Toro
Diamond Member
A Pub DEPRESSION is not the time to raise taxes on the rich. Even the A-Holes that got us in this mess. Neither is O-care a serf thing.
I think this material shows that the wealthy in the US get an easier ride than they do in any other country on earth. Too easy.
I am pro-capitalist, pro-incentives and all for people earning the most they can in life, but I also believe wealthy people can pay a fair amount towards supporting the system that produces that wealth.
The average compensation of a CEO in 1980 was about 40 times that of the average worker in his company. Today it is more than 500 times.
For the US to create and grow - that needs to change.
Why does CEO compensation doesn't need to change so the economy will create and grow? There is no relationship between the two.
I will agree that CEO comp has gotten ridiculous. It wouldn't be ridiculous if there was an actual relationship between comp and performance. Unfortunately, there is little. There is no relationship between how well a CEO performs and how well he is comped. There is actually evidence that CEOs who are "stars" and brought in from the outside perform slightly worse than those who are promoted from within.
The other problem in America is weak corporate governance. Contrary to what those on the Left claim, corporations in America are not run to maximize profits. They are run to maximize the compensation of the top executives. That's simplistic but generally true. If there are corporate governance mechanisms that link the two, then executives will prioritize maximizing profits but that is often not the case. If you look at the roster of directors on the boards of the top 500 companies in America, very few are actual large owners of company stock, outside of founders. Also, the CEO is often the Chairman of the Board, which should clearly be a conflict of interest. That's not the case in the Nordic countries. The Nordics have the best corporate governance system in the world, where companies are controlled by the shareholders, unlike here in America. America should adopt the Scandinavian model of corporate governance.
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