350 Times the Pay for only 50% More Work

originally posted by: CB328
Havard has a new study out where they analyzed several CEO's for several months. They had several findings, but the one that I really noticed was that's CEO's work about 62 hours a week. It's been widely publicized that these same CEO's make up to 350 times more money than the people actually doing the work and making them money. Many working people now work that many hours with a large percentage of workers working 2-3 jobs, yet they struggle just to pay rent while these CEO's are raking in massive amounts of money, often whether they perform well or not. This is just one of the many huge problems with corporatism.

www.forbes.com...

I'd love to see the op, and those that starred that snip run a multibillion dollar company.

Musk had a break down.

LOL.

dailycaller.com...

a reply to: neo96

Musk is a fine example of what several in this thread have said of Bezos... in over his head and only successful because of his use of the genius of others. The free market will eat people like that alive.

That's why I keep saying Bezos deserves the success he has gotten... he has so far shown he can handle the pressure, as so few can.

TheRedneck

a reply to: CB328

It's hilarious to watch your greed and envy pretend to be morally superior to the greed of others.

CEOs have a different responsibility and skill set than those below them. Some have to be great public speakers, some make big decisions so I do not disagree with them making a ton of money. Where the flaw is imo is when companies tell workers they don't have enough money for raises or give people tiny raises that make no significant impact to their finances but had enough money to give a CEO millions in bonuses and a huge pay raise. That is the only thing I disagree about.

originally posted by: CB328
Havard has a new study out where they analyzed several CEO's for several months. They had several findings, but the one that I really noticed was that's CEO's work about 62 hours a week. It's been widely publicized that these same CEO's make up to 350 times more money than the people actually doing the work and making them money. Many working people now work that many hours with a large percentage of workers working 2-3 jobs, yet they struggle just to pay rent while these CEO's are raking in massive amounts of money, often whether they perform well or not. This is just one of the many huge problems with corporatism.

www.forbes.com...

Well, if it wasn't for the CEOs and whatnot, would the place even run? It would fall apart. There is a reason for CEOs. Most know what they are doing, even if it sucks(looking at you EA and others like ya). Others fail and make a company fail or almost fail.

Sit in that CEOs chair and you wouldn't last 3 days, even though you think you can. You would drive home crying because words, economic terminology, and the scope of looking at the future well enough to give it the greenlight to spend a heavy amount of cash in R&D on a hunch is a heavy burden.

Unions need to make a comeback.

Without unions most bosses turn into slave-driving tyrants. Bosses would pay workers NOTHING if they could get away with it.

Unions remind bosses that without the workers' physical blood/sweat/tears nobody gets paid. Nobody. Everything upwards of the lowest paid employees' operation, grinds to a standstill.

The lowest paid workers don't realise that they are actually the most valuable asset of any company, the company and everyone's pay depends on their labour/production.

If all low paid employees down tools this very minute, all the greedy CEOs would lose half their body weight in cold sweats within minutes at the thought of financial losses. Probably the only time you'll see a greedy person perspire.

Join unions folks, use your collective power to demand and get what you deserve. The boss will have to give in, no choice, unless he wants to close his factory/company. If he wants to be unfair, give him some unfairness back. Tell him minimum pay gets minimum work, fair's fair. You don't know how much power you have.

When the mass legal and illegal immigration has ended and there's no hordes of 3rd world desperate people stampeding to earn peanuts at low-skilled jobs, bosses will have to start sharing some of the company successes and pay better wages.

Things are going to be much fairer for us in future. It won't be a day too soon.

a reply to: doobydoll

When the mass legal and illegal immigration has ended and there's no hordes of 3rd world desperate people stampeding to earn peanuts at low-skilled jobs, bosses will have to start sharing some of the company successes and pay better wages.

Your point is probably more valid than you think.

With the possible exception of some low-skilled illegal immigrants, not a single person in this country is being forced to work for 'peanuts' by anyone. Everyone has a choice. Some don't want to make that choice because it's too hard or they won't develop the right skillset, but all have the choice to say "no."

The problem is that most don't realize the power they have. They want some big union or the government to do for them what they should be doing themselves. I have sat in that CEO's chair and looked across the table at potential employees... almost all, I would say 90%+, are not really what one needs. They get hired because there's not anyone better at the time. You show me someone who wants the company to succeed, someone who is willing to do whatever is possible to make a profit for the company, someone who is good at their job and both willing and able to make short-term personal sacrifices for long-term gains, and I'll make a job to get them on board!

