On a related note Tucker Carlson had a very interesting story last night about GM. I would like to know why the CEO of GM is making 4 times what the CEO of Toyota is making as the company is firing workers to improve profitability.
I'm not sure I'd care so much if GM hadn't just 10 years ago needed we the taxpayers to bail their asses out, but they did, and I do.
I believe in capitalism, but this is some bullshit.
That's the reason. CEOs are paid based on what they are able to accomplish.
Let me ask you.... say you want to invest your life savings into something to make more money. You invest $500K, and after 5 years, you end up with $550K. Well that sucks. How much are you going to pay that guy? Not much.
So you hire a new guy, and after 5 years, you end up $1 million. Is that guy who doubled your money, is he possibly worth paying more?
So the owners of GM went through a bad spell where GM had to declare bankruptcy. The CEO is making GM more profitable, when before it was bankrupt.
Is that worth paying a higher wage? Again, if you own stock in GM, yeah it is.
This is why you pay people more money.. they have better results.
The goal of GM isn't to employ lots of people, and go broke. They did that. The goal of GM is produce cars for a profit. If they have to close plants, and lay people off, in order to produce cars cars and make a profit, then that is what they do.
And a CEO that makes that happen, is worth paying a higher wage.
By the way, it's a bunch of union working people that benefit from this. The biggest stock holder in the company, is the UAW.
UAW trust sells $1.6B worth of GM stock
The Union still owns 100 Million shares in GM, and so the CEO making those shares more valuable, and higher dividend payments, benefits the UAW the most.
Additionally....
Whether GM gets a bailout or not, doesn't matter. If someone is so dumb that they give me money to pay for my car... that isn't going to change how I use that car. If I want a Corvette to go street racing, someone being stupid enough to pay for it, doesn't change how I'm going to act.
I'm not sure why people think "if government gives them money.... then....".... No. GM is going to do what is best for business, whether you give them government money or not. This is why YOU DO NOT GIVE COMPANIES BAILOUTS. Because whether you are stupid enough to bailout someone, doesn't change how they live.
This is why you see all these welfare people smoking, drinking, and living irresponsibly..... and then cry "If we give them welfare they should...."... NO, you just don't give them welfare.
Giving them money, doesn't change how they are going to act. You only have two options.... give them money or not. You don't get to dictate their lives.
So if GM needs to lay off a hundred workers, that is what they are going to do. You being stupid enough to bail them out, doesn't change this, or give you a right to dictate how they operate.
LASTLY......
One of the things that drives me a bit crazy about these articles is that they always come out when the company is doing well.
Have you ever wondered why they never complain about CEO pay when the company is doing poorly? There is a simple reason for this. 50% of the CEO pay is all just stock. Stock in GM. It's not cash. It's not as though, if the CEO was not given stock, that this would somehow free up money to pay employees. Or free up money to keep employees from being laid off. The amount of money GM has to pay employees stays the same whether the CEO gets this stock, or doesn't.
So why do they focus on CEO pay only when the company is doing good? Because if the company is doing poorly, the stock isn't worth as much, and CEO pay goes down.
Let's say that I'm the stock holders for a company, and I hire you to run our company as CEO. As part of the compensation package, I offer you 1,000,000 shares in the company every year, as part of your pay. The shares are worth $1. So you are earning $1 Million in company stock.
This is good thing. It means that you are unlikely to act recklessly to destroy the company, because most of your pay is company stock, and if you destroy the company, you'll lose most of your income.
But here's the kicker.... as you make wise choices that improve the profitability of the company, the stock will go up in value. If the value of the stock goes up $1, you still get the same 1 million in shares... but now those shares are worth $2 Million. So even though we have not increased your pay by even a penny, or by a single stock, the value of your compensations went up by a million dollars.
In 10 years, if the value of company stock goes up to $20, You will end up getting $20 Million a year in company stock.
But that increase in your pay, is directly because of your leadership in running the company well.
Why is this bad?