Why is there no maximum wage to balance out the minimum wage?

[Melodybe]

I see no reason for America to allow the minimum wage to cut into hiring when it refuses to have a maximum wage.

Is their any reason for a person to need more than a million dollars a year?

What about those who have so much money that they could never in 5 generations spend it all.

This is not Communism, it is a safe guard that we should add to our capitalist system.

[ironman202]

1. once I am elected king of the earth..

right after I aboloish corporations (you want to own shares in a company? fine. but you are fucking personally responsible for the actions of that company. corporations shield profit and limit liability. fuck that shit.) I will declare that Executives cannot make more than 20 times entry level.

[Melodybe]

3. Agreed, CEO's disgust me.

[Yupster]

71. Is that just executives or all workers?

If the executive makes $ 300,000 is it okay for his top salesman to make more than that, or should everyone be capped at 20 times the entry level $ 15,000 a year.

Jason Kidd would sure be pissed that he could only make twenty times more than the peanut vendor but I guess they're equally responsible for the Nets tremendous climb out of the cellar the last five years or so.

Samething with Barbra Streisand. I guess her and the tee-shirt salesman are equally responsible for the millions brought in by her concert.

This is not just a bad idea, but it smacks me of hypocrisy.

There are always posts about one group or another that needs to have things taken from them, and the one constant is the person making the suggestion is never part of the group that needs to have stuff taken.

More likely you'll read about how me or my group needs more of everything, has a right to much more of everything, and only the other guys should have stuff taken from him.

Just greed and hypocrisy in my opinion. I would be impressed with someone saying that everyone's taxes need to be raised sometime instead of the other guy's taxes need to be raised and mine need to be cut. But then again VP Mondale said that and look where it got him.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. I don't believe in a maximum wage

A maximum wage will naturally occur when the minimum wage is raised to something more sustainable.

[theHandpuppet]

20. Do you really believe that, and why?

I don't think curbs on greed ever happen "naturally".

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

27. Curbs on greed occur through regulation and distribution

Allowing us to go YEARS without raising the minimum wage, allowing deregulation of the banking and securities industries to occur and allowing the dilution of usery laws has resulted in the greed that is the domininant factor right now.

There will always be rich people and poor people...nobody wants to be poor and everybody wants to be rich.

Roosevelt put it best when he said he saved capitalism from itself.

So yes..I really believe what I said. I don't want to see wages capped, I want to see the minimum raised and see regulations put back in place.

[KingFlorez]

4. It really would be counterproductive

I don't think any wages should be capped, I just think working people who can't make that much should be protected and have enough money to live on.

[Melodybe]

6. Why should anyone on Earth deserve so much money that they could never

spend it all.

Fuck it, nothing entitles anyone on Earth to that.

[Xithras]

22. I could spend a million bucks a year...easily

How do you define "too much"?

[SmokingJacket]

70. You'd have to work your ass off to spend 10 million, though.

If a person works for a company where a certain percentage are working for minimum wage... well, making 50 times what they make -- when you DON'T work 50 times as many hours -- is damn wrong.

I think the main point is that the workers in a company aren't valued proportionately to the value of their work.

I do think the wage spread should be much smaller than it is in most companies. 40 hours of hard work should equal 40 hours of hard work, period.

[Yupster]

72. Plenty of baseball players

make $ 10 million a year and retire poor.

Cecil Fielder just went through bankrupcy and lost everything just for one small (or large) example.

[LSparkle]

19. I think any company that has a huge discrepancy between CEO and workers

ought to pay a "penalty tax." If their CEO makes X dollars, then the lowest-paid employee ought to be paid not less than X times less than that. A company can pay their CEO all it wants, as long as it also pays its lower-ranking employees well. I'm imagining the Japanese model that says the highest-paid shouldn't make more than X times the lowest-paid.

[HereSince1628]

35. I think that _wages_ should be capped, income from investment not.

This is one of my beliefs that place me in the far left.

Bonuses, intellectual property and patent rights of employees probably should not be capped but granting them should be out of the hands of the people who recieve them, which quite frankly gives an awfully lot of leeway for deserving people to be paid and rewarded.

CEO's and other corporate officers are simply ripping-off investors.

Within a corporation EVERYONE should recieve the same rates of retirement contribution, health, and other perquisites.

The cap should vary a bit by business group but I think a salary that is 6 times the median salary of an employee is reasonable for most businesses. This doesn't place an absolute cap on salaries, but it links all salaries to the median salary...no one person gets to leave the rest of the labor force behind.

As I said this doesn't limit income from investment so a person that owns and operates their own business could take a salary and the profits. I think that everyone working in a corporation should be guaranteed an opportunity to buy stock in it.

