Here comes the war on income inequality!

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Spence, that's true, that gap between CEO and average worker is increasing. Here is my follow-up question.

So what?

If you cap CEO pay at some arbitrary number, and redistribute that money to the rest of the employees, what does that amount to?

Here, your fellow world travelers at the Huffington Post looked at Walmart, where the ratio of CEO to average pay was the highest of any company they could find...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2978180.html

The CEO made $23 million in 2012. Walmart has 1.5 million employees worldwide, according to this link...,

http://www.ask.com/question/How-Many...-Wal-mart-Have

So if your fellow Bolsheviks require the CEO to work for free, and we give every cent of his $23 million to the worker bees, each would see an increase of $15.33. How much help does that provide? How many people does that lift out of poverty? Is my math right here? I knew it would be insignificant, but not that insignificant. My point being, executive compensation isn't causing large numbers of people to live in poverty.

CEO salary makes for a great liberal talking point, and it does a good job at making the rich seem evil, which is the whole point. In reality however, it's not a significant line item on the balance sheet, in most cases.

You need another soapbox to holler from. The math doesn't support your cause here, not by a long shot. Somehow, that the math shows you how demonstrably wrong your point is, won't stop you from believing that point. And that's what I don't understand.

You're completely missing the point. The question was why CEO's may get demonized...your response would be analysis a board of directors would make...not someone representing the workers.

-spence

[FishermanTim]

Here's something to consider:

A CEO's image is driven by how the company does and is perceived by the public, specifically when the company has to do something unpleasant like layoff or salary reductions.

Funny how a celebrity (Sports, music or movies) never get that same response. They still make their multi-millions a year regardless of how well they do when they work.

Where do their salaries come from?
Corporations are derived (usually) from stockholders and investors, who are expecting a return on their investment.
Celebrities get theirs from the public, although they are paid by the team, movie company or the tour venue. Who has a more direct affect on the poverty of America?
The clelebrities, because the public will spend money foolishly to see these people perform like circus animals instead of saving for their future betterment.
The CEO and their company actually employ people which gives them a push in the right direction.

People's poor choices should be addressed as major role in poverty, as should the lack of career advancement opportunities.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

You're completely missing the point. The question was why CEO's may get demonized...your response would be analysis a board of directors would make...not someone representing the workers.

-spence

OK, since you clearly care about the workers, Spence....based on that data I showed, please explain to all the Wal-Mart employees reading this, why they should give a sh*t about what the CEO makes?

Clearly, the CEO's are not taking a meaningful amount of money away from the rank-and-file. So why demonize, or atempt to blame, the CEOs? Spence, you tell me, how much intellectual honesty is there, in demonizing the CEOs?

Clearly, the CEO compensation is not to blame for anyone else's angst.

Good luck making that wrong!

If my statement is something a board member would make, as opposed to a community activist...maybe that's because the board member is rooted in the real world and driven by common sense, whereas the community activist is an ignorant, hysterical liar?

If you were representing the employees, what possible response could you have?

There are thousands of jobs at Wal-Mart that pay a comfortable wage. Instead of being so goddamn jealous of those people, how about learning from their example and doing what they did?

Easy? Hell, no. Within reach for most of us? Hell, yes.

The Occupy Wall Street crowd wants it given to them. It doesn't work that way.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

OK, since you clearly care about the workers, Spence....based on that data I showed, please explain to all the Wal-Mart employees reading this, why they should give a sh*t about what the CEO makes?

Clearly, the CEO's are not taking a meaningful amount of money away from the rank-and-file. So why demonize, or atempt to blame, the CEOs? Spence, you tell me, how much intellectual honesty is there, in demonizing the CEOs?

Clearly, the CEO compensation is not to blame for anyone else's angst.

Sure it is. The CEOs appear to see increasing compensation regardless of performance. Blow out the numbers = $$$ lay off thousands = $$$ resign in shame = $$$. It doesn't matter, they're playing by a different set of rules. Wages for the majority have been flat the past 50 years...but the top keeps making more and more regardless of their performance...

The elite play by a different set of rules, that why they are demonized.

If my statement is something a board member would make, as opposed to a community activist...maybe that's because the board member is rooted in the real world and driven by common sense, whereas the community activist is an ignorant, hysterical liar?

Sigh...

The Occupy Wall Street crowd wants it given to them. It doesn't work that way.

You completely misunderstand their motivation.

