Median CEO Pay Crosses $10 Million For First Time

a reply to: Aazadan

What is Aldi's?

Have you ever considered that different parts of the country may not have the same resources as you?

a reply to: Grimpachi

I have considered that but it's not something that comes up often as I live in a small town of 10,000 people that is fairly rural.

Aldi's is a supermarket chain owned by the brother of the guy that owns Trader Joes. The suppliers for both chains are the same, but Aldi's is cheaper as it's essentially brandless. They have 1300 stores in 32 states.

a reply to: abeverage

Russia and China have converted to mixed economies, not capitalism. Venezuela is imploding as we speak, but it hasn't stopped the majority of the population from blaming it on capitalism just as government propaganda tells them to think. Venezuela is simply America's track 20 years down the road when people like you call socialism, communism, and fascism "capitalism", then tell people that we need more government controls over business as the solution to the problems.

Singapore one of the most capitalist places in the world. What ill effects are they suffering under the crushing capitalism? Tell me how its gone too far.

This is why I boycott as much as I can and I think if the public voted with their wallets we could force a more fair wage distribution but currently the 1% have the monopoly board dominated. I personally think a 100 million$ cap on personal wealth would be a good idea and once a person makes that much the rest of their profits goes back to the other employees or to actual charitable organizations.

originally posted by: wayforward
a reply to: abeverage

Russia and China have converted to mixed economies, not capitalism. Venezuela is imploding as we speak, but it hasn't stopped the majority of the population from blaming it on capitalism just as government propaganda tells them to think. Venezuela is simply America's track 20 years down the road when people like you call socialism, communism, and fascism "capitalism", then tell people that we need more government controls over business as the solution to the problems.

Singapore one of the most capitalist places in the world. What ill effects are they suffering under the crushing capitalism? Tell me how its gone too far.

Where and when did I ask for government control? I offered no such thing! Please do not deflect and point that out to me. We can discuss Singapore woes after you clarify.

a reply to: Slickinfinity

And our family and friends have stopped purchasing except for our needs. No one will be buying a house or a new car or anything big for a long time. The kids are not updating their cell phones anymore. We turned the whole backyard into garden.

I would like to add there is another very practical reason not to pay CEOs outrageous salaries:

It's because when you are that rich you lose the connection with the average consumer and worker.

Look at the CEO of JCPenny - a guy took over and did away with coupons and sales. They had slick ads basically mocking coupons and changed the ads to show stuff like one expensive ring. I'm sure if you make 5 million plus this sounded like a good idea but if you would have asked any average shopper they would have told you it was a horrible idea. His anti-coupon idea almost destroyed the company.

Then there was the reaction to the BP oil spoil - remember the "we care about the little people comment" and the CEO attending the yacht race? It's due to the out of touch CEOs.

You can also lose empathy for the average worker. The CEO of yahoo took away the ability of people to work from home. Sure it's easier for her as a worker mother when she can have a staff of nannies, housekeepers, drivers and cooks. For the average person, the extra few hours of commute time can have a devastating effect on someone's life.

I've come to the conclusion most companies don't care about the long-term profits - the CEO's just want to such as much out as quickly as they can.

The ATS subscriber base is either poor or lower middle class so I do not expect CEO's to get a fair shake here.
Most of you show your jealousy and fundamental lack of understanding of the capitalist system.

They pay tax, that tax feeds your children with food those stamps you use monthly.

Capping salaries is a stupid idea that will never work.

a reply to: cutevixen

After the 08Crash, we understand. About every 30yrs we lose retirement funds because of capitalism. Then we lose jobs. Then we lose health care. Then we lose homes. The CEO's gain what we lose. Great system!

originally posted by: cutevixen
Most of you show your jealousy and fundamental lack of understanding of the capitalist system.

They pay tax, that tax feeds your children with food those stamps you use monthly.

Capping salaries is a stupid idea that will never work.

It's not jealousy. It's pure and total livid hatred and rage for what they've done to the rest of us and to the rest of the country.

originally posted by: cutevixen
The ATS subscriber base is either poor or lower middle class so I do not expect CEO's to get a fair shake here.
Most of you show your jealousy and fundamental lack of understanding of the capitalist system.

They pay tax, that tax feeds your children with food those stamps you use monthly.

Capping salaries is a stupid idea that will never work.