I have found one, possibly two (we'll see), of these type of people in my lifetime. If I ever see that man's name on an application again, he's hired. I'll find a place for him. He proved himself when I was running one of my own companies, and I actually offered him the bosses chair when I realized I couldn't run that business any more.

He can set his own wage, as long as the business can afford him. No one else gets to do that, because everyone else I have interviewed is inferior in work ethic to him. But a group of people can have a similar advantage, because as you say, their particular skillset is needed. The only thing they need do is demand it.

Most people will not demand it, because most people don't understand business. If I am running, say, an electrical service, I need assistants as much as I need electricians. I'm not going to pay the assistants as much as I do the electricians, because the assistants are easier to find at a lower cost than electricians (an electrician can be an assistant, but an assistant can't be an electrician). But if I am offering $10 an hour for an assistant and I can't find any willing to work for less than $15, I have to either raise my offer or quit doing what I do. If I am offering $10 an hour and someone that I think can do the job is willing to do it for $9, I'm going to hire them and save that $1 an hour.

If I am having to pay $15 an hour and the business can't make money doing so, then there won't be a business, of course. A few unions have found that out by demanding compensation that the business couldn't afford, effectively closing the business. It's a balancing act.

The reason CEOs make so much, in large part, is because they are worth it to the business and they know what their services are worth. They won't just work for whatever offer a potential employer throws out at the beginning of the interview. Since there are so few of them, there are less CEOs undercutting wages as well, so of a business needs a CEO, they have to pay CEO wages. A janitor will likely just take whatever pay he is offered because "he needs the job." OK, that's fair enough, but he is likely getting paid less than he is worth because of that. It is also much more likely that there will be a lot of janitors willing to do the same job for less than they are worth, and that drives down the wages.

That's not greed. It's part of business. It's a trade, an hour of labor for a certain amount of money. CEOs make more because they know what they're worth, aren't willing to do the job for less, and know how to demand and get better compensation for their time. After all, that's kinda their skillset.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Good post. Thank you.

I've noticed that a lot of people defend the eye-watering pay of some CEOs, and are of the impression that poor people are jealous/envious of wealth. They appear to assume that low paid workers and poor people want to just take every penny of their wealth from them and leave them destitute. But no poor people have said this lol.

Low income workers don't want to steal other people's wealth. They only want to be paid a little more so they can have a decent life. CEOs would still be fabulously wealthy, still have so much money they can't possibly spend it even if they lived a hundred lifetimes.

Wanting a decent pay and life in return for the wealth and excess they produce for others, is not jealousy or envy. It's wanting fairness.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Most people are paid so low they are living week to week and have no savings. They have family and mouths to feed. That's what most of you, "people have a choice" people are not getting. People don't have a choice, people HAVE to work, they don't make enough to afford not to accept whatever # job they can get a hold of.

So they reluctantly take a # job, for # pay, and go to work miserable just to pay the day to day for the family they never get to see to work for a company who doesn't care about them and gleefully rolls around in cash earned thanks to their hard work, while they pray day to day they still have a job tomorrow and that some illness doesn't destroy their lives, cause the employer will not care if the illness has a long recovery and requires regular days off as the employer waives their point system or whatever they have callously in their faces.

a reply to: doobydoll

But no poor people have said this lol.

You might want to rethink your definition of 'poor.' Due to medical issues, I am broke, unemployed, and having to work from home self-employed to try and keep food on the table.

But that's not permanent. I plan on coming back. I just want something to come back to.

I've been a CEO, unemployed, and everything in between. I've had money to burn, and I've had to bag for my power to be left on because I had no money to pay the power bill. It's been a long roller-coaster of a life, but I've learned from it. I keep hoping others will listen to what I've learned, but some days I think that's a pipe dream.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Puppylove

People don't have a choice, people HAVE to work, they don't make enough to afford not to accept whatever # job they can get a hold of.

Male bovine excrement! That's just another excuse. Want to know how I know that?

There was one period in my life when I was down... and I mean really down: broke, unemployed, and in the middle of a period of clinical depression. I needed a job that was not overly physical but would make more than a part-time grunt position; I had a family to raise. I came across an ad: truck driver training. I called to check it out. I could get the training on a student loan, the school would guarantee me a job driving a truck, and would pay my bus ticket to get me there. All I needed was enough money for four weeks of food, which I didn't have.

So I took a job with the local county fair running a ride for 'peanuts.' I worked as much as I could that week. It was humiliating, aggravating, and the boss was a complete fool, but after a week I had some money... just not enough.

