Why the uproar over only executive pay?

[newtothegame]

Why do so many DU'ers rail against the pay of executives in essential industries creating products we use every day, but completely ignore the outrageous pay of entertainers in our society? Why is it ok for Sean Penn to make $20 million for a film while the camera guy makes $20 bucks an hour, the assistant on set makes $10, and the ticket taker at the box office makes minimum wage, but it's not ok for the CEO of a firm making cars to make even a few million a year? Do actors and entertainers get a free pass just because they lean left? We need to reform pay in society as a whole, not just where it's politically convenient.

[HopeHoops]

1. I don't particularly have a problem with that when the company isn't FAILING!

What burns me up is when a company lays off thousands of people because they are going down in flames and STILL dish out millions in bonus money to the VERY people responsible for the failure of the company. That's just wrong - ESPECIALLY when it is a company that got bailout money!

[newtothegame]

3. I agree, def.

These boards need to never get themselves into these contracts about bonus money.

[sui generis]

2. they did that in Rome 1800 years ago

also in Mexico today. Oh yeah, I forgot about Elizabethan England. It's how Diana's family got rich and royal -

It's called the Maximum Wage. It's the reason Mexico looks like it does, and also the reason for the Hansiatic League's success and certainly one of the reasons for the downfall of the Roman empire.

I'm sorry. If I start a company, hire employees, and pay them a fair wage and profit share yet I still make 20 times more per year than my cheapest employee, I am not obligated to uplift them. My secretary with a high school education should NOT make as much as physician's assistant.

[TexasProgresive]

6. 20 times is nothing

how about 500 times?

[sui generis]

11. still think about what you're saying.

Either:

A private person in a private company does not have a right to make over a certain dollar amount

OR:

Everyone who works should make close to the same income.

Why would anyone go to college or learn a trade?

The idea that you can shoot for the moon, and sometimes get there, is what makes people take chances in business and in life.

[newtothegame]

14. Fair enough, and I actually agree with you. I wanted to hear some other opinions on this though.

I found it interesting how we pick and choose who gets railed based on their politics.

[ColbertWatcher]

30. "we pick and choose who gets railed based on their politics." Um.

Warren Buffet has similar politics as Sean Penn and so does Bill Gates.

BTW, you're the one who introduced "railing" on people based on politics.

Perhaps you can provide a link to back up your assertion?

[abumbyanyothername]

16. I call bullshit

Why would anyone go to college or learn a trade?

Because they want to make a contribution to the well being of society. The myth that human beings will never contribute unless monetarily rewarded (or actually coerced) is the biggest pile bullshit polluting the society today.

[The2ndWheel]

25. There isn't much of an option

It's not so much that people would never contribute, it's more that people might not contribute if they don't believe in that particular society. So just to cover every base, since we live in such an all-encompassing type of society, you financially reward people for sticking with it, which then grows that society, and makes any alternative that much more difficult.

[Kid Dynamite]

22. Soygen

it seems to me that you are repeating pro-Boss, pro-management rhetoric here and shamelessly so. Most people go to college and learn a trade without any aspiration of even THINKING about earning "the moon". Everything you say here is not only untrue and dishonest (capping executive pay is hardly egalitarianism), it is boilerplate propaganda for the Owner class.

Why are you so interested in the "rights" of a few to make some ungodly dollar amount while saying not a word about the right of people to have a decent standard of living in "the richest country on Earth".

Yours are the words of an extremist

[ColbertWatcher]

31. Beautifully put and welcome to DU! n/t

[Kid Dynamite]

10. Unbelievable

[closeupready]

23. Then you shouldn't be asking him/her to be doing as much work as the PA.

Sorry. If you devalue someone's work, you will get a shitty, demoralized worker, in return.

[readmoreoften]

24. Oh please? The MAXIMUM wage is the reason why the Roman Empire fell?

You're talking in terms of petit bourgeois local business. CEOs of major industries aren't people who "start businesses." You can't compare a doctor's office with GE or Halliburton. A doctor works and adds value to a business just like an actor or an athlete does. A CEO is an unnecessary invention. Just like a college president--a thoroughly unnecessary show pony.

