Washington Post Special Report: Breakaway Wealth

Corporate executives make too much money!

 

Well, they do.

Let's take a car, for example. A car needs a good engine. But if the wheels are falling off, the body's rusted, and the muffler's dragging on the ground, I doubt anyone would say that it is a good car.

Executive compensation is the same thing. It's great and all that the CEO is making money hand over fist. But if no one else is, eventually, things will grind down to a halt.

 

Gee Washington Post....thanks for your hard hitting story telling us we live in a free enterprise society! Next week special report: Homeless people don't sleep in as comfortable beds as those with homes!

 

If you want to look at it from a free enterprise standpoint, overcompensating C-suite execs - thanks largely to the board of directors being in bed with them - has been a massive screw job for stockholders.

 

I'm not sure your comparison makes much sense.

The guy profiled run a Fortune 500 company that is 10 times larger than it was 40 years ago. He makes 10 times (adjusted for inflation) what the guy who ran its predecessor company did 40 years ago.

That sounds fair.

Only 500 people runs Fortune 500 companies. What's the 500th best baseball player make?

Not that many people can do these jobs.

His average employee makes $23.00 an hour. That sounds pretty good. And, I bet they could fill those jobs for less on the open market.

What's so silly about this article is how it tries to turn it into a moral question. The previous CEO would be spinning in his grave! CEO's of the 70's weren't robber barons like today's CEOs are!

Bullshit.

There's nothing immoral about wealth.

 

If you want to look at companies that are unresponsive to shareholders, the New York Times Company & the Washington Post are exhibits 1 and 1A.

 

I wouldn't disagree. But they are at least upfront in telling investors they get no say in running the ship. That gets priced in.

 

Makes both of them imperfect evangelists for corporate reform.

 

The last perfect man ascended skyward just shy of 2000 years ago, and he doesn't write much these days. Do you suggest no one else try to point out flaws they see in the system?

 

From the story:

"Over the period from the ’70s until today, while pay for Dean Foods chief executives was rising 10 times over, wages for the unionized workers actually declined slightly. The hourly wage rate for the people who process, pasteurize and package the milk at the company’s dairies declined by 9 percent in real terms, according to union contract records. It is now about $23 an hour."

So in other words, in real money, while the company has grown huge, the people doing the actual work hasn't made more money. They've made less.

 

The people "doing the actual work" aren't doing 10 times the work.

He's running a company 10 times larger with much greater profits.

They have a union representing them.

I'm also betting that at $23.00 per hour, Dean's employees are some of the best paid in Harvard, IL.

If they were able to fill those jobs based strictly on supply & demand, I'd bet they could fill them at a much lower pay.

 

They're also probably better compensated than your average sportswriter. Even those who work at a Guild shop.