Capping salaries is a great idea and will occur in the future and its one of the main needed things to move forward toward a more humane and civil world. Tell your daddy or husband Im sorry about that.

a reply to: ImaFungi

Sorry but capping salaries is dumb. It's also very short sighted because it takes a small leap of logic to go from capping the salaries of one group of people to capping another. The CEO's make too much money, lets cap their salaries at 10 million/year so that there's more for the rest of us. It's too expensive to increase the salaries of the masses of slovenly unskilled minimum wage workers lets cap their positions at $7.45/hour.

Having the potential for improved upward mobility in the future is important. The better way to address this issue is to look at income inequality. The gaps between what the highest and lowest paid in a company should be closer, and they should move together. For example at a 20x gap (what JP Morgan said was fair... and was blasted for giving way too much to those at the top). If you're paying someone 7.45/hour the person at the top isn't making more than $149/hour ($309,920/year). If the person at the top is making 3 million per year the lowest paid in that company is making $72.11/hour. For every $20 more the person at the top gives themselves, those at the bottom get $1 more.

That's how you address wages without capping them.

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: ImaFungi

Sorry but capping salaries is dumb. It's also very short sighted because it takes a small leap of logic to go from capping the salaries of one group of people to capping another. The CEO's make too much money, lets cap their salaries at 10 million/year so that there's more for the rest of us. It's too expensive to increase the salaries of the masses of slovenly unskilled minimum wage workers lets cap their positions at $7.45/hour.

Having the potential for improved upward mobility in the future is important. The better way to address this issue is to look at income inequality. The gaps between what the highest and lowest paid in a company should be closer, and they should move together. For example at a 20x gap (what JP Morgan said was fair... and was blasted for giving way too much to those at the top). If you're paying someone 7.45/hour the person at the top isn't making more than $149/hour ($309,920/year). If the person at the top is making 3 million per year the lowest paid in that company is making $72.11/hour. For every $20 more the person at the top gives themselves, those at the bottom get $1 more.

That's how you address wages without capping them.

No, capping net worth is absolutely a necessary aspect of any solution.

With all the ability to create food, and with all the food created that is wasted each year, there should be no human on earth that starves. Also all the humans in the world, im sure youve heard that statement all the humans in the world could fit inside texas with a thousand square feet per person, to prove quite obviously that land is not scarce. So thats food and land that are not in reality scarcities, but because of a system, a game, they are denied to humans. One would think and one could think and one maybe should think, that the more people that exist the better, we need work done, we have things to do right, great, more people to do them.

So the reason there is poverty and people starving and homeless and jobless, is because the artificial scarcity creator, and the 'scarce' resource ; money. I am not one of those idiots that thinks money is bad, and we should go back to a barter system, money is one of the greatest inventions and a prime reason that humans were able to progress as they have. Though, with an ever increasing population, and with the fact that at every given time, there is a finite quantity of money that exists, and the fact that when more money is created, this only hurts those who have less of it more, it is easily seen that the main factor to why there is so much poverty, and all the things that come along with it, like crime, and war, is that there are many poor people that do not have a stable and steady access to that scarce commodity, money, which lets them live a stable steady life. The game the rich play is 'keep the food away from the poor'. There are 100s of millions of humans starving, that do not have food to eat. This is one of the most necessary aspects of life, and yet the rich and wealthy support, adamantly, vehemently, that every human must not be allowed to have access to food so easily. The number one priority, the one priority which any civil and rational society of beings, would view as such a priority, to have first and foremost always under control, is used as a tool to keep the poor poor, by creating artificial scarcity of food, and yes, by allowing uber wealthy, artificial scarcity of money.

With a finite supply of money at any given time, the fact that a few people have a tremendous amount of said money, means that a tremendous amount of people do not have access to said money. Say there are 100 people in a tribe, and they use coins as their currency, and there are 1000 coins, they would never allow a system to be created in which 1 member of the tribe has 900 of the coins would they? It would be just, rational and right to kill that member and split up their coins. The only reason such outrageous circumstances have come about is because of the tremendous amount of quantities and complications involved in markets, nations, stocks, interests, and abstract economies.

The game that is being played is monopoly, finite amount of money in monopoly right? It takes a lot of losers to make 1 winner in monopoly right? Lets say at the end of the game, they put some more money into the bank, call it inflation or quantitative easing, ok so the players that lost can take some loans from the bank and pay them back with interest, of course all the money they take out will be paid to the already winners of the game, who will just get more and more money. This is not a good game, the losers will flip the board, as what has happened throughout history. Believe it or not, its the right thing to do.