July 2, 201511 yr Sounds like we all want the same thing, but have much different views on how to achieve it. I think that's true for most all issues in America.
July 2, 201511 yr Author Tell me how limiting executive pay at Wal-Mart helps the middle class. We've been down the road of it being 946% of the average Walmart employee, so doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity.
July 3, 201511 yr Author Sounds like we all want the same thing, but have much different views on how to achieve it. I agree, FBH. What do we need to do to get our middle class back? JMO that it the CEO pay vs employee pay is representative of the issue. I'll be honest; I want answers. I believe our country will represent a dystopian novel in 50 years without some changes.
July 3, 201511 yr We've been down the road of it being 946% of the average Walmart employee, so doing the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity. You're ignoring the real issue if you think CEO pay is causing the middle class to erode.
July 3, 201511 yr I never care about nor use executive pay vs average worker's wages as a way to judge "fair" or "right." If the business can get by successfully with lower-wage workers then why should the CEO make less?It's more perception than a real issue IMO. What jobs put someone in the middle class? Have we lost a lot of those jobs due to technology? I think this is where we really need to look when we ask "what happened to the middle class?" While there are still people making money in, say, manufacturing it's a LOT LESS people needed than the old days. Walk through a Ford plant and see how few human hands are now involved. Good news is someone needs to make those robots that Ford uses. Bad news is may require a skill set/education level that we as a country are not producing enough of. Exec pay is just for headlines and for "the MAN is sticking it to us" thinking. Way too simplistic and IMO is ignoring the truth. Clyde 100% correct. Like I said before I do think we can discuss some of our foreign trade agreements. I do think we can be more strict there. But to blame executive compensation is silly.
July 3, 201511 yr We MUST reduce the cost to employ people if we want to grow a healthy middle class. We have been going the wrong direction. Insurance is great, but health care cost burdens are burying us....taxes on employers is out of control. In addition to income taxes, there are about ten other taxes and multiple filings involved to maintain an employee base. It is cheaper to automate or outsource.
July 3, 201511 yr We MUST reduce the cost to employ people if we want to grow a healthy middle class. We have been going the wrong direction. Insurance is great' date=' but health care cost burdens are burying us....taxes on employers is out of control. In addition to income taxes, there are about ten other taxes and multiple filings involved to maintain an employee base. It is cheaper to automate or outsource.[/quote'] THIS is what we should be discussing instead of CEO compensation.
July 3, 201511 yr I'd say corporate CEOs making 400% more than their workers has something to do with it, along with the ability to move jobs overseas and pay slave wages. The absolute desire of shareholders for always increasing profits makes it almost a necessity that the middle class be thinned. Sounds like a place of employment I may or may not be familiar with.........
July 3, 201511 yr Author THIS is what we should be discussing instead of CEO compensation. This thread kind of spun out of control from the original article that mentioned a lot more than just CEO compensation. But "off the rails" makes me think about the private sector's responsibility in helping maintain the middle class, which is none. What would keep employers from taking tax cuts and stuffing them in their pockets much like they have done with funds saved from outsourcing and automating?
