17 Comments

There was a time when Fortune 500 companies' CEOs and boards understood a fundamental fact: that a $ paid to a minimum wage worker had a very, very high multiplier effect, while a $ paid to a millionaire or billionaire had hardly any such effect at all. And when the latter did spend a penny out of a dollar, it probably went offshore to pay for vacations in the south of France or to buy imported luxury items. Knowing this central economic fact, these CEOs reined in their innate greed sufficiently that the US experienced economic prosperity at all income levels.

No more. The average captain of industry today is in a contest to see who can out do the others in rapacity. In unparalleled greed. In contempt for workers AND their customers. At the same time, chiseling as much tribute as possible from federal, state and local treasuries.

Hence the all time record high ratio of executive pay to workers pay.

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Only too true. Our vote for all-time champions of greed splits between Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and, of course the stable genius, Donald J. Trump. But of course there are many others!

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Great idea - and not so utopian as some might think. The magic word: unionize! Make it possible for ALL workers to join strong, well-organized advocacy groups that already exist. Communism? Nope, there are no unions under communist regimes. Socialism - yes. It can coexist with democratic regimes and this "union" is amazingly successful. The American oligarchs live in fear of it.

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Giving workers skin in the game is not only fair but has proven very constructive for companies - as when workers have an ownership stake. I hope your idea goes viral!

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W E L L L L L - where are politicians (especially reThuglicans) when it comes to looking out for 'THE PEOPLE - [AMTRAK one purrfekt example]. Pols took a cue from these utopian CEOs and witness how pols have expanded their personal portfolios, at the expense of THE PEOPLE! Regulatory laws, constitutional amendments, individual state requirements, local ordinances - where not prohibited by 'higher authority' [DeSatin comes to mind] - HAHADEDOODAHAHA!

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A truly revolutionary idea!YES!!!

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I suggest a similar approach in reverse: Every CEO's salary (or any other way of getting paid) should be no more than 50 times the salary/wages of the lowest-paid person in that company. Or maybe 49, or 48,...

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Jim, isn't it obvious? The "working stiffs" simply lack the sophistication to understand the highly complex math. They need bosses - just as women need trump - to protect them.

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4 hrs ago·edited 4 hrs ago

That's it! Never mind the silliness of the women's movement slogan "...like a fish needs a bicycle." Or the obviously stupid assertions by inferiors like the old Wobblies (I.W.W.) that the means of production should be owned and run by workers at the local level.

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One of my favorite films is 'Norma Rae', featuring Sally Field. Here's the Wiki summary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Rae

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Jim - Your idea has, in a sense, been around for a long time. I retired decades ago, working, in part, for groups tied in with government. While they didn't issue their own stock. their retirement fund did depend on other stocks. My wife is about to retire from a medical device company. Her retirement plan depends, in part, on her company's stock. I must say that my wife, the company, and it's stock have all done very well.

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Hey, brother Jim, thanks for yet another wonderful idea!

Through sleight of that invisible hand (of the non-corporal "Market") CEOs act as if they're entrepreneurs. They aren't--just very manipulative employees with elite connections. They exploit that abstraction known as money...but what exactly in the physical world do they produce? When there is nothing left to extract from human and natural resources, then what?

In contrast, we very real workers are the ones who make very real goods and provide very real services to actual customers. What we do is what in real life makes commerce and trade possible.

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Fairness, imagine that!!

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Good luck with that idea!

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I believe that executives should get some compensation for their decisions on running a business, but it shouldn’t exceed 3 times what the workers are paid

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as a stockholder, I agree that no CEO is worth paying a salary of over $ 1 million, and definitely deserving of a $ 100 million departure bonus. By my observation serving on Medical Group BOD's, CEO's always ask for a consultant when faced with decisions!

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In all of this rumbling about how the big corporations pay their executives so much, and so on, it makes it seem we workers all work for the big guys, and need a bigger slice. Okay, how does that make it better for the handful of us that are self employed, or that work for the mom and pop? Redistribution of the wealth, for all, is the only way to achieve equality. Taxing everyone, equally, according to income, without the loopholes to disguise profits, is where the start is.

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