Federal salaries should also be capped and related to the median salary in their district. Representatives salaries should be directly related to median salaries of citizens, government professionals should be related to the medians of their industry equivalents.

[LifeDuringWartime]

5. well

the "have-mores" dont necessarily get most of their wealth from wages. investments, tax shelters, mostly. so unless this "maximum wage" took that into account, it wouldn't do a whole lot of good.

[Melodybe]

9. Give them enough to still live their lives well and then use the money

to help the world.

We shoud most definitely take that into account.

[lostnfound]

7. Impractical.

Cap on wages but not on unearned income?

[Melodybe]

11. Go after that too, no need to leave a loophole

[LSparkle]

23. Amen! UnEARNED income should be subject to MUCH higher tax than wages

[Mr.Green93]

8. Max what ever they want

as long as there is a ninety percent tax on everything over 200 k.

[Melodybe]

34. I think that 200k may be too low

I think we should start with those that make over a million a year.

[Yupster]

73. Your response for some reason reminds me of

an old political joke.

A politician was speaking to a crowd about taxes, and he said now if you had ten mansions, you'd give half of them to the poor wouldn't you, and everyone nodded along with him, and

if you had ten Porsches you'd give half of them to the poor wouldn't you, and everyone nodded along, and he said

and if you had ten pigs, and he was interrupted by a farmer who said "now wait just a minute there. I have ten pigs."

The basic idea being that everyone is all for giving other people's stuff away, but are a lot more careful about giving their own stuff away.

I think the old expression is "It depends whose ox is being gored."

[Nikia]

10. The basic problem I see with that

Is that some people already have a lot of money, millions or more. They would get to keep all their money and perhaps make more money off of investments, overseas or otherwise.
Certainly someone making a million dollars per year is not poor, but they would be prohibited from joining the ultra rich club. No one else could be super rich and the ultra rich would probably gain even more power than they already do now.
I don't think that this would improve the interests of the working and middle classes at all as a result.

[Melodybe]

13. If we get the world on our side it will totally happen

definitely a goal for the next century.

[Yupster]

74. It would also particularly target

people like writers, singers and athletes who may make a million dollars, but only once in their whole life.

A world class athlete may give up most parts of his life for his athletica only to reach the pinnacle for 1-2 years before becomming injured. That one big contract will probably be his only one.

Or a writer may toil for a decade writing his one great novel or song, only to have his income from it capped.

I read somewhere that Paul McCartney was the rchest man in England. Don't know if it's true or not, but in that land of inherited wealth and titles, it sure surprised me to read it.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

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

[Melodybe]

15. Not it's not, when you have the ultra rich robbing our country and pretty

much every country on Earth blind, then fuck'um take their money and use it to make the world a better place.

[Alcibiades]

29. Corporate compensation system is rigged

The problem is that top management controls the people who set their salary. Most boards do not do due diligence on compensation issues.

plus, there's an information problem. Let's say a company's value goes up 20% in a year. Great job, right, that's what is supposed to happen in capitalism--companies grow. But how do you tell who's responsible? Right now, corporate managers take all responsibility, and get all the profit, while rank and filers get nothing, when they are the real folks responsible for productivity gains.

Of course, if a stock tanks, or profits go down, don't expect management to take a pay cut.

When times are good, managers say to the compensation people: "Look at the great job I've done growing the company! Throw me more options!" They do so, even if the growth is nothing more than a secular increase across the industry or the economy as a whole.

When times are bad, managers say to the compensation people: "Look, times are tough, and I've had other offers. You cannot afford to lose me now. Throw me more options, or I'll leave the company!" They do so, even though the threat is idle, and no one would hire this dog of a CEO who has never worked for another company in his career.

[Yupster]

76. The answer is to get stockholders to

really have a voice in the company's decisions.

There's no way stockholders would approve these tens of millions of dollars of payoffs to executives.

I thought the rise of mutual funds would help do this, but it hasn't.

To me that's the answer.

We need laws that dictate that compensation packages must go before the stockholders in an understandable vote.

Proxy statements I get now say something like "proposal on corporate compensation, vote yes or no." That's not adequate. Discosure rules should be far greater.

The other thing that needs to change is the symbiotic relationship between politicians and corporations. Look at any corporate board and you'll see a list of retired politicians.

The boards approve the execs compensation packages and then when the politicians run for office or back friends who do, the execs give them planes and fundraisers. Too incestuous, and look at any corporate board and you'll see them, both Democratic and Republican.

[Selatius]

14. This is why the estate tax was instituted to begin with

They didn't want a sort of financial aristocracy to emerge in the US, but estate taxes have been whittled away, so you already have the beginnings of a new aristocracy.

Meet your new boss! Same as the old one!

[slackmaster]

31. Not correct at all

When was the estate tax enacted?