So I talked to a guy I knew on the Internet who ran a company. He said they were buying 9 new computers and suggested I bid on it. I got the specs, priced the components, and figured in enough profit to get me through that school. I won the bid, used the money I had to buy parts for the computers, assembled them, and shipped them out. A couple weeks later, I had enough money to not only cover the food, but get a cheap cell phone so I could call home on the weekend (this was back when only weekend calls were unlimited).

I went to the school, which housed us in a makeshift dorm, and graduated. Four weeks after I left, I was on a bus to North Carolina to my first job. I went through their training for 6 more weeks, making survival wages... less than I could have made working as a grunt. But then I started making enough to start catching up on bills. Less than a year later, the company folded and I started getting calls about my student loan.

It took about a year of negotiating and legalities, but eventually I convinced them that the company was liable for my payments since they had assumed them when I was hired. The loan was written off as paid, and I got a job with a different company. A couple years later I was pulling down some pretty nice coin and was taking a couple months off each year. I built the shop I work in now and stocked it. I rode that wave for 8 years, until my kids were old enough to need Daddy at home, and came home in a decent financial state.

Want more?

When the 2008 depression hit, I was driving locally, making good money and only gone two nights a week. Then the company I drove for laid me off and there were no good driving jobs left. I started working grunt work again. One day I heard about the WIA program for displaced workers... and I qualified. I went back to school on the WIA program, tuition paid, with government benefits like food stamps and unemployment. When the unemployment ran out, I got a job tutoring at the school and still worked a couple independent grunt jobs. I got an AAS in Computer Technology, then realized there were very few jobs locally in that field. So I applied for a scholarship and continued on to an AS in Engineering.

I got accepted at the best Engineering school in the region and transferred there on a scholarship. Three years of grunt work and heavy studying later, I held a BS in Electrical Engineering with honors, and had credits towards my MS in Control Theory and Communications. I am now using that shop I built to work on projects that sound pretty lucrative. I plan on making Elon Musk look like a wanna-be before I'm through, and there's now always the fall-back to a regular job. Starting wages with zero experience in that field are around $70k with benefits.

A redneck did all that, in the middle of having health issues. The guy others like to point and laugh at did that. If I can do it, why can't you? Why can't anyone?

Don't. Give. Me. Excuses.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Because there aren't infinite jobs that pay decent wages, not everyone has what it takes to be a workaholic, and no matter what most jobs are # jobs but are necessary for society to function so people HAVE to work them. Some people have to be unwilling to do all that and accept the # jobs or you would be unable to do what you did because society would collapse. Since these # jobs are necessary, since they always must be filled, then as society depends on them, those who do these jobs should be paid a decent wage, nothing astronomical but more than enough they don't need government assistance, can eat healthy, and have a reasonable shelter over their head and transportation to get to work.

People keep pretending like these jobs could cease to exist and everyone could get a good job if the just put in enough grit. Most jobs are # jobs, these jobs must be filled, that's simply fact. If everyone tried to do what you do, and had the same drive and gumption as you to do all that, most likely you'd have found yourself unable to do all that, since you'd be one among 1000's competing for the same things, where as thanks to most people just wanting to lead simple lives you don't have that competition.

a reply to: TheRedneck


Money never made me happy. It made my life easier, but not happier.

I'm 60, have an income, no job, no savings, no car, and i don't own my home (i rent). In my much younger days (20's) i bought an annuity which matured a number of years ago, it pays me a monthly income for life. I live on that. It's not a lot and doesn't buy luxuries, but it means I can pay my way whether I work or not.

The last job i had was a couple years ago. A warehouse where most of the workers were foreigners who were terrified of
losing their zero-hours-contract job. Terrified. Managers and other senior contracted employees would talk to them as if they were talking to lesser beings that are unworthy of respect. Harrassing stressed and scared workers to work harder/faster and thrusting employee performance figures in their faces, humiliating them in front of the rest of the workforce. Shocking way to treat people that your company depends on.

I was called a 'trouble-causer' (lol) by a manager just because I asked him to please dont raise his voice to me or I will respond likewise. He expected me to just stand there and be humiliated by him like he did the other workers. I informed him that the job I was employed to do didn't include being spoke to like sh!t by him or anyone else. I told him if I'm not working hard enough or fast enough then fire me, but please don't treat or speak to me like I'm sh!t.

Expecting to be treated with even an iota of respect is being a 'trouble-causer' lol.

I look forward for the uncontrolled 'everybody-welcome' immigration to cease. Then company bosses are going to have to change their attitudes towards their wealth-producing workers if they want to stay rich.

Companies NEED unskilled and low-skilled workers, millions of them. Can't operate without them. Just think if those millions stood together and said 'get stuffed'. It's the moment it all changes.

