Should the government cap actors' pay?

[Cecilie1200]

Well it disgusts me that these actors and athletes make such ridiculous amounts of money and then tell doctors making 250K that they aren't paying their "fair share"

But prob the grossest injustice is when class action lawyers rake in millions while the actual victims get peanuts. The govt should really put and end to that, doncha think?

You sound jealous. That is all I am getting from this. You're argument is irrational and angry sounding, and lends itself no credibility because it is not based on sound logic.

Actors perform a great service to everyone who is willing to watch, mostly because it is available to ANYONE WHO HAS EYES AND EARS to consume. They take us out of our daily lives and allow us to look at ourselves and thus, everything and everyone else differently, as it is with any and all art. This is invaluable.

Their pay rate is only a reflection of the publics consumption of their services. Since there is only ONE of each actor, by the laws of supply and demand, THEY ARE WORTH A LOT.

It's simple economics really. Besides, do you know how few A-list actors there are in our society at any given moment? There must be less than 100, I think even less than 50. These are hard-working people who use their talent for the better of all of us (if the movie is good).

CEO's don't deserve any sympathy. They are shielded from any and all accountability of what they do, by the nature of what makes an LLC, (except after the outrage from the economic meltdown, and only in the cases of the CEO's of the companies who 'caused' the collapse), they reap massive profits usually with great costs to society in the form of externalities (human rights violations, environmental damage, government lobbying to limit regulation). I mean, it's a non-arguement.

Sorry, but this thread is a total fail. It just sounds like another angry conservative trying to rail against any and all liberals they can. So, it becomes the poor CEO's (conservatives) versus the shameless Hollywood actors (liberals, progressives.) Haha... too funny.

Yes, actors and movie studios provide a MUCH more invaluable service to the public than the companies that put out useless stuff like food, clothing, medication, transportation . . .

Believe it or not, there's not a huge number of people in the country with the talent and skill set to successfully run a multi-million-dollar corporation, either, as witness the ones who have so famously and spectacularly failed recently. I'm sure their jobs look incredibly easy to those who have no real idea what goes into it, but frankly, the same could be said about acting.

The point still stands: anyone who makes hundreds of times more annually than the average worker in their industry has NOTHING to say about anyone else's obscene salaries, and no amount of rationalization on your part will make it any less hypocritical.

 

[newpolitics]

Well it disgusts me that these actors and athletes make such ridiculous amounts of money and then tell doctors making 250K that they aren't paying their "fair share"

But prob the grossest injustice is when class action lawyers rake in millions while the actual victims get peanuts. The govt should really put and end to that, doncha think?

You sound jealous. That is all I am getting from this. You're argument is irrational and angry sounding, and lends itself no credibility because it is not based on sound logic.

Actors perform a great service to everyone who is willing to watch, mostly because it is available to ANYONE WHO HAS EYES AND EARS to consume. They take us out of our daily lives and allow us to look at ourselves and thus, everything and everyone else differently, as it is with any and all art. This is invaluable.

Their pay rate is only a reflection of the publics consumption of their services. Since there is only ONE of each actor, by the laws of supply and demand, THEY ARE WORTH A LOT.

It's simple economics really. Besides, do you know how few A-list actors there are in our society at any given moment? There must be less than 100, I think even less than 50. These are hard-working people who use their talent for the better of all of us (if the movie is good).

CEO's don't deserve any sympathy. They are shielded from any and all accountability of what they do, by the nature of what makes an LLC, (except after the outrage from the economic meltdown, and only in the cases of the CEO's of the companies who 'caused' the collapse), they reap massive profits usually with great costs to society in the form of externalities (human rights violations, environmental damage, government lobbying to limit regulation). I mean, it's a non-arguement.

Sorry, but this thread is a total fail. It just sounds like another angry conservative trying to rail against any and all liberals they can. So, it becomes the poor CEO's (conservatives) versus the shameless Hollywood actors (liberals, progressives.) Haha... too funny.