The estate tax was enacted in 1916 with broad public approval. Early supporters of estate taxes included Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Andrew Carnegie.

Why do we need the estate tax?

The estate tax raises a significant amount of money from only the wealthiest taxpayers. It encourages charitable giving and promotes America’s core economic and democratic values....

(underlining added for emphasis)

http://www.responsiblewealth.org/tax_fairness/Estate_Tax/Estate_Tax_FAQ.html

[ultraist]

54. Yes, he/she is correct. Thomas Jefferson

http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/15/estate_tax/?sid=1012060
And Thomas Jefferson, who described "The Wealth of Nations" as "the best book extant" on political economy, famously wondered at about the same time whether all hereditary privileges should be abolished since "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living." He could have been quoting Smith with those words: It is "the most absurd of all suppositions," said Smith, "that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth."

[slackmaster]

57. The reason the ET was implemented in 1916 was to raise tax revenues

No higher moral purpose at all.

[ultraist]

61. The ET was not first implemented in 1916. The first estate tax was in 1797

After numerous increases and decreases, in 1932, during the Great Depression, the estate tax was increased to fund Federal Programs.

The original spirit behind estate taxes was to redistribute wealth to prevent an aristocracy, although it was oftentimes increased to fund war.

Thomas Jefferson discussed aristocracy and estate taxes quite a lot:

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy.

[Alcibiades]

16. The previous poster is right

The rich don't get most of their money from wages, but from investment income.

As far as employees go, the real scandal isn't in cash compensation, but in stock options. You see, there's a strong incentive for companies to pay managers with stock options, because they do not have to count this as an expense when reporting profits to shareholders! Clearly, it is an expense, and more importantly, it does dilute the value of outstanding shares, no matter what corporate apologists say.

Basically, stock options are ameans to pay management big bucks whithout expensing it honestly.

And while I'm on the topic, isn't most management useless anyway? I've had a lot of jobs, and it seems to me that the biggest role of management is to cut productivity.

[leftofthedial]

17. capitalism

it's an evil anti-human system

[Xithras]

18. I know a guy who makes more than that, and he's a 1 man company

Runs an art import/export business. How would you propose to limit his wages...cap the number of clients he can have?

[Newsjock]

21. Just bring back the old income tax rates

They worked for us so well in the 1950s -- why not again now?

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

From 1951 to 1963, the top marginal (incremental) income tax rate for married couples on taxable income above $400,000 was 91% or 92%. That's roughly $3.07 million in today's dollars, using the Consumer Price Index.

[Walt Starr]

24. Because capitalism can have no upper limit

For effective competition in the marketplace, potential income must remain unfettered.

[Melodybe]

32. I disagree, I think that is one of the main flaws of capitalism

It makes the system anti-people and pro-profit, that is no way to run the world.

[Walt Starr]

36. Sorry, but it's the only way to run the world

I'm not as anti-corporate as most on DU. I see the value in capitalism on all levels and really consider myself to be anti-socialist.

The upward bounds of capitlaism can only be fettered by human desire and dreams. If government were to cap the upward bounds, the entire system would be as doomed to failure as soviet Russia.

Let's not go down the path of Socialism or Communism, that path lies to total destruction of society.

[Selatius]

Not necessrily true

The lessons of the past teach us that what happened with experiments with socialism is people, for whatever reason, gave up their collective power to a more central authority even though they were perfectly capable of doing it themselves...collectively. They let somebody else do it for them, or they, more tragically, were forced into surrendering their independence to an external authority, such as a centralized decision-making structure seen in republican forms of government.

This goes back to the conflicts between people like Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin over how a transition to socialism should be accomplished. Marx advocated winning power within existing decision-making structures and imposing it from the top-down. Bakunin hated these ideas and once predicted that if a revolution was won under a Marxist revolutionary party, they would end up as bad as the ruling class they overthrew. History seems to have shown him correct. What Bakunin advocated instead was a rejection of centralized power in favor of more direct forms of decision-making.

In other words, a model very similar to direct democracy on the local level democratically administering the resources in that locality for the benefit of all involved. Of course, Bakunin encouraged networking with other communities in order to pool resources and skills to spread the workload and increase the chances of survival.

[Walt Starr]

86. Direct Democracy is the greatest tyranny of all.

Sorry, but I'm not up for attempting to implement philosophies which have been prven time and again to be miserable failures.

Socialistic doctrine is a failure. Palin and simple.

[Selatius]

90. Direct democracy has never really been tried

Ultimately, Bakunin and others realized the dangers of an ignorant populace, so they would have been fool-hardy to advocate such a system without also advocating education as a means of fighting ignorance and hate. For example, none of the socialists in US history from Eugene Debs to Emma Goldman accepted racism or bigotry and vigorously spoke out against it. Those were examples of ignorance they fought against.