Low-skilled and unskilled workers make up the majority of workforces, MAJORITY, if they stand together in solidarity they can bring bosses to their knees. And it needs to be done a couple of times, just to get the message across that their low-skilled/unskilled employees are just as valuable as any other employee there, if not then more so, and deserve better treatment and a little better pay.

Yea they might be able to make more in year thenan employee can make in a life time but the only downside of being the big boss is if the ship sink, your going down with it.

I'm sure CEO's don't receive E.I, and a Pension even though they could retire at any point in time. However, if they are out of money due to whatever, over priced liabilities or get divorced, I bet they will be a believer in God very fast.

They don't have the same type of social security as us peons have, even though their ship can float or sink at any time just like our paddle boats.

a reply to: Puppylove

Because there aren't infinite jobs that pay decent wages, not everyone has what it takes to be a workaholic, and no matter what most jobs are # jobs but are necessary for society to function so people HAVE to work them.

That's fine; there are many more important things in life than money. As I see it, money is the least valuable thing anyone will ever own, because we are constantly trading it for things we want/need more. I live my life for the adventure of inventing and the joy of my family... that's what's important to me.

All I am saying is that if someone is that obsessed over money, go do what it takes to get it. Complaining is not on the list of what it takes. Neither is trying to implement unworkable solutions that will screw up the economy for everyone else. Neither are excuses.

That's what freedom is: the ability to go get what you want. It is not crying that someone should hand it to you on a silver platter while you hold your teddy bear tight. If you want it, go get it. If you don't want it, make excuses.

TheRedneck

a reply to: doobydoll

Money never made me happy. It made my life easier, but not happier.

Now that's an attitude I can understand completely. Read my response to Puppylove above.

As for that warehouse job, you butted heads with a wanna-be manager. Real, good managers don't act like that, and I have butted heads with a few of those guys in my day as well... with similar responses. Trucking companies are the worst... it is very easy to get fired while out on the road with no way home and no way to carry all your possessions stored in the truck. So my response was to always, once I decided to quit, act like I was fine with whatever they wanted, no matter how crazy, until I got home time. Sometimes that would mean being miserable for a few weeks. But once home, I would clean out the truck and make a call the morning I was going back to work with the line, "I don't drive for you any more; where do you want your truck?" It's amazing how fast people's attitude change... I had one guy almost break down and cry into the phone. No matter to me: if you were willing to screw me out there before, you'll try it again. And interestingly enough, I never had trouble finding my next job, and every job typically got better. I guess word gets around.

The core issue is indeed illegal immigration, which is another good reason to build a wall. I'd bet money every one of those foreigners were illegal, so they were afraid to stand up or complain. We have a similar plant around here... I hear they have a few dozen employees named Jose Gonzales, all with identical Social Security numbers. It's well known as being the worst place anywhere around to work in.

Anyway, one thing I have found in my life is that the only thing worrying about what others make or what others have will get you is a healthy dose of misery. Misery is pretty easy to come by, so I don't feel the need to work for it. I guess some do, but that's their business.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Specimen

They don't have the same type of social security as us peons have, even though their ship can float or sink at any time just like our paddle boats.

Actually, those yachts sink a lot faster and harder than paddle boats.

If a CEO is ever fired for cause, it's going to be real hard to find that next CEO job. The job is simply too important for anyone to take much of a risk over someone with a black mark on their record. They might be able to climb the corporate ladder again, but only after years of working in much lower positions with much less authority.

And yeah, no SS, no Earned Income Credit, just what they can put together on their own for a retirement... of course, they should have the means to do so... so I don't give them a lot of sympathy there.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Money is a requirement for basic living. So unfortunately everyone has to worry about money to some degree. I'm a firm believer of money isn't everything. Up to a point however it's a necessity rather than a want. More is expected to make basic needs on the individuals of society than is reasonable. If those # jobs provided a reasonably financially secure living we wouldn't be having this discussion. As is, they don't even provide basic needs.

a reply to: TheRedneck

That's fine; there are many more important things in life than money. As I see it, money is the least valuable thing anyone will ever own, because we are constantly trading it for things we want/need more. I live my life for the adventure of inventing and the joy of my family... that's what's important to me.

Absolutely.

Money means nothing to me. I have had wealth, was stupid with it and lost the lot. 'A fool and his money are soon parted' and all that.

But it was worth losing it all to see all the 'fairweather friends' disappear as soon as my money did lol.

All I have now is my wonderful family. They are priceless and are all I need in life. I couldn't live without them, and wouldn't want to.