Yes, actors and movie studios provide a MUCH more invaluable service to the public than the companies that put out useless stuff like food, clothing, medication, transportation . . .

Believe it or not, there's not a huge number of people in the country with the talent and skill set to successfully run a multi-million-dollar corporation, either, as witness the ones who have so famously and spectacularly failed recently. I'm sure their jobs look incredibly easy to those who have no real idea what goes into it, but frankly, the same could be said about acting.

The point still stands: anyone who makes hundreds of times more annually than the average worker in their industry has NOTHING to say about anyone else's obscene salaries, and no amount of rationalization on your part will make it any less hypocritical.

What am I trying to rationalize here, Cecile? I am just playing some serious devil's advocate against the OP, so calm down.

we don't need corporations to produce everything we might ever need in our lives. That's what we have come to believe because we are inundated in a sea of corporations everyday (Subway, McD's, Nike, Sony, and on and on...) There was a time when corporations did not yet exist you know... and you could still eat and be clothed, etc... Imagine that!!!

I'm not saying all corporations are bad, I will say the this capitalist system lends itself to corporate corruption and fraud and we've seen plenty of it. To demonize the pay rate of actors, is just an attempt to hate liberals with no substance beneath it, that's all I'm getting at. Sure, they got paid a lot, but so what? The only reason one would have a problem with that is if THEY ARE JEALOUS, because, those actors aren't doing anyone harm. CEO's on the other hand, I can't say the same for.

 

[chanel]

All CEO's do harm? Do you even know what a CEO is?

Most Hollywood celebutards contribute little to the greater good. In fact idolized idiots like Paris Hilton and 50 Cent may even hurt children. However...

I am not "jealous" of Hollywood actors and I don't think the government should cap their pay. I just wish they'd stick to talking about shit they know about. And NPR should really hire some new interviewers. No followup to that question?

Ben Affleck has been involved with liberal politics for quite some time. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he runs for some kind of office in the future. He'll need some serious re-edumacation first.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You sound jealous. That is all I am getting from this. You're argument is irrational and angry sounding, and lends itself no credibility because it is not based on sound logic.

Actors perform a great service to everyone who is willing to watch, mostly because it is available to ANYONE WHO HAS EYES AND EARS to consume. They take us out of our daily lives and allow us to look at ourselves and thus, everything and everyone else differently, as it is with any and all art. This is invaluable.

Their pay rate is only a reflection of the publics consumption of their services. Since there is only ONE of each actor, by the laws of supply and demand, THEY ARE WORTH A LOT.

It's simple economics really. Besides, do you know how few A-list actors there are in our society at any given moment? There must be less than 100, I think even less than 50. These are hard-working people who use their talent for the better of all of us (if the movie is good).

CEO's don't deserve any sympathy. They are shielded from any and all accountability of what they do, by the nature of what makes an LLC, (except after the outrage from the economic meltdown, and only in the cases of the CEO's of the companies who 'caused' the collapse), they reap massive profits usually with great costs to society in the form of externalities (human rights violations, environmental damage, government lobbying to limit regulation). I mean, it's a non-arguement.

Sorry, but this thread is a total fail. It just sounds like another angry conservative trying to rail against any and all liberals they can. So, it becomes the poor CEO's (conservatives) versus the shameless Hollywood actors (liberals, progressives.) Haha... too funny.

Yes, actors and movie studios provide a MUCH more invaluable service to the public than the companies that put out useless stuff like food, clothing, medication, transportation . . .

Believe it or not, there's not a huge number of people in the country with the talent and skill set to successfully run a multi-million-dollar corporation, either, as witness the ones who have so famously and spectacularly failed recently. I'm sure their jobs look incredibly easy to those who have no real idea what goes into it, but frankly, the same could be said about acting.

The point still stands: anyone who makes hundreds of times more annually than the average worker in their industry has NOTHING to say about anyone else's obscene salaries, and no amount of rationalization on your part will make it any less hypocritical.