As far as socialistic doctrine is concerned, history has shown it can work. The only reason why the system has failed is through state oppression as well as opposition from the owners of the resources, something both outside the control of anyone involved in a commune. The greatest example is perhaps the communes during the Spanish Civil War. They were destroyed not only by those supported by Nazi Germany but also Stalinists backed by the USSR, not necessarily through any flaw within the system they set up. Regardless, even if there were flaws, there was not enough time to reveal them in order to address them because many who participated were killed off, deported, or imprisoned.

[Melodybe]

47. Bull, it's never been tried and you know it

Comparing it to Russia is unfair, because that was a complete preversion of Marxism.

[Walt Starr]

85. Sorry, but it was tried in many nations

And yes, the Soviet Union was a shining example of what happens when you apply Marxist doctrine to governance of a people.

It's a failed philosophy. It doesn't work and has nearly died out in the world.

[Melodybe]

94. We will have to agree to disagree because I choose to think

that their are some merits to the system, you obviously don't feel like that.

[indepat]

25. We can have CEOs earning a thousand-fold or more than workers, thanks

in no small part to a ludicrously low minimum wage. It's just a matter of who benefits that drives public policy.

[Xithras]

30. That's why minimum wage laws need to be rethought.

When you set a baseline, the cheapskates will always stick to it. Here in California we passed a proposition many years back setting a minimum funding level for our public schools. Once we established that limit, that BECAME the de facto school budget, and there has only been one year since that they've been budgeted above that level.

As odd as this sounds, I honestly believe that minimum wage laws should become more selective, and be rolled back in many areas. Companies will either have to pay a liveable wage, or do without employees. As it exists right now, we essentially have a system that allows employers to shirk their responsibilities by laying blame on the government for not raising their minimum pay levels.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. Because it, unlike the minimum, is unenforceable.

Both parties are interested in breaking the law. There is a zillion ways you can sidestep it in an undetectable fashion.

[slackmaster]

28. Since when is "need" a criterion for restricting what people can have?

Other than prescription medication.

What about those who have so much money that they could never in 5 generations spend it all.

So what?

This is not Communism, it is a safe guard that we should add to our capitalist system.

Safeguard against what? There is no limit to the amount of money that can exist within the system.

[Melodybe]

33. but there sould be safe guards to keep people from owning the entire syste

system, which is what we have now.

Corporate media, hello!

[slackmaster]

52. You are changing the subject

This thread started on the subject of limiting personal wealth.

Protecting the public against abuses by monopolies and trusts is an ongoing battle. It started over 100 years ago during the McKinley administration.

[wli]

60. and we, the people, lost n/t

[Yupster]

77. A good point Slack

None of us need the internet either.

Let's not give Bush any ideas.

[Selatius]

37. Capitalism cannot exist without in-equality and control; it just can't

The reason any big business enterprise exists is not to service the people or provide goods. The reason why those goods and services are produced is in order to generate wealth for the shareholders, the owners of the means of production. They really only care about you as far as making money is concerned. That's the lowest common denominator. Since money is considered "universal capital," naturally payment for services and goods will be in the form of a fee not just for operating costs (human labor is counted as a liability, not an asset) but also to further enrich the owner(s). This is called profit-taking.

However, this entire system cannot exist without control over the resources everybody needs. Intellectual property law is the basis of such a system. If I can control a resource, I can gain that much more control over everybody else. This is why if you do not regulate any market, what you end up with is a monopoly or an oligopoly in the end that can charge as high as what people are willing to pay far and beyond what it takes to operate such a service or produce such a good.

Capitalism is a system where you either own, or you are owned.

[LSK]

80. IM FLAT OUT INSULTED TO THINK 50K = 1MILLION PER YEAR

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK.

[Selatius]

91. Your point being? I'm lost as to what you're getting at

[TahitiNut]

38. Myth Alert: The minimum wage does NOT 'cut into hiring'.

Despite the repitition of this myth, it's just NOT true.

There is no evidence of job loss from the last minimum wage increase.

• A 1998 EPI study failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. In fact, following the most recent increase in the minimum wage in 1996-97, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades (e.g., lower unemployment rates, increased average hourly wages, increased family income, decreased poverty rates).
  
• Studies of the 1990-91 federal minimum wage increase, as well as studies by David Card and Alan Krueger of several state minimum wage increases, also found no measurable negative impact on employment.
  
• New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.
  
• A recent Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) study of state minimum wages found no evidence of negative employment effects on small businesses.