There are people who have good ideas every day, but most of them don't have mommies and daddies who can help them get massive bank loans to pay workers to realize their "good ideas."

And what makes you think people pay their employees fairly? Maybe a secretary who didn't have a mommy and a daddy pay for four year college, but did pay for their own education to learn all the software it currently takes to BE a secretary (by the way, it's Administrative Assistant) deserves a little more respect.

A "secretary" is more valuable than the CEO of a health insurance scam any day of the month.

[DrDan]

4. one reason - all too often exec pay is based on reducing costs

and how is that being done? by cutting headcount or outsourcing for lower labor rates.

The execs are getting rich on the backs of employees.

Don't believe the same claim can be made about entertainers.

[Donnachaidh]

5. oh bullshit -- blow smoke about something else

Yeah, 95% of the sag members are NOT making the money Sean Penn or the other miniscule amount of people are making.

NO -- it's NOT alright for the CEO of a firm, ANY firm, to be making millions when they are shipping whole divisions of their companies OVERSEAS, and leaving whole sections of OUR economy in ruins.

FUCK those CEOS -- and any of their syncophantic followers who still think the movie Wall Street was some sort of pattern for doing business.

[ItNerd4life]

17. Are you going to answer the question?

Yes, CEO's are overpaid. So why is it okay for entertainers and athletes to be so grossly overpaid? Instead of swearing, try answering the question.

[readmoreoften]

21. Are you a sock puppet?

Entertainers and athletes are both the workers and the commodities themselves. A CEO is a completely useless bloodsucker. Factories can run without a CEO. The sports world can't run without athletes and entertainment doesn't exist without entertainers.

The athlete and the actor CREATE VALUE. The CEO sucks profit out of workers who don't need him.

[Donnachaidh]

38. the question is BULLSHIT - and has already been answered

This is pure D smokescreen. I've already posted about the percentages of pay in SAG -- comprehension problems much?

Oh poor poor widdle CEO's getting called on their greed and vicious business dealings. There are FAR more of them doing destruction to the country than the occasional overpaid actor. This is a TYPICAL RW talking point, tossed out because you have no REAL argument to back up the syncophantic love of criminals in high places with overpriced suits and trophy wives.

[Bonhomme Richard]

7. The fact that you focus on Sean Penn screams volumes. n/t

[readmoreoften]

20. Yes it does. Volumes.

Why not Charlton Heston or some other freeper actor?

[newtothegame]

27. Because the OP asks if actors and entertainers get a free pass for leaning left...

Last I checked Charlton "Pry my gun from my cold dead hands" Heston didn't lean left; or do you know something I don't? A little less time desperately searching for trolls, and a little more time using the board for discussion, and we'll make a poster out of you yet.

[ColbertWatcher]

32. It's true, certain actors get work based on their politics. For example ...

... where is the demand for this has-been?

And, how is it she's being offered jobs?



Oh, and Hollywood's biggest secret is that the people who have the power to "green light" a project are hardly ever liberal.

[Fumesucker]

8. Famous actors are at least a somewhat bankable commodity

People often go to see a given movie because of which actor(s) it has in it.

People do not buy a certain make car because they really like the CEO.

Therein lies the difference.

Edited for clarity.

[CBGLuthier]

9. They are the commodity not the labor

You may as well ask why does it cost millions to make a jet airplane.

Actors in films are part of the product. They are an essential and sometimes expensive component.

Their price or value rises and falls as all other commodities based upon demand.

[Blue_Tires]

12. i frequently rail against insane pro athlete salaries

and how money has completely corrupted college sports (and as a result, high-school sports)

[kjackson227]

13. Because when these executives make that much money, most likely

their employees are getting the shaft with a form of indentured servitude.


At no time in our history has the disparity in personal income been so wide, and in no other industrialized country today does the disparity even come close. Record-high chief executive officer compensation is more than 400 times the take-home pay of an average American worker. For an industrialized country like ours, there is no parallel to this growing income divide between the highest- and lowest-paid workers. Corporate executives in England, for instance, make half as much as American business leaders while the lowest-paid workers there earn a higher wage than their American counterparts. -Valarie Long, VP of 32BJ/SEIU

[Confusious]

15. I rage against

Actors, athletes and CEO's getting so much pay, but CEO's are the worst because they give workers the shaft to get that pay.