What am I trying to rationalize here, Cecile? I am just playing some serious devil's advocate against the OP, so calm down.

we don't need corporations to produce everything we might ever need in our lives. That's what we have come to believe because we are inundated in a sea of corporations everyday (Subway, McD's, Nike, Sony, and on and on...) There was a time when corporations did not yet exist you know... and you could still eat and be clothed, etc... Imagine that!!!

Clearly, we DO need them to produce it, or we wouldn't have them doing it. At the very least, we obviously WANT them to do it, or they wouldn't exist.

There was, indeed, a time when there were no corporations, and everything was produced and sold by small, individually-owned businesses . . . and most of it could be purchased only by the rich. Go back and consider the appalling rates of poverty and malnutrition that existed, and how much lower the standard of living was for everyone. One of the major reasons for the invention and rise of corporations is that their founders realized that they could make huge amounts of money by harnessing the greater purchasing and production powers of conglomeration, thus making it possible to lower prices, sell to a larger customer base, and target quantity sales.

Consider the food industry. Right now, in any town in America, a poor family can just la-di-da down the street to a supermarket - in many cities you can do it any time of the day or night - and stock up on a wide selection of inexpensive cuts of fresh meat and cheap produce. Would that be possible if we went back to mom & pop farms and mercantiles? Hardly. For many people from that era, just the idea of meat in every meal would have been an unimaginable luxury.

Or consider the pharmaceutical industry. Oh, I know, people LOVE to bitch about how much their medications cost, but how many breakthroughs and treatments would we be living without if there were no pharmaceutical companies able and willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars per illness on research and development? I suffered my entire childhood and adolescence with near-crippling bouts of depression, until in my mid-twenties, psych meds that weren't worse than the illness they treated came out and allowed me to have a normal life with a job and a husband and a family and friends. Would that have happened if there had been no Eli Lilly to create Prozac? There are diseases that used to devastate entire populations at will that now exist only in laboratories because of the efforts of pharmaceutical and medical research companies.

I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. Just because it's possible to do things in a different way doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I'm not saying all corporations are bad, I will say the this capitalist system lends itself to corporate corruption and fraud and we've seen plenty of it. To demonize the pay rate of actors, is just an attempt to hate liberals with no substance beneath it, that's all I'm getting at. Sure, they got paid a lot, but so what? The only reason one would have a problem with that is if THEY ARE JEALOUS, because, those actors aren't doing anyone harm. CEO's on the other hand, I can't say the same for.

Oh, yes, there's no corruption in OTHER systems. Just capitalism.

Go take a look at how things ran in the former Soviet Union if you want to see rampant corruption. Or take a look at Mexico right now. In fact, choose any non-capitalist country you'd like, and look at the graft, crime, and misery to be found. It makes the US's idea of corruption look like a Sunday School picnic.

No one's trying to demonize the pay rate of actors, dummy. We're trying to point out the hypocrisy of demonization of the pay rates of CEOs by actors. I don't give a rat's ass what other people are getting paid, unless I personally am cutting the checks. I leave that sort of envy and vitriol to others.

 

[MaggieMae]

Well it disgusts me that these actors and athletes make such ridiculous amounts of money and then tell doctors making 250K that they aren't paying their "fair share"

But prob the grossest injustice is when class action lawyers rake in millions while the actual victims get peanuts. The govt should really put and end to that, doncha think?

I've always hated the lawyers who chase after presumed victims with the lure of a class action. However, anyone wishing to join can always obtain a copy of the complaint and background and just do the math as to how much they could expect to receive on settlement when presumably the law firm involved will take it's usual one-third right off the top. If a person has a legitimate damage claim resulting from a defective product, s/he is better off getting their own lawyer.

 

[MaggieMae]

It is NOT the Government's business what private Companies pay their employees. If it is then it applies across the board. Shall Congress decide how much you Lawyers get paid? What a fucking joke.