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts

The fraudulent 'studies' sometimes cited purport to show employment declines of the youngest workers. Indeed, however, when a more experienced worker is attracted by a more livable wage, that worker will get the job over a less experienced worker. Furthermore, teen-agers the lowest income families may actually find it less necessary to supplement family income when a parent or parent gets paid more fairly. Narrowly-focused 'studies' attempt to ignore these factors for the purpose of propagandizing for "cheap labor" predators.

[Melodybe]

40. Well, I sat in on one of my friends Business classes and

his teach said it was, he had graphs and everything.

I personally think that you are correct, but that is not what is being taught in schools.

[TahitiNut]

49. Well, he's provably WRONG.

Let's just make it simple. These people talk about miinimum wage increases and completely IGNORE the fact that the federal minimum wage has been decreasing in real terms since 1998.

If their claim that an increase would casue unemployment, then how the f*cking hell do they explain the drop in employment that correlates to the decrease in the federal minimum wage? By their "theory" (ASSertion, actually), we should have enjoyed increased employment of the bottom end of the wage scale. But it's DEMONSTRABLY not true. These people engage in "shell game" rhetoric, attibuting (without proof) awful things to any equitable economic measure, and claiming "good things" from atrocious economic measures (like "trickle-down"). They're LYING!

In fact, employment BOOMED after each of the last two increases. It stands to reason that workers can better afford to SPEND money in an economy where they're PAID fairly!

[Melodybe]

50. Cool, I'll send this to the prof and my friend.

[ladjf]

39. On the surface, your question sounds humorous. But, in reality,

such a maximum limit would be a great first step in curing America's economic problems.

[Melodybe]

41. I know! It's past time for us to address these problems within our

own economic system.

[Yupster]

88. It would sure get rid of the uber rich problem

as they would leave the country and go somewhere else where they can make more.

Starting at guard for Bologna-Milano is Jason Kidd.

And Microsoft's headquarters could be found with a yacht.

[ladjf]

95. CEO compensation, the oil companies gouge and the wars

in Iraq and Afghanistan constitute the bulk of the U.S. economic problem. (Mobil oil's 8.5 billion in the last quarter was an all time record profit for any American company.)

Folks, to put it simply, the American people are being robbed by the most greedy and ruthless crooks in our history. The wolves are in the hen house and they are stealing as much and as fast as they can.
Gasoline in 12 cents a gallon in Venezuela.

[MindPilot]

42. Absolutely not! It's a stupid idea and has already been tried.

Back in the mid-eighties a CA state rep authored a bill to control automobile repair costs by CAPPING mechanics' WAGES!!!

They wanted to set the cap at $25,000 at a time when most of us were making $40k -- $50k. They didn't think of limiting profits on parts or extending vehicle warranties, but they went after the workers.

[Melodybe]

Well I'm not talking about the workers, I am talking about going after the

super rich.

[Yupster]

79. Yeah we mean the other guys

not us.

We always mean te other guys when we're talking restrictions.

We deserve more.

The other guys need less.

[ladjf]

97. We are talking about the CEO's who are getting up to a billion

in compensation, sometimes even while the company is going broke.

[ladjf]

96. There's a big difference in capping mechanics wages

and capping CEO's billion dollar compensation packages. Yes, capping working laborers such as mechanics would be not only stupid but unfair. It's the 300 million to a billion group that needs the capping. It could be tied to a ratio of the average worker in the company.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

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

[Melodybe]

44. I don't understand unless you are a billionaire or a person with hundreds

of millions of dollars this shouldn't effect you.

There must be some restrictions on capitalism!

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

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

[Melodybe]

46. I think we should take some of the money away from the ultra rich

it is that simple, just because Bill Gates was smart enough to screw tons of people out of their ideas and money, doesn't mean he deserves being the richest man on Earth.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

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

[Melodybe]

51. :)

[Yupster]

81. I love that

"deserves" to be the richest man on earth.

Like we should choose the richest man on earth by an electoral college or a bathing suit cmpetition.

I believe Harry Turtledove "deserves" to be the richest man on earth for the cool book he wrote about the lizards invading the earth.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

53. Democrats have never been about helping the poor by taxing the rich

The Democratic party realizes that roads and other infrastructure and defense and education cost money. The Democrats also realize that while capitalism may be the economic system most closely associated with the natural human instinct to do better that capitalism also relies on some people doing worse or else wages become inflated and the job market declines therefore we believe a safety net is in order.

The rich GOT rich because of our freedoms. It is their responsibility to pay taxes on a progressive scale so that those at the bottom rungs are not shouldering a greater portion of the costs than they can.

I'm all for income going as high as it wishes so long as that income does not create an idle aristocracy pulling the levers by means of nothing more than their wealth.

[jmowreader]

55. High-level salaries should be tied to performance

If you are able to materially help your company--to increase sales, improve efficiencies, employ more people making better quality, better costing products, or whatever--you should be paid very well.

