I am not going to touch the question about black CEOs other than to say there is racism and sexism in corporate America that any reasonable person would like to eradicate.  Outside of that, here are a couple of reasons that there are more male CEOs than female CEOs.  To be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you have to be incredibly smart (women and men score equally on IQ tests) but you also have to devote your life to your work.  Men have been more willing to do that than women. Also, men and women are different psychologically and some of the traits (aggressiveness, disagreeableness etc) that men score higher than women on lead them to advance further and be paid more in a corporate setting 

I had no clue chet was a leftist and I’m shocked the thread has taken this turn.  SHOCKED.

 

Not even close.  Please quote my words that gave you the mistaken belief I am a leftist and I will correct you.

You brought race in to the conversation, according to Ron that makes you a leftist.  No need to correct me - I have no doubt you are not on the left.

WRONG.  Zow brought up race and I refused to take the bait.  

Also, I disagree that bringing up race makes you a leftist.  I think leftists will often call people racist or sexist etc to attempt to invalidate arguments from the right, but it's usually ineffective against someone who knows what they're doing.  NB:  I am not talking about the reasonable left or the moderate left.

 

[AAABatteries]

People are jealous of what they don't have.  Also, people think that the table is tilted to white males and everyone doesn't have a chance at those positions.

Short and sweet but those are the two most important reasons IMO.

WRONG.  Zow brought up race and I refused to take the bait.  

Also, I disagree that bringing up race makes you a leftist.  I think leftists will often call people racist or sexist etc to attempt to invalidate arguments from the right, but it's usually ineffective against someone who knows what they're doing.  NB:  I am not talking about the reasonable left or the moderate left.

You were the 3rd post and the first to bring up race.    

 

[Ilov80s]

You were the 3rd post and the first to bring up race.    

It is true. Now we can move on from the sidetrack.

 

[lod001]

Only the really stupid ones. The ones that made their way to the top by sucking up and backstabbing with absolutely no marketable skills. The ones that couldn't do the job of anyone beneath them and sent the company into a tailspin. You know, like Fiorina. Her resume reads 'I leave a path of destruction behind me'.

 

[Alex P Keaton]

Only the really stupid ones. The ones that made their way to the top by sucking up and backstabbing with absolutely no marketable skills. The ones that couldn't do the job of anyone beneath them and sent the company into a tailspin. You know, like Fiorina. Her resume reads 'I leave a path of destruction behind me'.

So basically only 80% of Fortune 500 CEOs

 

[lod001]

So basically only 80% of Fortune 500 CEOs

Yeah. You could easily replace them with someone else at 1/2 the pay and not lose a beat. Then replace that person at 1/2 the pay and also not lose a beat. Working your way down to a more realistic pay. EVERYONE is replaceable.

 

[Zow]

WRONG.  Zow brought up race and I refused to take the bait.  

Also, I disagree that bringing up race makes you a leftist.  I think leftists will often call people racist or sexist etc to attempt to invalidate arguments from the right, but it's usually ineffective against someone who knows what they're doing.  NB:  I am not talking about the reasonable left or the moderate left.

I wasn't baiting you at all nor do I think it was some unfair questioned designed to elicit a bigoted response. The percentages are what they are and I was genuinely curious to see how they'd be addressed - especially by somebody like you with experience in the field. 

 

[culdeus]

The disconnect happened when CEO started getting paid like money managers, the 1.9% Assets under management fee that wall street guys were making were much more attractive than running operations.  So CEO pay went vertical to try and retain them rather than have them go work on wall street or a hedge fund.  

 

[The Big Guy]

CEO pay has accelerated just like professional athlete pay over the recent years and for some of the same reasons. It is a small pool of super qualified people to choose from and each one wants to one up the dollar total from the last big contract signed before them. 

I do not think most are worth the amount that they are paid, but let's not act like Joe assembly line worker can suddenly come up to the board room and take over the role either.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Anyone who makes more than me is an obnoxious, rich ##### who doesn't deserve it. Anyone who makes less than me is a poor bastage who made bad choices and has to live with the consequences.

Also, anyone who drives faster than me is a crazy idiot, and anyone who drives slower than me is a stupid moron.

Yup. 

 

[Ilov80s]

CEO pay has accelerated just like professional athlete pay over the recent years and for some of the same reasons. It is a small pool of super qualified people to choose from and each one wants to one up the dollar total from the last big contract signed before them. 

