The Bush-Obama tax cuts are failing to create jobs...

[mrstickball]

sethnintendo said:

mrstickball said:

1. Take a look at CEO pay rates vs. their entire workforce. We had this argument a few months ago with Vetterman and his job at Catepillar. The employees wages comprised 99.8% of all wages spent, with the remaining 0.2% going to the CEO. Therefore, those that have the largest impact on wages are, by far, the workers, not the CEO. Furthermore, you make the poor assumption that being born rich is the key to success....Which shows why many people are poor in America. Many love to blame CEOs, the ultra rich, Barak Obama, rather than take a look at their own life and personal development to see what they can do to be better off. Few bother doing that, and will always remain poor. Not because of the CEO, but because they fall into traps of materialism through debt which does far more harm to them than a CEO.

I was kind of just bouncing around on rants on my first post.  I do understand that workers make up more of the population than CEO thus making up more of wages spent.  I also realize that a lot of CEOs are taking stock options.  However, I do not understand why from 1990-2005 CEO's pay can go up 298% while the average worker only got about 4.3% increase in the same time period.  Just looking at the graph you can see there is something not quite right.  I am not sure if this graph is factoring in inflation but even if it is it is kind of pathetic.  How is a CEO worth 300% more in value in 2005 than it was in the early 90s.  Are CEOs going to be worth 300% more in 2015 than 2005.  Look at the minimum wage bracket.... -9.3%

http://consumerist.com/2007/04/ceo-pay-up-298-average-workers-43-1995-2005.html

Sure I agree that people don't make the best decisions.  Should I have invested more than spending it on video games, electronics, etc...  Probably should have (especially when major corporations first went public, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, etc...)  If I invested decently then I would probably be in better shape.  However, when I am getting basically 0% pay increase every year (with most of my money going to bills) then that is pretty much a wage reduction due to inflation.  Hell, the average worker only going up 4.3% in wages during that time period didn't even have a chance to beat inflation or barely beat it.  So basically everyone in this country has been getting pay cuts every year while CEO can easily outpace inflation with their wage increases.  Hell, Congress even gives themselves 3-4k raise each year for a shitty job they preform.  If you had the approval rating of Congress then you would be fired; you would not be given a cost of living increase raise each year (makes it easier when you can vote for your own raise).  I haven't met too many people that tell me every year their job provides them with 3-4k per year for cost of living.  If they are lucky they might get $0.25 more per hour.

For your first point:

I'd say globalization is a big factor in regards to CEO pay vs. worker pay. There is only one CEO in a company, while there are many workers. With expanding footprints in many countries, it makes sence that the guy that has to deal with divisions in every region or even every country is compensated more. Likewise, profit bases can expand significantly due to the global marketplace - instead of the CEO being over a company based in California that sells products in the US, that CEO may still be based in California, but selling products to China, Germany, France, ect. Therefore, compensation is likely to be higher, whereas the base worker is still dealing with a localized set of responsibilities and needs.

For example, I found a handy chart that compares business sizes vs. average compensations among all workers according to a 2007 survey of ~680 businesses. It found that there is essentially a direct correlation between company size and compensation packages, so it makes sense that as businesses get bigger, so do the compensation packages which likely get pushed to the top of those that have larger footprints at the company: http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/survey/2007/analysis-of-2007-survey-results

I agree with the argument of congressmen and their compensation. Its far too high. That is why I'm an advocate of smaller government: If you think congressional compensation packages are bad, try the other hundred thousand workers for the federal government that make, on average, 50% more than the average American does plus is exempt from most payroll reductions (such as social security, medicare and the like).