Carly Fiorina should have been required to give HP a refund on her compensation.

The other one I keep hearing here is sports salaries--why should LeBron James be paid millions of dollars? I look at it in a different way: Because of LeBron, the Cavaliers have a good television contract. The Cavs put butts in seats at home and every away arena the Cavs play in put butts in seats just to watch this one guy. Nike sells LeBron James shoes by the carload. The licensed-apparel companies sell tons of replica LeBron jerseys, hats, and everything else that's got LeBron's name or picture on it. LeBron James is making a lot of people a lot of money; it's only fair that LeBron get a nice-sized chunk of it.

I think you should be able to earn as much money as you can. I also think that you should have to EARN it--under this scenario, Paris Hilton SHOULD be marveling at the high wages paid to Waffle House cooks.

[Melodybe]

58. What do you say about those CEO's that get millions but run failing

companies?

[jmowreader]

66. Cut their pay and reinvest it in the business

Or just fire them and get someone better in there.

Executive pay should be tied to performance...

Do a good job in a hard company to run, get lots of money. Example: Bob Nardelli. He's a Republican asshole but Homer TLC (The Home Depot, Expo Design Center, HD Landscape Supply, HD Supply, HD Services , HD Canada and HD Mexico) is twice the size it was when he got the company, and it's growing a lot faster than it did before he arrived. He deserves the money we pay him, even though he gives too much of it to the Republican Party.

Do a good job in an easy company to run, get a nice salary but certainly not quadrillions of dollars. Thinking out loud...Cold Stone Creamery is probably not that hard to run compared to Target. If the company is doing well, I have no problem with giving the CEO a couple million a year.

Do a bad job in a hard company to run, get enough to live on. The CEO of Kmart (pre-bankruptcy) should have been given $150,000 a year. He lived in Detroit, which is not an inexpensive place to reside. I don't want the guy to think he has to live in Eight Mile, but he doesn't need to live in a 12,000-sf house with two pools and a landing pad for his helicopter.

Do a bad job in an easy company to run, get enough for me to live on. When Gilbert Amelio was running Apple into the ground, they should have given him $35,000 and told him to live in a horse trailer in the parking lot for a year while he got his shit together. Shit not together at the end of the year? Not only can he not run Apple anymore, we don't really want him to use their products. Apple doesn't make enough things to make this job really hard.

Commit crimes while CEO? Prison denim for you.

[Melodybe]

67. Thank you!

[Yupster]

84. Most execs do not have huge salaries

They make their big money with stock options.

Say the stock is selling for $ 40 a share.

They may get options to buy a million shares at $ 50 a share. Well that's worthless, but if the exec gets the stock up to $ 70 a share, he can exercise his options and pocket $ 20 million.

What this has led to is executives planning completely short term to get their share prices up regardless of what it does to the company. Long term ideas are pushed aside as all money needs to go towards projects which will lift the stock price now.

It also has led to fudging on numbers so things don't look bad and the company stock price takes a hit.

[Yupster]

83. There needs to be ways for stockholders

to have a real say in compensation packages.

It should be voted on by the stockholders.

[Yupster]

82. I think Jason Kidd is a

similar example to LeBron.

He took a last place empty stadium team and personally took it to the finals two years in a row making the team tens of millions in tv, concessions and paraphenalia money.

The inheritted rich are a frustration.

Forget Paris, there's also Ted Kennedy.

He did crap with his early life, got expelled from college for cheating, and then was handed a senate seat in an underhanded way.

Sure he's turned his life around and done well, but how many people would have gotten a tenth the chances he got.

Same for Bush who never had Kennedy's money, but had the same or even better connections. And he's only got three years left to see the light and turn his life around

[ultraist]

56. I disagree, there should not be a max wage

But I do think:
*Tax loopholes on investments should be closed
*The tax system should be adjusted so that the working class no longer carries the burden
*Inheritance taxes should be increased
*Capital gains should be increased
*Corporate welfare should be decreased

[mcscajun]

59. I don't know about a "maximum wage" but *something* has to be done...

...to balance out the outrageous, excessive compensation given to many American CEOs. Capitalism is flourishing in Western Europe and Japan, and CEOs there do not begin to match the ratio of their compensation vs. their average or entry-level workers to that of their American counterparts. So the argument that capitalism would be endangered if CEO compensation was regulated won't wash, sorry.

Just a few images and excerpts here that will pretty much speak for themselves. I wish I could find the recent article detailing a study on CEO compensation and how it does not have the impact on the bottom line that many stockholders (and CEOs) perceive, and how middle managers and bottom-level workers have far more impact. (No surprise to me -- I spent 30+ years in a mega-corporation.) There was also an extensive article in the NY Times magazine about 2-3 years ago that detailed a great deal of what's in my post. If I find it in my own archives, I'll post some more on this subject.