It becomes their business if they've bailed-out a private company with taxpayers money, because they are then share holders. Like what happened in the UK banking industry and Goldman Sachs in the US. But a government can't alter a private contractual agreement between an employer and employee that was signed prior to a government cash injection/bail-out.

Those are Government owned business, at least till the loan is paid off. Which does not change the fact that Government has no legal business trying to tell private Business what it can and can not pay its employees.

It can if said companies are paying bonuses with taxpayer money.

 

[MaggieMae]

So, because some CEOs suck, we should punish them all? Perhaps the government should regulate everyone's pay?

you're ignoring the point and going to the extreme...

you think a failed CEO should suck millions out of a corporation in golden parachutes? or you think their pay should at least be linked to profitability?

So Affleck has never made any money on the crappy movies he has made? The point is he. and many of the Hollywood elite, are hypocrites as they make many times the money a gaffer on the set makes and still they preach about evil corps CEO's making money with a failing company. If the movie fails, they still make money...correct. While it may be a valid point, coming from just another millionaire actor in this country, most don't care to listen.

Kinda like Obama stating that all have to tighten their belts while he is not looking for money to make his house payment.

So tell us how your favorite conservative lawmaker has tightened his/her belt at home.

 

[MaggieMae]

He wasn't speaking specifically about the bailed out banks. And if that is what he was thinking, the interviewer obviously didn't follow up. Because???

It was on NPR - not TMZ. "Real unbiased" journalists, eh?

Did you read the entire interview? I didn't look for it, but at least from your linked article, it seems that Ben Affleck was showing sympathy to what the Tea Party has been advocating, which doesn't sound to me like, if asked, he would exempt actors. For one thing, he's way to clever to not see his own hypocrisy if he did.

From the link:

"That speaks so perfectly to people's feelings about our country," Affleck says. "It's like it's just about getting by, or people can let people go if they can get away with it, that there's no deeper sense of right or wrong. The banks shouldn't — people shouldn't make such a giant profit off just moving money back and forth. And CEOs' pay shouldn't be 200 times the average worker. It used to be nine times. OK, maybe it's legal and maybe it passes muster with shareholders. But there's something about us that fundamentally feels it isn't right."

He's noticed, he believes, that these feelings are pretty widely shared.

"I think that's the frustration that you feel on people speaking out from the left. I think it's the same frustration you hear from Tea Party activists. And that tells you that it's common to the entire spectrum of American people."

 

[MaggieMae]

The government should have a 99% tax on actor pay above $250,000, think of all the teachers and policemen we could hire.

It's only fair

OR we could tax the producers of World of Warfare and other video gamers who are responsible for several million Americans sitting on their asses 24/7 and pretending to be something they aren't.

 

[MaggieMae]

Same thing for Liberal businessmen who feel that they do not pay enough in taxes and use estate and trusts and other schemes to avoid paying their fair share.

When we win it all back in 2012 our Pay Czar will right this terrible wrong so children no longer need to suffer

And here I thought you people are under the impression that liberals are too stupid to run businesses, only conservatives have that expertise. Go figure.

 

[MaggieMae]

AFFLECK: That speaks so perfectly to people's feelings about our country. It's like it's just about getting by, or people can like let people go if they can get away with it, that there's no deeper sense of right or wrong. The banks shouldn't -- people shouldn't make such a giant profit off just moving money back and forth. And CEOs' pay shouldn't be 200 times the average worker. It used to be nine times.

Read more: Ben Affleck Goes on NPR to Complain About Overpaid CEOs -- Not Overpaid Movie Stars | NewsBusters.org

Affleck makes in the neighborhood of 125 times more than that on one movie. Factor in an entire year and he probably earns in the neighborhood of 500 times the “average worker” in his industry — maybe a lot more.

Before we start regulating CEO pay, maybe we should start with actors. The Hollywood left likes the idea of creeping socialism, just as long as it doesn’t creep any farther west than San Bernardino.

Michelle Malkin Heh: Actor Who Made $12.5 Million for ‘Gigli’ Says Corporate CEOs are Overpaid

Ah gotta love that celebutard hypocrisy.

