CEOs,the royalty of America

The problem with American Corporation Royalty is they have no sense of "noblesse oblige".

Look it up. It may not mean what you think it means.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Mar 8 2007, 09:13 PM) [snapback]402560[/snapback]</div>

Yes you are.

And how do you get Bush involved in this too? You have hate management issues here bro.

Heads up here - Dems are in control of spending - its their responsibility now.

Also, please tell me how those cold hearted, oil industy loving dems can allow gas prices to skyrocket like they have since they have taken control of Congress?

And if you have time, why has Soros invested so much money into Haliburton I mean how much of that company does he own now :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Mar 9 2007, 04:33 AM) [snapback]402727[/snapback]</div>

It is interesting that the problem of excessive executive compensation - a phrase I thought I would never utter - is not a problem found only on the right. Can anyone justify the amount of money Democrats like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Speilberg, David Geffen, et. al. pull out of their companies?

The real problem is that the boards, charged with oversight, are really stacked with the buddies of the CEOs, and there's a lot of mutual back rubbing going on. The "outside" majority stockholders have not been individuals, but fund managers, so the bottom line has been the only consideration. But there are some boards getting the message; Home Depot has changed course on a couple of things now because their major individual stockholder ... with far less than a majority of the stock ... has started speaking up.

More individual ownership of companies will help. So will some prison sentences for not only CEOs, but board members who ignore their corporate responsibilities.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Mar 9 2007, 09:34 AM) [snapback]402752[/snapback]</div>

The dems are as bad as the repubs. it will all work out in the end. i have bigger headaches than worrying about ceo pay -that being said -- keep the govt out of executive compensation!

 

Actually, my biggest beef with the CEOs is not their pay.

It's the incentives to have a good quarter while sacrificing the future.

Before I even mention it, many of you think about Detroit. They build gas-guzzlers, put out a few ZEVs like the EV1 then kill them off, fight the goverment for even modest fuel economy gains....they pretend that an entry level vehicle starts at 5.0 liters. Meanwhile, Toyota offers a full line of vehicles and invests in hybrid technology. Result: Toyota gains market share at the expense of Detroit.

I'd bet Microsoft employees were more comfortable with what Gates and Ballmer were making than GM employees with Roger Smith's compensation.

 

Basic liberal thinking. If someone makes more money than you do, the government should take it and spend it on something.

When does a 90% tax bracket ever make sense?

You get 1000 liberals filling out a questionaire, you'll find that the guy who's needing higher taxes is basically anyone who has a salary higher than theirs. If 4 of these people make $400k/yr, you'll find they believe that anyone making over $550k should be taxed at a substantially higher rate. While 4 people who make 50k/yr will say anyone over $75k should be taxed harder. Everyone but me is the mentality.

Anyone in that survey about to inherit a 1 million dollar estate would deem that anyone inheriting more than $1.3 million estate should be heavily taxed.

Do liberal democrats who believe in all these tax hikes use tax shelters and deductions when they file? They may be legal, but they are contrary to the ideology that is held by them as a taxpayer, so why not just pay the extra?

Ya'll need to figure out what it is that you believe in (Environment, free health care, etc..) set up some tax free charities that focus on funding them and invite us all to participate. Expect higher donations from your liberal buddies who believe in your causes and maybe something from us who would prefer to keep our money and give it in other places rather than being taxed to extinction. Oh, that's right... the libbies don't give enough to make this work. It's your conservative base that tends to have the higher charitible giving rate.

Anyone else in Illinois who's wallet started to burn when GRod popped up with his $32billion tax increase? That $7Billion tax hike on our corporations(passed down to workers and consumers) should really be a boon for the Illinois economy. Prepare to pay up.

 

I don't want the government to intervene, except when criminal activity occurs (and I think the board members, who have a fiduciary responsibility, should also be held accountable).

I do want more individual shareholder activity. Its time for the "investing class" ... middle America ... to slap some of these guys back to reality.

 

The government can intervene without legislating what companies pay their CEOs. For instance, it could be a requirement for eligibility for government contracts that the ratio of highest paid to lowest paid full-time employee not exceed a certain ratio, e.g. 50 to 1. This would be a step toward eliminating excessive war profiteering.

 

"Noblesse oblige" is generally used to imply that with wealth, power, and prestige come social responsibilities.

In ethical discussion, it is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty. Finally, it has been used recently primarily to refer to public responsibilities of the rich, famous, and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behaviour or to exceed minimal standards of decency.

Historically, the concept finds its roots in nearly all of the major religions of the world. It frequently appears as a requirement to take care of those less fortunate by leaving small amounts of standing grain in the fields (Old Testament), ensuring everyone is treated equally in the distribution of joint possessions (New Testament), or giving a portion of your income to charity (Koran). It focuses on the voluntary redistribution of wealth in these cases. In other situations where power is an issue, it can be seen in the role of the knight to protect those who could not protect themselves, or in the Code of Hammurabi (the king imposing his obligation), c. 1780 BCE, to provide recourse for all people before the law.

Perhaps this is easier to understand:

Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility."

 

The basic point is that the CEO has thousands of people under him doing the actual work. Does anyone really believe he (and it almost always is "he") does a year's worth of work in a day? If there are that many spare millions sloshing about the company's payroll accounts, why not give it to the people at the bottom of the company who actually need it?

I think it's amusing that the rich and powerful have managed to sucker ordinary folk like daron spicher into being cheerleaders for their insatiable greed.

Is there any point at which you'd say enough was enough? Would it bother you if CEOs were earning 10,000 times more than their staff? If current trends continue, it won't actually be that many years until that happens...

And there was me thinking America was founded with some sort of progressive ideals. :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Mar 9 2007, 01:10 PM) [snapback]402836[/snapback]</div>

For fun how about starting at 1 miilion? Each and every dollar above one million dollars earned or not, gifted, won in lottos, etc. is taxed at 90 percent. Of course this may keep all those talented people from innovating and working hard and the economy will collapse but then again maybe not. Maybe those talented people (ahmmmm) will work 90 percent harder to make even more!

Maybe the qazillions raised could then go to the 20 percent of American kids living in poverty (although their lazy parents are probably beyond help). Now if the government can't get it right in making this money work for food, health, education, world peace, environment and all things warm and fuzzy then perhaps it'd be time to hold the government accountable (as they clearly are not now by the people in the 35 percent bracket). I have no problem celebrating the success of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. and also taxing their BILLIONS at 90 percent. It wouldn't stop them from doing what they do.

 

A fundamental rule of government/management is to keep the governed/managed subjects scared and uncertain of the future. As such the governed/managed subjects are prone to manipulation for the benefit of the government/management. :angry:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Mar 9 2007, 01:10 PM) [snapback]402836[/snapback]</div>

For fun how about starting at 1 miilion? Each and every dollar above one million dollars earned or not, gifted, won in lottos, etc. is taxed at 90 percent. Of course this may keep all those talented people from innovating and working hard and the economy will collapse but then again maybe not. Maybe those talented people (ahmmmm) will work 90 percent harder to make even more!

Maybe the qazillions raised could then go to the 20 percent of American kids living in poverty (although their lazy parents are probably beyond help). Now if the government can't get it right in making this money work for food, health, education, world peace, environment and all things warm and fuzzy then perhaps it'd be time to hold the government accountable (as they clearly are not now by the people in the 35 percent bracket). I have no problem celebrating the success of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. and also taxing their BILLIONS at 90 percent. It wouldn't stop them from doing what they do.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KMO @ Mar 10 2007, 05:13 AM) [snapback]403280[/snapback]</div>

If there are that many spare millions sloshing about the company's payroll accounts, why not give it to the people at the bottom of the company who EARNED it?

Nobelsse oblige.