Until then, here are the images...and excerpts from articles in the Seattle Times, and from the Harvard Business School.

Long-Term Trends in CEO and Worker Pay

Average hourly worker to CEO pay ratios
Source: Business Week and United for a Fair Economy

Average Income of the Top 1 percent and of Everybody Else, 1913-2002.

Source: Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Economics

One study, to be presented this weekend at a meeting of the Academy of Management in Honolulu, compared 435 companies that were forced to restate their financial statements with similar companies that did not run into such problems.

The report found that the higher the proportion of the boss' pay in stock options, the more likely the company would be forced to restate profits. For companies where bosses got 92 percent or more of their pay in options, about a fifth ended up faking their books within five years.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/237416_options22.html

In 1960, the average large-company CEO was paid 40 times the amount given the average employee in his organization. Twenty years later, it was 60 times. In 2001, it was reported that the entire pay package (salary, bonus and various stock options) of such CEOs was over 500 times that of the average employee pay. This is in contrast to the fact that between 1973 and 1995, the wages and salaries of the rest of the labor force had not held their own in terms of real pay when factoring in the higher cost of living over that period.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134522221_peterson.html

The reality that CEO compensation is much higher in the late 1990s in the United States than it was in the recent past, or in comparison to other industrialized nations at present, should raise serious questions. Have CEOs become so much more productive relative to other workers over the last quarter century? Are U.S. CEOs that much more productive than CEOs in Europe and Japan?

There is no evidence to indicate that this is the case. In fact, numerous studies have examined whether there is any link between CEO pay and corporate performance. These studies have looked at the simplest measures of success, such as the increases in share prices and the growth of profitability. Studies cited found little or no link between CEO compensation and corporate performance (Barkema and Gomez-Mejia 1998; McGuire 1997).

This remarkable finding suggests that high levels of CEO compensation cannot be justified by productivity. It would be comparable to finding that a firm paid its autoworkers 30 percent more than the standard wage although they were no more productive than the average autoworker. Overpaying autoworkers in this way would never be tolerated; management would demand pay cuts or look to outsource work. If the existing management didn't pursue this route, the stockholders would almost certainly revolt and attempt to replace it with new management that would.

The downside of stock options
Yet financial markets do not react the same way to excessive CEO pay. In fact, the markets have been willing to tolerate deliberate acts of deception to hide the true cost of CEO pay. Much of CEO compensation comes in the form of stock options, the right to buy shares of stock at a below-market rate. This has a clear cost to the corporation, because it involves issuing new shares of stock, thereby lowering the value of the existing shares. In 1992, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the organization of professional accountants that determines proper accounting practices) ruled that the cost associated with these options should be treated like any other expense and be directly deducted from corporate profits. Corporate executives intensely lobbied Congress, arguing that accurate accounting of CEO stock options would significantly lower their share prices. The lobbying effort was successful: It prevented the Financial Accounting Standards Board's ruling from being implemented. Corporations can continue to hide the true cost of stock options issued to CEOs and other executives from their shareholder.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=2917&t=outsourcing

[ultraist]

62. Excellent post! Very informative.

In 2001, it was reported that the entire pay package (salary, bonus and various stock options) of such CEOs was over 500 times that of the average employee pay

WOW! 500%! So if the average salary of a CEO is around 800k, he/she could be replaced by 8 people working at 100k a year. There is NO WAY, one person can be more productive than 8, assuming they had similiar educational backgrounds. 500% is ABSURD.

[JanMichael]

63. We been over this here before. A great deal of DUers agree with us...

...many don't. I've had a couple of threads on this and the outcome is always the same.

The naysayers prescribe to Thatcher's "T.I.N.A." philosophy which I believe is utter bullshit and no amount of debate will convince them otherwise. They're well-off fat and happy OR brainwashed by the idiot boxes in almost every livingroom in America..

People talk about being "Under Socialism/Capitalism" but the fact is that MOST Americans are "Under Capitalism" (Some 15-20% are riding the wave or actual Capitalists, they are few however but their sycophants are many) and most of the rest of the developing World is "Under Imperialism/Capitalism".

[Emendator]

64. Idiotic

That's a really foolish idea. No one has any right to set an arbitrary limit on the property or goals of others.

[Melodybe]

65. Why considering that the majority of the super rich have been that way for

over a century.

Why can't we? People should be more important than money.

[The2ndWheel]

69. If you want

"People should be more important than money."

that, you need to change the whole structure(which I'm all for), and not just the minimum/maximum wage issue.

"over a century"

Yeah, a few thousand years.

[Yupster]

87. I don't believe that's true

although I guess it depends on what the definition of super rich is.