If we're going to cap someone's pay, could it be professional sports players? They make far more money than they should for playing a simple game.

shhhhh, it's still football season. One must not disparage football players, and basketball season has only just begun. This thread is very selective, as you can see.

 

[MaggieMae]

So, because some CEOs suck, we should punish them all? Perhaps the government should regulate everyone's pay?

you're ignoring the point and going to the extreme...

you think a failed CEO should suck millions out of a corporation in golden parachutes? or you think their pay should at least be linked to profitability?

The stockholders of those companies could easily put a stop to that, yet they do not. There are two possible explanations for that.

1. They are completely ignorant and do not deserve to own any part of the company.
2. They know something I don't and actually believe that they are getting enough bang for their buck that it is worth every penny they pay.

I'll go with the first. If someone only has a few shares, they still get a copy of the company's annual report, but I doubt many actually read it nor send in a proxy vote for the following year. If someone has a big portfolio, he/she is going to get a ton of annual reports. Therefore, it's only the shareholders who have a real stake in a company who care.

 

[MaggieMae]

Oh and Baruch - I agree with you 100 percent. The right to a lawyer is guaranteed in the Constitution. Hence lawyers should be public servants - paid accordingly ; just like teachers and cops.

That's why there are public defenders, who get paid according to a district's budget.

That reminds me, nobody has mentioned capping lobbyists salaries. We have public and private attorneys defending laws that are made by public lawmakers who are on a fixed salary, but written in many cases by private lobbyists who make millions unfettered by regulation.

 

[MaggieMae]

Actors make more money than they are worth but we shouldn't authorize the government to put a cap on anyone's earnings.

And we haven't. It was an idea bandied about two years ago at the height of the bailout, when the banks had not begun to repay their TARP loans, yet continued to give huge salaries (and bonuses) to their CEOs. Therefore, I don't even know why it's an issue here, other than someone's need to bash Hollywood.

 

[MaggieMae]

So Affleck has never made any money on the crappy movies he has made? The point is he. and many of the Hollywood elite, are hypocrites as they make many times the money a gaffer on the set makes and still they preach about evil corps CEO's making money with a failing company. If the movie fails, they still make money...correct. While it may be a valid point, coming from just another millionaire actor in this country, most don't care to listen.

Kinda like Obama stating that all have to tighten their belts while he is not looking for money to make his house payment.

how much of our money has gone to movie production companies to make up for the short fall of bad and deceptive investments?

Well, I'll say it again: the answer is for the left to stop inserting the government into every-damned-thing in the country and stop throwing the taxpayers' money at people at the drop of a hat.

At the drop of a hat? I don't consider the failure of our entire economy a "drop in a hat."

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The government should have a 99% tax on actor pay above $250,000, think of all the teachers and policemen we could hire.

It's only fair

OR we could tax the producers of World of Warfare and other video gamers who are responsible for several million Americans sitting on their asses 24/7 and pretending to be something they aren't.

Forget $250,00 a year, why should anyone need more than $25,000/year? What the fuck is the Pay Czar doing?

What good is a pay Czar if everyone pay is uneven?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Same thing for Liberal businessmen who feel that they do not pay enough in taxes and use estate and trusts and other schemes to avoid paying their fair share.

When we win it all back in 2012 our Pay Czar will right this terrible wrong so children no longer need to suffer

And here I thought you people are under the impression that liberals are too stupid to run businesses, only conservatives have that expertise. Go figure.

Oh no! Liberals run businesses, they just don't pay their far share.

 

[MaggieMae]

All CEO's do harm? Do you even know what a CEO is?

Most Hollywood celebutards contribute little to the greater good. In fact idolized idiots like Paris Hilton and 50 Cent may even hurt children. However...

I am not "jealous" of Hollywood actors and I don't think the government should cap their pay. I just wish they'd stick to talking about shit they know about. And NPR should really hire some new interviewers. No followup to that question?

