Comments on: Can you stay for just 1 hour

By: Unreasonable Compensation « The American Catholic

Unreasonable Compensation « The American Catholic — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:08:54 +0000

[...] Unreasonable Compensation With people focused on the economic downturn, many have found it a good time to give a little extra thought to whether other people are making more than they ought to. The president has spoken out several times against “excessive compensation” of executives, and a number of people have floated the idea of adjusting the top marginal income tax rate to effectively cap total compensation at ten million dollars a year. MZ tackled the question somewhat humorously here. [...]

By: Gerald A. Naus

Gerald A. Naus — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:00:05 +0000

Let them eat Twinkies!

By: digbydolben

digbydolben — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:42:38 +0000

This is what the Europeans call “the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism,” and they figure it has no future, because it is wasteful of human resources in the ways in which it marginalizes the contributions of huge numbers of creative, industrious personnel, in order to focus only on the contributions of “managers.” And those “managers” have shown the world recently that they are capable of the wastefulness and the insouciance of ancien regime aristocrats. They deserve a fiscal guillotine.

By: Gerald A. Naus

Gerald A. Naus — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:38:22 +0000

Moving to Europe would be unpleasant, as CEO types make a lot less there. In Japan, they make far less. The income difference between laborer and top management is by far the greatest in the US.

In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker, i.e. a CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.

Between 1990 and 2000 in the U.S. worker pay and inflation remained approximately equal, while corporate profits rose 93% and CEO pay rose 571%. Meanwhile, the portion of federal revenue derived from corporate income tax has decreased from 33% in the 1950s to 11.9% in 2005

The United States long has had the industrialized world’s largest gap in pay between chief executives and blue-collar workers. CEO compensation swelled from 85 times what workers earned in 1990, to 209 times in 1996, and 326 times the following year. In 1999, CEO pay surged to a record 419 times the average worker’s wage, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Comparable figures for other wealthy nations generally do not exceed the double digits.

Clearly, they need more tax breaks.