-spence

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Sure it is. The CEOs appear to see increasing compensation regardless of performance. Blow out the numbers = $$$ lay off thousands = $$$ resign in shame = $$$. It doesn't matter, they're playing by a different set of rules. Wages for the majority have been flat the past 50 years...but the top keeps making more and more regardless of their performance...

The elite play by a different set of rules, that why they are demonized.



Sigh...


You completely misunderstand their motivation.

-spence

"Sure it is."

The Walmart CEO makes $15 per year for each employee. Whoop-dee-doo. Maybe they have different rules than the rest of us. That doesn't change this fact...if you work hard and work smartly, you will likely succeed. The existence of CEO's doesn't change that.

"You completely misunderstand their motivation."

They felt justified in occupying that which was not theirs. their motivation, like that of most of your ilk, is gimme gimme gimme.

[TheSpecialist]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

OK, since you clearly care about the workers, Spence....based on that data I showed, please explain to all the Wal-Mart employees reading this, why they should give a sh*t about what the CEO makes?

Clearly, the CEO's are not taking a meaningful amount of money away from the rank-and-file. So why demonize, or atempt to blame, the CEOs? Spence, you tell me, how much intellectual honesty is there, in demonizing the CEOs?

Clearly, the CEO compensation is not to blame for anyone else's angst.

Good luck making that wrong!

If my statement is something a board member would make, as opposed to a community activist...maybe that's because the board member is rooted in the real world and driven by common sense, whereas the community activist is an ignorant, hysterical liar?

If you were representing the employees, what possible response could you have?

There are thousands of jobs at Wal-Mart that pay a comfortable wage. Instead of being so goddamn jealous of those people, how about learning from their example and doing what they did?

Easy? Hell, no. Within reach for most of us? Hell, yes.

The Occupy Wall Street crowd wants it given to them. It doesn't work that way.

Just give the Walmart workers their .007514705882353 / hr raise and end it......

[Raider Ronnie]

The Obozo plan

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by TheSpecialist

Just give the Walmart workers their .007514705882353 / hr raise and end it......

Yes, that will allow all the Walmart stockboys to buy a summer home on Nantucket.

This is the liberal agenda - give poor people enough to survive, but not what they need to get ahead and be self sufficient. Because once people become self sufficient...they are less likely to vote 'Democrat'.

[TheSpecialist]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Yes, that will allow all the Walmart stockboys to buy a summer home on Nantucket.

This is the liberal agenda - give poor people enough to survive, but not what they need to get ahead and be self sufficient. Because once people become self sufficient...they are less likely to vote 'Democrat'.

Yup, the Democrats are worried more that female CEO's are not paid as much as their male counterparts than whether or not poor people make move up the ladder. Without poor people Dems have no base. Obama's Executive order to raise the minimum wage on government jobs isn't helping people that work at the Walmarts, McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts in this country. He doesn't give a rats ass about them.

All he cares about is hooking up illegals anyway he can, and playing golf. He is an idiot.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by TheSpecialist

Yup, the Democrats are worried more that female CEO's are not paid as much as their male counterparts than whether or not poor people make move up the ladder. Without poor people Dems have no base. Obama's Executive order to raise the minimum wage on government jobs isn't helping people that work at the Walmarts, McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts in this country. He doesn't give a rats ass about them.

All he cares about is hooking up illegals anyway he can, and playing golf. He is an idiot.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

You bring up a good point, something I think about often...the liberal solution to poverty is to give these people a little bit of money - enough to keep them alive, but not the tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty.

All of the available empirical evidence suggests that this does not work, and in the case of the extinction of the black family, you can make a very compelling case that these cash payments actually make things worse, by providing a financial incentive for self-destructive bahavior (unwed teemage moms qualify for more welfare than married teenage moms, so teenage moms elect not to get married).

Do the liberals know this is the effect of their policies? Is it the intended effect? Or do they not bother to see the havoc they have wrought?

It's like Social Security and Medicare...any honest person who took 5th grade arithmetic knows that those plans are not sustainable. Yet when Paul Ryan says that out loud, liberals make a commercial of him pushing an old lady off a cliff. Do the liberals really believe that Ryan actually wants to hurt old people and poor people? Do liberals really believe that entitlement programs are not headed for disaster?

It's hard to know what they think, because when you bring these things up, they yell at you for being a racist, sexist, intolerant, anti-immigration, homophobic hate monger who is waginbg war on women.

[Fly Rod]

the bottom line is that the GOP has no balls...they proved that yesterday when voting