Most rich people I work for did not grow up rich. They started companies which turned out successful. Sometimes they went broke twice before their third company hit.

I can ask any rich person I work with (I'm a stockbroker) and he'll tell me the story of how he wasn't rich growing up.

Now if you mean Rockefeller-Kennedy rich, maybe you're right, but I still doubt it because so many of the uber-rich today are tech guys who started companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, etc.

[Melodybe]

93. Sorry I refuse to believe that millionaires of the people

could treat where they came from with such contempt.

[Emendator]

89. Impossible

Who determines how much is enough? You? What gives you that right? Or some group of bureaucrats? Why is $1 million the ideal limit? That's totally arbitrary. Why not go further and limit it to $100,000? Or $50,000? Get real. Your system is anti-human and anti-individual because you're putting a limit on a person's potential.

People being more important than money? Yeah right. When in human history has that ever been the case? What world do you live in? The well being of people means different things to different people and is basically a meaningless cliche.

Does Tiger Woods make too much money? Who does he exploit? Who are you to to deprive him of what he earns? Or how about Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Without people like them you wouldn't be on this website and there wouldn't be millions of people working in the computer industry, the success of which helps other industries and workers.

There need to be safety nets to protect people who have a don't make it. Very few will argue that point. But growth and production must precede redistribution. You can't constrain and limit human effort and creativity out of some naive idea of enforced egalitarianism. What you propose will suffocate economic growth, destroy the standard of living, and starve millions.

[LSK]

75. but its ok to hire consultants while layoff middle class???

Hire a consultant at $10million a year to fix a failing company and he concludes to layoff 1000 people??? HOW IDIOTIC IS THAT??? BUT THATS COMMONPLACE TODAY.

[LibDemAlways]

68. In the early 80s I worked in the human

resources department of a life insurance company and was privy to all of the salary and bonus information. The company was owned by two very rich guys who had a private jet and salaries of $60,000 each per month plus a one million dollar bonus quarterly. Upper management was paid $15,000 a month plus $25,000 quarterly bonuses.

The peons at the bottom, who did the real work of the company, made less than $1000.00 month and received no bonuses - ever.

Company rules didn't apply to the managers, either. The Christmas I was there the bosses decreed that no one was to take any time off other than Christmas day which fell on a Wednesday. The three bigshots in the personnel department all took the entire week off to go skiing.

I hate corporate America.

[LSK]

78. I agree 100% with this and have thought of it as well

If you cant live like a king on $1million a year then theres something really wrong with you. We are not talking about making CEOs live on minimum wage here. They will still be able to live the jet-set life, and travel and have a lot.

But this would go a long ways towards the incredible salary gap in America. We have CEOs retiring from EXXON with over $500million in the bank but we are getting fvcked with gas prices. How fair is that????

I dont know why anyone here would attack this idea. The money made over $1million would pay for a lot of big problems in this country. And it would put a stop to some of the extreme greed that is ruining us.

[mvd]

92. Either a maximum wage, or..

over a million dollars and the person is required to donate a certain amount to charity.

[mixedview]

98. as a moderate independent, this thread makes me not want to vote Dem

Who are you to determine how much people are allowed to make ? Why should your morality determine what "needs" are ? We have a market system for that. And when the market fails, we, the people of this democratic republic can implement sensible and fair regulation and taxes.

Yes - severely limiting wages and wealth (eg. harsh upper brackets, harsh estate taxes, etc) is authoritarian communism, IMO.

It is not in any way progressive or sensible or in keeping with the general principles of freedom and liberty this country was founded on.

How 'bout I come to your house and take your stuff just 'cause I "need" it?

There are many people who start out with nothing but ambition and dreams (like many immigrants, like my father) who open busineses, who work hard to earn their money, who provide jobs for many people, who bring more business into the community, who eventually don't have to work as hard to make a nice salary - who are you to take their wealth from them ?

And even if by your "standards" you think someone hasn't "earned" or doesn't "deserve" their money - that's not up to you to decide. Again, that's why we have a market. Businesses which pay their ceo's too much will fail - because a ceo's salary is a business expense like any other. It is economics 101 - not too hard to understand.

Competition and markets make goods and services cheaper and better for everyone - it makes everyone wealthier despite the uneven distribution. The wealth of a nation isn't really about money. As long as you have a decent standard of living, many affordable goods and services available, and many opportunities - all of which only competitive markets can create - why should you be so concerned with how much money some other person has ? What right do you have to impose your morality on another ?

I want to make this very clear, ideas like yours are why many otherwise sensible people who agree with Dems on many issues would be turned off and forced to vote Republican. This is why the GOP has been the dominant party for the past 25 years. Because of scary, scary, scary ideas like this one.

:rant: