Lowe's CEO gets 2012 pay package valued at $12.1M
- Thread starter signalmankenneth
- Start date
cawacko
Well-known member
I'm trying to understand the context of this post. Earning $12 million in total compensation in one year is obviously a lot of money but from a CEO's perspective it's not off the charts. Is the argument Lowe's stock severely underperformed and thus the pay wasn't justified? Or is the OP basically jealous that someone else earned $12 million in one year?
Steelplate
New member
You know, I don't care how much a CEO makes if he's an effective leader. What I have an issue with is CEO's who run a company into the ground and still get their golden parachutes when they should be kicked to the curb.
/MSG/
Uwaa OmO
So, by the exact same token, public service workers should have all their benefits stripped for incompetence?
Steelplate
New member
Well, if I was in charge and fucked up, why should all those underneath me suffer? It's a false argument. That's like saying if the said CEO runs the business into the ground that all the employees should be fired for one person's incompetence
cawacko
Well-known member
If the one person who is incompetent is the CEO then yes lots of people underneath him/her will suffer. If decisions the CEO makes cost the company large sums of money or causes it to lose existing business workers will most likely be laid off as a result. It's not like they are separate entities. Companies go out of business all the time due to (poor) decisions made by the owner/CEO.
/MSG/
Uwaa OmO
Because if I, as a Marine, made an error, it could result in the deaths of a fuck ton of people (such as warehousing WP shells, or issuing blanks to guys on patrol), or the welder who blew up the Challenger.
Steelplate
New member
So then why should the poor CEO get a golden parachute?
/MSG/
Uwaa OmO
Because it's in the contract he negotiated and signed, same with every other CYA agreement in existence. People don't take high risk jobs without covering their ass. Well, smart people don't.
Steelplate
New member
Wait, so it's OK for a CEO to negotiate a contract and expect it to be honored regardless of outcome, but it's not OK for labor to expect the same....hell, not even close to the same. If I get fired, I lose everything except what I paid into my retirement account.
High risk jobs? Like Cops, Corrections Officers and direct care staff?
EDIT: forgot to add highway workers...who get killed and injured more than all three.
Last edited:
/MSG/
Uwaa OmO
I'm gonna need to see where I suggested that....Could have SWORN I didn't and you're building another strawman, but I'll wait.
Cops should have everything stripped from them if they break the law. And be deported.
Steelplate
New member
Benefit stripping ring a bell? It's one page back.
signalmankenneth
Verified User
The Pay Disparity Between CEO and US Worker is 354 to 1 and "Austerity" Will Make It
The Pay Disparity Between CEO and US Worker is 354 to 1 and "Austerity" Will Make It Worse
According to a study of US labor statistics featured on the AFL-CIO's Paywatch.org, US worker productivity has grown by 88% since 1982. Yet wages, adjusted for cost of living, have pretty much stagnated – or in the case of displaced and threatened workers declined. That increase in productivity by labor and technology has padded the pockets of the wealthy in increased profits.
Perhaps the most telling sign of the imbalance in workers struggling more to get by -- despite productivity gains -- is the imbalance between CEO pay and that of the average employee.
According to an AFL-CIO study, a "U.S. CEOs of the largest companies made 354 times the average rank-and-file worker—by far the widest pay gap in the world."
Due to the battle over jobs and the effort to impose "austerity" on the 99 percent, the working class incurs personal debt. That debt, in turn, becomes profitable for the wealthiest financial institutions. How does that happen? Because if you are paying interest on your credit cards, for example, you are providing generally at least around a 20% profit to the credit card issuers. That is because the money the bank pays you for deposits is basically at around 0%. The banks too big to fail are lending your money out – for which you receive more or less 0% -- at 20% on credit card debt.
Talk about loan sharks.
So the austerity program that the Obama administration, the Republicans, and Wall Street are imposing on the working class is a way of enriching the richest, while their salaries, benefits and assets are soaring. BuzzFlash at Truthout discussed some of this complex predatory economics yesterday in our commentary, "The Rich Get 'Punished"' by Getting Richer: How Bush Closed the Gap Between the Ultra Rich and Ultra-Ultra Rich and Left the Rest of Us With 'Austerity.'"
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka commented on the Grand Canyon divide between corporate CEO pay and the average worker:
Not only is U.S. CEO pay out-of whack with historical norms, it is off the chart globally. For example, in Switzerland, where voters recently imposed new limits on executive pay, the CEO-to-worker pay gap is 148 times. In the United Kingdom, the CEO-to-worker pay gap is one-quarter as large as ours. And in Japan, the gap is even smaller.