Ben Affleck has been involved with liberal politics for quite some time. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he runs for some kind of office in the future. He'll need some serious re-edumacation first.

When was the last time Paris Hilton had a contract for anything? Lindsey Lohan, who once showed great potential as a legitimate actress, can't get work because to insure her contract costs too much money. You can't compare fly-by-night PERFORMERS to genuine actors dedicated to their profession.

 

[MaggieMae]

Yes, actors and movie studios provide a MUCH more invaluable service to the public than the companies that put out useless stuff like food, clothing, medication, transportation . . .

Believe it or not, there's not a huge number of people in the country with the talent and skill set to successfully run a multi-million-dollar corporation, either, as witness the ones who have so famously and spectacularly failed recently. I'm sure their jobs look incredibly easy to those who have no real idea what goes into it, but frankly, the same could be said about acting.

The point still stands: anyone who makes hundreds of times more annually than the average worker in their industry has NOTHING to say about anyone else's obscene salaries, and no amount of rationalization on your part will make it any less hypocritical.

What am I trying to rationalize here, Cecile? I am just playing some serious devil's advocate against the OP, so calm down.

we don't need corporations to produce everything we might ever need in our lives. That's what we have come to believe because we are inundated in a sea of corporations everyday (Subway, McD's, Nike, Sony, and on and on...) There was a time when corporations did not yet exist you know... and you could still eat and be clothed, etc... Imagine that!!!

Clearly, we DO need them to produce it, or we wouldn't have them doing it. At the very least, we obviously WANT them to do it, or they wouldn't exist.

There was, indeed, a time when there were no corporations, and everything was produced and sold by small, individually-owned businesses . . . and most of it could be purchased only by the rich. Go back and consider the appalling rates of poverty and malnutrition that existed, and how much lower the standard of living was for everyone. One of the major reasons for the invention and rise of corporations is that their founders realized that they could make huge amounts of money by harnessing the greater purchasing and production powers of conglomeration, thus making it possible to lower prices, sell to a larger customer base, and target quantity sales.

Consider the food industry. Right now, in any town in America, a poor family can just la-di-da down the street to a supermarket - in many cities you can do it any time of the day or night - and stock up on a wide selection of inexpensive cuts of fresh meat and cheap produce. Would that be possible if we went back to mom & pop farms and mercantiles? Hardly. For many people from that era, just the idea of meat in every meal would have been an unimaginable luxury.

Or consider the pharmaceutical industry. Oh, I know, people LOVE to bitch about how much their medications cost, but how many breakthroughs and treatments would we be living without if there were no pharmaceutical companies able and willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars per illness on research and development? I suffered my entire childhood and adolescence with near-crippling bouts of depression, until in my mid-twenties, psych meds that weren't worse than the illness they treated came out and allowed me to have a normal life with a job and a husband and a family and friends. Would that have happened if there had been no Eli Lilly to create Prozac? There are diseases that used to devastate entire populations at will that now exist only in laboratories because of the efforts of pharmaceutical and medical research companies.

The food industry has wiped out family farms. They produce en masse in horrid working conditions in order to stock grocery stores with "food" ladeled with preservatives we can't even pronounce. Big Pharma "tests" almost all of its drugs overseas in human trials, knowing full well many of them contain dangerous, life-threatening components. But they have a huge influence over the minds of people who buy into the belief that one pill which will cost them $100 will do a better job than one aspirin. Genuinely helping people with certain drugs costs a fortune. PROFIT first is the mantra of monopolistic conglomerates. If people get sick and/or die from use of one of their products, c'est la vie, they've made enough to cover any legal expenses.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The government should have a 99% tax on actor pay above $250,000, think of all the teachers and policemen we could hire.

It's only fair

OR we could tax the producers of World of Warfare and other video gamers who are responsible for several million Americans sitting on their asses 24/7 and pretending to be something they aren't.

The only people responsible for Americans sitting on their asses are those Americans. And what frigging business is it of yours what other people choose to do with their time?