July 3, 201511 yr We MUST reduce the cost to employ people if we want to grow a healthy middle class. We have been going the wrong direction. Insurance is great, but health care cost burdens are burying us....taxes on employers is out of control. In addition to income taxes, there are about ten other taxes and multiple filings involved to maintain an employee base. It is cheaper to automate or outsource. THIS is what we should be discussing instead of CEO compensation. Yes, yes, yes. The middle class is under attack but what the 'big boys and girls' 'make' is not the driving the factor at all. In fact is a mis-direction or distraction. The middle class is under attack from a lot of things. 1. Technology. But that has been a constant over time. Horses to tractors; multi-form sheets to computerized application; etc. 2. Outsourcing: focus was the key word in the early 90s. Get ride of this to focus on what you really do. By itself outsourcing was erroding the job pool somewhat but like Technology - it was an improvement 3. Offshoring: This could be with or without outsourcing. Usually with, since the outsourcers supposedly know the ropes better. This has been a game changer. Getting supposedly college educated people at $15 an hour is a game changer when they replace college educated US-based middle aged employees at $50 an hour. Those are fully burdened typical cost of an employ (more on the burden below). Getting 5 or 10 perecent improvement in labor cost is interesting and may or may not lead to company executive to pursue that course. But reducing labor cost by 2/3s! Yikes. NOT doing could put you out of business due to non-competitiveness - at least that is what the consultants say. 4. Non-salary 'fully burdened' cost of an employee. Its not just your salary that is the cost to the company. Every employee comes with non-salary 'burden'. Some items - the match to the social security and medicare (there is a 7 1/2 percent kicker right there), unemployment tax insurance (government funds unemployment funds by taxing those who are employing people - an interesting concept); office space; computer/IT support; 401K match; and of course the ever more expensive health insurance. When a company looks at keeping you, firing you, offshoring your job - they look at all of this a 'fully burdened rate' of you cost them as an employee. The advent of 3 and the increasing impact of 4 is now the main killer to the middle class in America. The enemy is not the CEO making a bunch of money - it matters not one bit to the decision to keep your job in the US, send it offshore or just eliminate if top-line revenue is not keeping up. An underpaid CEO will make the decision the same what a over-compensated one will. A lot of business is local. But even as they grow they become multi-nationals and faced with global competition. People need to understand that when companies are forced to increase their labor cost - through minimum wage, mandatory health benefits, unemployment tax increases, etc. they have to respond - to stay in business in a competitive world. Like Clyde says - the discussion on CEO compensations is wasted typing and wasted time.
July 3, 201511 yr "Misdirection" is well stated! The CEO pay topic is clever politics. It sounds good, but does nothing to address the real issues.
July 3, 201511 yr "Misdirection" is well stated! The CEO pay topic is clever politics. It sounds good, but does nothing to address the real issues. It is purely misdirection. It's why whenever someone mentions it I ask to see the direct correlation. It doesn't exist. Executive pay is emotional hyperbole meant to draw anger from the masses. How dare someone work hard and make a lot of money.
July 3, 201511 yr It is purely misdirection. It's why whenever someone mentions it I ask to see the direct correlation. It doesn't exist. Executive pay is emotional hyperbole meant to draw anger from the masses. How dare someone work hard and make a lot of money. HuffPost poll from '14 found that 66 percent of Americans think the pay of top corporate executives and CEOs is too high, while only 18 percent think their pay is appropriate. Two percent said that executives' pay is too low. Another problem poll for Republicans.
July 3, 201511 yr HuffPost poll from '14 found that 66 percent of Americans think the pay of top corporate executives and CEOs is too high, while only 18 percent think their pay is appropriate. Two percent said that executives' pay is too low. Another problem poll for Republicans. It's human nature to think someone who makes more than you some how doesn't deserve. Why them and not me. Your poll still proves nothing . Show me how executive compensation affects the middle class. If you cut executive pay at these fortune 500 companies and spread it around to the thousands of employees there is no significant increase in pay. Like I said and you proved it by your post this is an emotional hyperbole topic meant to draw anger but has no real substance.
July 3, 201511 yr It's human nature to think someone who makes more than you some how doesn't deserve. Why them and not me. Your poll still proves nothing . Show me how executive compensation affects the middle class. If you cut executive pay at these fortune 500 companies and spread it around to the thousands of employees there is no significant increase in pay. Like I said and you proved it by your post this is an emotional hyperbole topic meant to draw anger but has no real substance. As usual, you completely miss the point. This isn't a bottom-line issue; it 's a perception issue. The middle class sees its income rise ... more like stagnate ... by perhaps 0.5 percent a year, while executive bonuses climb skyward like Jack's beanstalk. The rich get richer while the middle class keeps treading water. A peception that two-thirds of the country embraces.
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