Trumka also called on CEO's to back off their continued low pay/austerity squeeze play on the American worker: "We are calling out the hypocrisy of rich CEOs who have the gall to ask for corporate tax cuts to be paid for by squeezing the retirement security of working America. The American public deserves to know the truth about their self-serving agenda."
The Obama/Republican promotion of austerity is another way of saying the poor will pay for the lavish lifestyles of the rich – and further consolidation of the nation's assets in the hands of a few.
If a "grand bargain" is reached -- (which is a misnomer, because the Obama budget already leans so far toward austerity as compared to increased revenue from the wealthy that you could call it the "grand concession"), and the White House is going to give up just about anything to get to an agreement – the stock market will soar.
Meanwhile, the working stiffs who already got hit with a 2% increase in FICA taxes this year will get all sorts of cutbacks while the value of stocks and investments rises and the rich deposit their growing dividend checks into offshore accounts and overseas jobs.
By Mark Karlin
The Pay Disparity Between CEO and US Worker is 354 to 1 and "Austerity" Will Make It Worse
According to a study of US labor statistics featured on the AFL-CIO's Paywatch.org, US worker productivity has grown by 88% since 1982. Yet wages, adjusted for cost of living, have pretty much stagnated – or in the case of displaced and threatened workers declined. That increase in productivity by labor and technology has padded the pockets of the wealthy in increased profits.
Perhaps the most telling sign of the imbalance in workers struggling more to get by -- despite productivity gains -- is the imbalance between CEO pay and that of the average employee.
According to an AFL-CIO study, a "U.S. CEOs of the largest companies made 354 times the average rank-and-file worker—by far the widest pay gap in the world."
Due to the battle over jobs and the effort to impose "austerity" on the 99 percent, the working class incurs personal debt. That debt, in turn, becomes profitable for the wealthiest financial institutions. How does that happen? Because if you are paying interest on your credit cards, for example, you are providing generally at least around a 20% profit to the credit card issuers. That is because the money the bank pays you for deposits is basically at around 0%. The banks too big to fail are lending your money out – for which you receive more or less 0% -- at 20% on credit card debt.
Talk about loan sharks.
So the austerity program that the Obama administration, the Republicans, and Wall Street are imposing on the working class is a way of enriching the richest, while their salaries, benefits and assets are soaring. BuzzFlash at Truthout discussed some of this complex predatory economics yesterday in our commentary, "The Rich Get 'Punished"' by Getting Richer: How Bush Closed the Gap Between the Ultra Rich and Ultra-Ultra Rich and Left the Rest of Us With 'Austerity.'"
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka commented on the Grand Canyon divide between corporate CEO pay and the average worker:
Not only is U.S. CEO pay out-of whack with historical norms, it is off the chart globally. For example, in Switzerland, where voters recently imposed new limits on executive pay, the CEO-to-worker pay gap is 148 times. In the United Kingdom, the CEO-to-worker pay gap is one-quarter as large as ours. And in Japan, the gap is even smaller.
Trumka also called on CEO's to back off their continued low pay/austerity squeeze play on the American worker: "We are calling out the hypocrisy of rich CEOs who have the gall to ask for corporate tax cuts to be paid for by squeezing the retirement security of working America. The American public deserves to know the truth about their self-serving agenda."
The Obama/Republican promotion of austerity is another way of saying the poor will pay for the lavish lifestyles of the rich – and further consolidation of the nation's assets in the hands of a few.
If a "grand bargain" is reached -- (which is a misnomer, because the Obama budget already leans so far toward austerity as compared to increased revenue from the wealthy that you could call it the "grand concession"), and the White House is going to give up just about anything to get to an agreement – the stock market will soar.
Meanwhile, the working stiffs who already got hit with a 2% increase in FICA taxes this year will get all sorts of cutbacks while the value of stocks and investments rises and the rich deposit their growing dividend checks into offshore accounts and overseas jobs.
By Mark Karlin
christiefan915
Catalyst
The argument is that the rich are supposed to be job creators and that justifies their tax breaks and exorbitant salaries.
cawacko
Well-known member
When a board of directors is looking for a CEO the criteria they are looking for is not whether this person will create jobs or not (that may be a byproduct of their performance though).
signalmankenneth
Verified User
christiefan915
Catalyst
I see the cartoon as ragging on the conservative position that the 1% are job creators, and that the CEO's salary and bennies puts him in the 1%, ergo he should be creating jobs.
Well done, Mr. Niblock. Thank God for Capitalism!
Translation: No CEO should be allowed to earn more than $500k per year, as the rest needs to be redistributed.