They can start with healthcare benefits for their workers with all that excess, unearned salary and bonus money. If companies provided for their workers, the government wouldn't have to.

It would cut down on bankruptcies too, since a large percentage of them are due to medical bills and catastrophic illnesses.

 

Here in So. Cal, the local newspaper (Orange County Register) just ran a story of the latest list of BILLOINAIRS, and I noted our beloved EX Disney C.E.O. was now listed among those few ... Michael Eisner the billionair. I think his best year at the Tragic Kingdom was just over 200,000,000.00 what with stock options, sallary, perks, etc. Mean while, those within the craft unions, engineers, etc, find it hard to get the company to fling us better deals, and of course our retireement medical was thrown out, except for us old-timers who had to sue in order to get Disney to honor past agreements.

Hmmm, I'm thinking that's not surprising after he so effectively rapped the coffers before being forced out. Here's a funny note: Eisner's personal attorney was appointed to the head of the Executive Compensation Committee. Come on now, ya just gotta laugh. I think and hope we've recently amended the corporate bylaws to prevent such things from happening again.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Mar 9 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]402836[/snapback]</div>

this is so funny and true especially at where i work at a social services agency. i hear people talk the talk but can't walk the walk. i wouldn't go so far to say liberals but most of them are democrats. by the way, i have noticed this where i work only.

i guess i should add some supporting anecdotes. when asked to give i hear people say i'm already giving by doing my job. when there are issues involving upper management i've heard people say i don't want to say anything cause i don't want it to affect my job, and (these were the people most outspoken about inequality)

 

If you go by percentage of income rather than dollar amount, the poor give more to charity than the rich.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ Mar 11 2007, 01:08 PM) [snapback]403889[/snapback]</div>

Yep, and Eisner's compensation was part of the reforms for the "greed is good" days of the 1980's ... give incentives for the top guys when stock prices go up, or dividends go up, because that means they are earning their keep. The unintended consequence is that the fastest way to increase earnings in a company is to do lay offs or reduce hourly compensation (especially in a company like Disney, where wages constitute so much of the cost of the "product" they produce).

I remember when Disneyland had ride operators with college degrees; they were earning more than they could as teachers or working in a lab. Now, the starting wage at Disneyland is less than the wage at IN-N-Out Burger, a local drive through hamburger stand. And they are wondering why they have such high employee turnover.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nperkins @ Mar 11 2007, 12:16 PM) [snapback]403831[/snapback]</div>

I just don't get it. Why would you tax money earned at a higher rate than money won in a lottery? Just because somebody get a high income doesn't mean they didn't earn it. And by the way, we don't have to try things on our economy, we can look at other countries and see what happened there.

The one thing you have to remember is poor people don't create jobs. Seriously, have you ever worked for a poor person? If you have a great idea, you can make lots of money and you end up hiring people.

You have no problem taxing Bill & Steve at 90%? That's great. You say it wouldn't stop them from doing what they do. Have you asked them? And would it have stopped them from doing what they did? Bill gives a ton of money away. Do you really think he believes the government could give his money away better than he can? Steve drove a very hard bargain when he sold Pixar to Disney. That doesn't seem like somebody who is willing to easily part with his money.

When you raise taxes that much, you kill the economy. Just take a look at Europe. France, for example, has one of the highest tax burdens and they struggle with 9% unemployment. Remember the riots they had because kids couldn't get jobs?

I agree that these CEOs making 30 million + is just crazy. But you have to remember it is the board of directors who approves the CEO salaries. Al Gore sits on Apple's BOD. Apparently he is one of those responsible for Steve's compensation package. Most companies get a very small return on the shareholder votes. If people don't like it, they should actually vote and change the BOD.

Socialism has been tried and it just doesn't work. Our country isn't perfect either, we've got a congress full of people (both parties!) selling pork projects to get re-elected. But to tax people at obscene rates is just isn't right and it will kill the economy, making more people dependent on the government.