I do not think most are worth the amount that they are paid, but let's not act like Joe assembly line worker can suddenly come up to the board room and take over the role either.

Agreed but I do think it is an interesting debate about whether the CEO is more comparable to an NFL QB or an NFL RB. Of course, being a CEO or any higher level of management requires certain sets of skills and experience that many many people could never meet. So does playing in the NFL. However, even in the NFL, not all positions are equal. The QB is invaluable and even a mediocre NFL caliber QB is irreplaceable. A RB is very replaceable and there is a very deep pool relative to QB. QBs get 100 million contracts, RBs get 10 million dollar contracts. 

 

[Despyzer]

Different folks different personalities.  

And the strokes? are they different as well?

 

[Gally]

I’m not sure I buy the hard work argument.  There are an awful lot of CEOs that don’t work very hard at all.

The best Undercover Boss episodes are the ones where the CEO learns what hard work really is. 

I am always hesitant on the "hard work" definition because I think it is different for different people.  Some people can't stand being cooped up in an office all day plugging away on a computer.  It would drive them nuts and be the "hardest" job they ever had to deal with.  Some people couldn't last 5 minutes digging ditches because the work is too "hard".  I don't think one is necessarily "harder" than the other and it depends on the person. 

Physical work takes a toll but so does sitting on your butt all day at a computer screen.  Both have health implications.  Trying to say one job is harder work than another is all relative and isn't a one size fits all argument. 

 

[Jayrok]

And the strokes? are they different as well?

I'm ambidextrous, so I suppose they could be.  

 

[Leroy Hoard]

And the strokes? are they different as well?

Whatcha talkin bout Willis?

 

[The Duff Man]

CEO behaviour in public companies bothers me more than pay. 

1. Focusing on the quarter at the expense of the business 

2. Cutting costs/doing layoffs when they are making these sick payouts. Would love to have a CEO sacrifice $1M to save “X” number of jobs for his company, to better serve his customers. 

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Yeah. You could easily replace them with someone else at 1/2 the pay and not lose a beat. Then replace that person at 1/2 the pay and also not lose a beat. Working your way down to a more realistic pay. EVERYONE is replaceable.

Someone should tell the stockholders this. You know, instead of laying off a bunch of people who make 1% of what they make.

 

[jvdesigns2002]

I don't think that most care about how much CEO's get compensated--most care about the disparity in between average CEO pay and average worker pay.   Most CEO's get paid more money than they will ever need (even for generations to come)--whereas most workers are living a couple paychecks away from economic turmoil. Yes--CEO's deserve to get compensated more than regular employees--but in many cases--they are getting thousands of times more than an average hard working employee--and that is not reflective of actual worth to a company.   The problem is that the vast majority of people that determine the pay of these kinds of positions are from a very elite wealthy demographic of people.  The rich effectively helping and justify the rich getting richer.   Companies will routinely lay regular workers off claiming that they need to stay profitable--far before they ever consider cutting their CEO's pay to a salary that would still be exponentially more than whats required to live comfortably.  Look at all of the resistance there is is to raising the minimum wage by these people that are making millions upon millions of dollars.   

 

[kutta]

I was the CEO of my company before we sold it 4 years ago. I started it in 2001 and sold it in 2015.

I took the risk. I put my money at stake. I invested 100's of hours per week to get it off the ground. At one point I was personally almost $1M in debt just trying to make payroll.

When things took off and we started making really good money, why shouldn't I be the one who reaps those rewards? My employees didn't take the risks, I did. They didn't invest thousands of hours to get things started, I did.

Now, I take very good of my employees because that's one way we attract very good people. But if my salary was 100 times theirs, or 1000 times theirs, what difference does it make? It is my company and I took the risks. If my company would have failed, no one would have been there paying off my debts.

The other thing is, if I know I am going to profit well from something, I'm going to go after it. It may cost me money, but I'll take the risk. That creates jobs and gives my employees cool stuff to work on. If my top end was arbitrarily capped, there's no way I would go after some of things I do. It wouldn't be worth it.

___________________________________________________________

And I'm not sure how the race thing came into the whole debate, but it's pretty obvious minorities haven't historically had the opportunities whitey has. I agree with @Otis that it's changing, but we have longer to go than most realize, IMO.

 

[Ilov80s]

I was the CEO of my company before we sold it 4 years ago. I started it in 2001 and sold it in 2015.

I took the risk. I put my money at stake. I invested 100's of hours per week to get it off the ground. At one point I was personally almost $1M in debt just trying to make payroll.

When things took off and we started making really good money, why shouldn't I be the one who reaps those rewards? My employees didn't take the risks, I did. They didn't invest thousands of hours to get things started, I did.

Now, I take very good of my employees because that's one way we attract very good people. But if my salary was 100 times theirs, or 1000 times theirs, what difference does it make? It is my company and I took the risks. If my company would have failed, no one would have been there paying off my debts.

The other thing is, if I know I am going to profit well from something, I'm going to go after it. It may cost me money, but I'll take the risk. That creates jobs and gives my employees cool stuff to work on. If my top end was arbitrarily capped, there's no way I would go after some of things I do. It wouldn't be worth it.

___________________________________________________________

And I'm not sure how the race thing came into the whole debate, but it's pretty obvious minorities haven't historically had the opportunities whitey has. I agree with @Otis that it's changing, but we have longer to go than most realize, IMO.

I think almost everyone would agree there’s a massive difference between a founding CEO like Henry Ford or Steve Jobs or yourself and a corporate CEO who is hired by a board to run an existing billion dollar company. 

 

[kutta]

I think almost everyone would agree there’s a massive difference between a founding CEO like Henry Ford or Steve Jobs or yourself and a corporate CEO who is hired by a board to run an existing billion dollar company. 

Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are small fries compared to Kutta...

I agree that a lot of people distinguish between them, but a lot don't. Also, we now get into a debate about publicly traded companies' CEOs, as opposed to privately held companies. So we start to agree that if someone took the risk, they should reap more rewards, but if they didn't take the risk, they shouldn't be rewarded as well. It gets confusing.

 

[Ilov80s]

Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are small fries compared to Kutta...

I agree that a lot of people distinguish between them, but a lot don't. Also, we now get into a debate about publicly traded companies' CEOs, as opposed to privately held companies. So we start to agree that if someone took the risk, they should reap more rewards, but if they didn't take the risk, they shouldn't be rewarded as well. It gets confusing.

True some probably don’t get it. There are gray areas too. Even if one took the risk and founded the company, there is still a point where they could make so much money and their employees make so little that it would rightfully bother people. Would you agree?

 

[kutta]

True some probably don’t get it. There are gray areas too. Even if one took the risk and founded the company, there is still a point where they could make so much money and their employers make so little that it would bother people. Would you agree?

I assume, of course, you mean "employees" and not "employers."

I agree it may get to a point where it bothers people. But I've always felt like people, for the most part, are free to work wherever they want. If a company isn't paying a good wage or taking care of their people, they won't be very successful in the long run. The owners (husband and wife) of the company who acquired us four years ago are most likely billionaires, and they are still the sole owners of the company. I root for them to make more and more money every day.

There are always exceptions like Walmart, etc., but I think they are more rare than not. You don't really hear about people working at Microsoft complaining about Bill Gates' salary.

 

[Ilov80s]

I assume, of course, you mean "employees" and not "employers."

I agree it may get to a point where it bothers people. But I've always felt like people, for the most part, are free to work wherever they want. If a company isn't paying a good wage or taking care of their people, they won't be very successful in the long run. The owners (husband and wife) of the company who acquired us four years ago are most likely billionaires, and they are still the sole owners of the company. I root for them to make more and more money every day.

There are always exceptions like Walmart, etc., but I think they are more rare than not. You don't really hear about people working at Microsoft complaining about Bill Gates' salary.

Because I have a history degree and have taught US History so many times, I see things I’m a historical perspective (which may be too outdated). I think back to say the late 1800s and early 1900s where we often had a person found a company, become the equivalent of a Gates today and pay their workers the equivalent of about $3,000 today. I do think there is a line where it becomes obscene and totally immoral. I’m not sure where that line is but I do think it absolutely exists. Sure people can work anywhere but they do have to work somewhere. Even with our current economy having a low level of unemployment, the average unskilled worker doesn’t have much power or many options. Now yes they could get skills but we know that there will always be a large demand for certain unskilled positions.