I can understand the 1million + salaries for executives. These are the best and brightest of corporate talents. They have large responsibilities and much is required of them. I don't get why they receive such huge bonuses and stock options. Do these people increase the value of the corporations that much? What can they do that deserves 10s of millions of dollars?? Can they speak 7 languages? Factor large numbers in their head? Walk through walls? Could someone explain this to me?
One million? A company I recently worked for was paying a 53 million compensation package to their top exec. A think in some cases they are not the brightest... but they are the face and personality a company wants at a top. What scares me sometime is their compensation packages are so closely tied to stock that they will do whatever they can to raise stock price... which many times is not good for the employees of the company. It is an interesting balance. Stock price will go up if you ship jobs overseas etc... but is it good for the employees? Many times they really don't care... they care about pleasing the stock holders who only care about the stock price and the $$$ in their pockets.
Look Bluefrog you have to pay for top talent. Guys who can destabilize the global economy while feathering their own nest AND dumping their losses in the lap of taxpayers deserve to be reimbursed for their talent. Listen Capitalism means private profit...and public loss. It means you bilk the little guy and produce nothing of value. Most importantly it means you loot your home country and offshore your profits, the ones you don't spend on campaign contributions for BOTH parties that is. P.S. In case you couldn't tell I was sarcastic, and of course what I wrote is NOT the definition of Capitalism. These robbers hide behind Capitalism of Adam Smith while behaving more like the upper echelon of the Kremlin or Vladamir Putin's inner circle. Private gain, public loss. These guys have done more to undermine REAL Capitalism then Marx ever dreamed of. What scares me is these thieves have legitimized Anti-Capitalist rhetoric when what they practice isn't Capitalism at all but is some kind of oligarchical financialism that destroys real American businesses (See CIT [it supplies credit to real American businesses] and how they are being held hostage by Goldman Sachs) by denying them the lifeblood of credit. It's a sad, sad time in America. Capitalism means a free market. By contrast what alot of these hedge fund and Wall Street guys want is a controlled market. They want to be able to trade before anyone else (flash trading) they want their losses to be covered (bailouts by Bush and now Obama) and they want to have all their activities be opaque and completely unregulated by even common sense and accepted accounting practices (dark pool trading and OTC derivatives). I wish everyone in the US understood the scam the financial folks in collusion with the FED are running. It's the very definition of a Ponzi scheme.
So, say a major Heroin dealer should be well compensated because the market will bear it? Just because mindless black box hedge fund shareholders will give their buddy a boost doesn't mean it's good for the company, the workers, the consumer or the American economy. I for one think people should be compensated based on their ability to add to the REAL economy not their cleverness in cooking books and carving off workers. There is a difference between cutting the fat and gutting a business before deploying a golden parachute and fleeing to a competitor. I don't think this is the government's responsibility to fix (they won't fix it in any real sense anyways), but it for damn sure is a massive problem in this country.
You're confusing salary with total compensation. Usually salaries are under 2 million but the bonuses, stock options, and other compensations often go into the 10s of millions. This is definitely over simplifying the situation. Companies don't just say "oh we have an extra $100 million, let's give it to the CEO." Stockholders wouldn't go for that either. There has to be something else going on.
Can you please provide some data showing the percentage of executives receiving compensation over, say, $20million per year that are heading a financial institution that had to be bailed out? You're on one of your long diatribes and rants without any data to back it up. Do ALL executives do what you are describing above?
Good post, Paxil. Especially the part about CEO's doing anything to raise the stock price- even to the detriment of the workers to the point of selling out the company and seeing thousands of employees let go. It isn't right.
I think it is sick that they get rewarded for their recent failures. But in this country, you have a right to get as much as you can, and while we have every right to be outraged, there is nothing we can (really) do about it. But the companies that NEEDED OUR MONEY to operate, well they SHOULD NOT be giving out these disgusting bonuses, as I believe we own part of the company, do we not? I'm fine with regulating top Exec's salaries until they pay us back.
I must have misread the thread title, but I didn't see where the OP was specifically targeted at the financial firm executives that have received bailouts. If it is not specifically targeted at them, please provide some data showing what % of executives in this country fell into that category.
Why is there only outrage over executive pay? Why isnt there outrage over ridiculous pay for other enterprises, like say professional sports, or Hollywood?
Yeah, I wasn't really addressing them in particular. It is upsetting to see them giving out such large bonuses but the government should have stipulated that these were prohibited before giving them the bail out. It's unfair to make up these rules as we go along.
I would say in professional sports you can see the talent that warrants large pay. You can see the person making great touch down passes or gravity defying dunks. These are unusual talents that only a few elite people have. These athletes are also under the scrutiny of a larger audience. Same with Hollywood. The actors and actresses that consistently make huge box office draws warrant larger pay. They help make a product that brings in large revenues. They are a select few that are capable of making of making laugh, cry, and scream "yeah!" when they impale a bad guy. What talents do these executives have that deserve these compensation packages?
I would submit that the CEO of Amazon.com does a better job at his job than Eddy Curry does at his, yet is being paid ~100x less.
NO, there is never an ALL case and that is just stupid baiting on your part without addressing the greater point. So just to be clear, you think it's cool that we bail out billionaires for their mistakes that destabilize the economy eh? I notice you didn't acknowledge what I was saying about paper pushing financial folks vs. executives that produce real things. I have no problem with Steve Jobs being well compensated his company creates actual products. I have no problem with execs who produce jobs in our economy. I'm talking about execs who behave in those kind of behaviors which is a VERY significant minority. The behavior I describe is fairly common in the financial industry and hedge funds. As usual you are disputing what I wrote without addressing the bulk of what I was saying and just nit picking spelling or verbiage when you know very well my point is valid.
Yep that's why he defends financial execs who gutted our economy. He produces as much as they do...zilch!
Dude, try making a point without building a strawman. This is seriously beyond utter stupidity. Obviously there are greedy, evil, malicious executives out there. Nobody is disputing that. The question: is that number a substantial percentage? If not, then you seem to be advocating government intervention because of a small percentage of bad-apples. Provide some data to back up your long rants and diatribes instead of just building strawmen and making personal attacks.