[ItNerd4life]

18. You're asking people to think

and that's not very nice of you. I agree completely that pay needs to be completely overhauled.

Nobody can make more than 100 times that lowest paid workers. That takes care of the problem.

[readmoreoften]

19. Because one works and one doesn't. And I suggest that you research what people earn on a set.

You don't know film pay very well. Your numbers are ridiculous. I seriously doubt Penn makes $20 million for a film. $20 million dollars is almost the entire budget of most non-blockbuster films. But even if he did, say, make $5 or $10 million, he'd have to pay out about 30% in fees to agents and so forth.

The camera "guy" (you know, there are female DPs) is in a solid union job. I don't know what DPs make, but union editors on major, high budget feature films make about $10K a week. Even PAs (the grunts of the industry who fetch coffee and coil cords) on local indie commercials for used car dealerships make more than $10 an hour.

And how about this for a reason:

Sean Penn has a FUCKING JOB while CEOs are unnecessary slugs that suck off the workers of a company. A factory can EASILY exist without a CEO. A movie can't exist (unless its a cartoon) without a leading actor.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mrs. Overall]

29. Yes, this particular OP does that all the time.

[ColbertWatcher]

28. Interesting question. Why indeed.

Well, if you compare Penn's salary history ...

I Am Sam (2001) $5,000,000
The Thin Red Line (1998) $300,000
Hurlyburly (1998) $150,000

... to that of most CEOs, you'll see Penn's salary is dependent on what economists call "supply and demand," whereas CEO salaries are calculated on proprietary formulas that are not available to the general public because they are corporate information protected by intellectual property laws and whatnot.

I'm sure you understand.

[bridgit]

33. Why does Kobe Bryant make millions for dribbling a basketball?

Or Howard Stern make $1,000 every 7secs? Or Limbaugh make tons upon tons of money for sitting on his fat ass throwing tantrums? I understand your analogy about cars and CEO's but it points to some of the very reasons why people are taking notice. These CEO's have run our manufacturing base into a ditch *while* skimming ever-higher salaries & bonuses for themselves. They clearly weren't worth it. So why not review the process that supports shoveling good money after bad, naw...

Way too much American corporatism wants money and they want as much of it as they can get whether their model succeeds or fails, win/lose or draw or explodes they have their 8500$ trash cans and their gold & diamond parachutes.

[anigbrowl]

34. "the camera guy makes $20 bucks an hour"...er, wrong.

The camera guy, by which I assume you mean the operator, is making closer to $60/hour if s/he is working on a film with Sean Penn. As a sound guy, I get paid somewhat less (but have a somewhat easier job, going rate for what I do about $450 a day. Of course, you'll be lucky to get that on a regular basis outside of LA and NY, and all but a very few work at lower rates on lower-budgeted (<$1 million) projects, where there's a discount in return for beer, friendship, and a more relaxed atmosphere.

Edit: this is also true for actors, many of whom, even the top earners, will work for basic minimum if the script is good and they are asked the right way. Not to mention that getting to the top in Hollywood is frequently something that happens after many years in poverty or relative obscurity.

Famous actors get paid a lot of money because their participation is the single biggest factor in the financial success of a given film. Participation of a given actor is not a guarantee of success by any means (every film still needs a decent story and so forth) but it's enough of a factor that a producer can look at the names who have expressed interest in the script and form a ballpark estimate of how much the film is likely to make and be right more than half the time. And that's the key calculation that makes it worthwhile to write a check.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

35. Sean Penn doesn't make $20 million a film.

Though if it were based on talent, he would certainly deserve it.

And the rest of your post is inaccurate. DPs (the camera guy) do quite well, and the theater ticket-taker isn't even on the set of the movie -- that's like complaining the janitor at a local car dealership is making nothing compared to the head of GM.

[fascisthunter]

36. because we actually SEE what actors do for a living

and we are entertained by their work. CEO's don't do shit for average Americans... hell they don't even entertain us.

[redqueen]

37. Oh FFS.

Yeah... good luck with this. :eyes: