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No, Sparky, I'm not speaking of legal obligations, though I would be amenable to laws that would restrict the salaries of CEOs to return the ratios to levels we had for decades prior to the 1980s. No, Sparky, I'm speaking of communitarian values and the morality of pushing externalities upon those communities so that a few might maximize profits for a few.
Your argument about paying people based upon the value they bring to a company would be fine if people were actually paid that way. Of course, they are not. CEOs, for example, are not hired or paid upon a "free market." If they were, we would have CEOs mostly from Asia who are smarter, more educated and will work for less than middle-aged white meat retreads from the United States. Instead, we have an old boy's network rather than a free market. At retail stores, we have thousands of managers who are quite literally responsible for departments that generate billions for their respective companies and are paid a miniscule fraction of the profit they generate. They are most certainly not paid in proportion to the value they bring to the company.
I don't really blame most of you for being ignorant of retail. Most of you think that hourly employees consist of clerks and checkers.
Taking a few very very large multinational corporations with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to build your straw man won't convince anyone. How many people do you know that can run a company with "69 different banners in 27 countries... sales of approximately $444 billion... employs 2.2 million associates worldwide."
There is a very small market of highly educated people with the skills and historical proof that can actually do that.
You know of no one that could do that which is why they command such high salaries which is at the bequest of the board of directors. The BoD have a vested interest in keeping their company growing and returning higher market values to its shareholders.
I still find it entertaining that the first post in this thread starts out discussing how low Walmart's profits are and then goes on to ask people to boycott the company.
Then it's even worse. You think staff at corporate stores are generally compensated according to the value they bring to the corporation? Hysterical.
Why do you think it is that CEOs are not hired based upon what the "free market" should dictate?
If I get 3 resumes for the CEO position compared to 10,000 resumes for managerial and lower level positions which do you think will be able to request a higher salary that I will be forced to pay?
You're simply ignoring the vast number of people barely qualified to run the lower levels of operations to the very small number of people who can run entire multinational companies.
Taking a few very very large multinational corporations with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to build your straw man won't convince anyone. How many people do you know that can run a company with "69 different banners in 27 countries... sales of approximately $444 billion... employs 2.2 million associates worldwide."
There is a very small market of highly educated people with the skills and historical proof that can actually do that.
You know of no one that could do that which is why they command such high salaries which is at the bequest of the board of directors. The BoD have a vested interest in keeping their company growing and returning higher market values to its shareholders.
What was that you said of making assumptions? Please, Sparky...
No, the number from which American corporations choose is small because they choose to choose from amongst those paltry number of choices. Choose, choose, choose. Expanded globally, there are many more qualified candidates. Candidates with superior educations and intelligence quotients with experience running multinational corporations who will work for less. Why is it that we do not see these folks dominating the tops of American corporations? Why is that when these corporations could clearly bring in more value by hiring these other candidates instead?
What was that you said of making assumptions? Please, Sparky...
Candidates with superior educations and intelligence quotients with experience running multinational corporations who will work for less. Why is it that we do not see these folks dominating the tops of American corporations? Why is that when these corporations could clearly bring in more value by hiring these other candidates instead?
Quite possibly because it helps to be culturally attuned to your employees and customers.
If I get 3 resumes for the CEO position compared to 10,000 resumes for managerial and lower level positions which do you think will be able to request a higher salary that I will be forced to pay?
You're simply ignoring the vast number of people barely qualified to run the lower levels of operations to the very small number of people who can run entire multinational companies.
Ignoring those facts won't make them go away.
You're arguing by assertion. In this instance, asserting that there are but a precious few capable of running multinational corporations. You have done nothing to validate that beyond a sort of circular argument that runs something like this: American corporations choose from a small pool of candidates. Because they choose from a small pool of candidates, there must be only a small number of qualified candidates. Spiffy.
Please, I'm begging you, give us something more than that circular, shimmy-shimmy jerk.
Quite possibly because it helps to be culturally attuned to your employees and customers.
Given how disconnected most of these corporations are from their employees, this would be a shocking enlightenment on their parts. Will they also start reducing CEO compensation to become further connected with their employees by extending more of the largess to them and by reducing prices for their customers?
I talked to servers all over the USA and some were getting $2 an hour with no benefits.
In Alberta the MacDonalds were offering $20 an hour and still could not fill their staffing requirements. Besides experencing it first hand I watched a special on it on the CBC. One McDees owner was cleaning tables, flipping burgers and just filling in where ever because he could not get people to work for him. Places like Subway HAVE to bring in foreign "Guest Workers" or they are just out of business. That is one of the biggest benefits of "Full employment".
and again, I will say, like others have: BULL!! Where you are getting your information might be from something CBS but even then I doubt you are getting or telling the entire story...Again, even servers are not paid $2 an hour..as for McDonald employees, think about what you are trying to tell us? They are not servers but work behind the counter, so you are saying while you order your meal you stand there and ask them how much they make and what kind of benefits they get? And the nice lady also told you she lives in a nice apartment, loves her job and drives a new car. As for workers getting $2 an hour, I happen to know a little bit about the restaurant business; our son in law managed several restaurants in a very popular chain, both here and in the Caribbean and our grandkids worked tables while in college...So, I know about what the going rate is, and it isn't $2 an hour. As for an owner cleaning tables, most owners don't spend any time at a McDonalds, but the manageres do and yes, they might flip burgers or clean tables. Do you think this never happens? I have seen it many times. BTW, where do the Subways in Canada get the guest workers and how many of them have talked to you about their job and salaries?
If I get 3 resumes for the CEO position compared to 10,000 resumes for managerial and lower level positions which do you think will be able to request a higher salary that I will be forced to pay?
You're simply ignoring the vast number of people barely qualified to run the lower levels of operations to the very small number of people who can run entire multinational companies.
Ignoring those facts won't make them go away.
It sounds like we have a shortage of potential CEO's in this country.
Shouldn't we lobby congress to open up the floodgates from the rest of the world, for aspiring CEO's from other countries to come here?
We have opened up the floodgates from all directions for not just cheaper labor, but for mid level professionals as well.
Isn't it time to do the same for those at the higher level, since they are very pricey compared to what other CEO's around the world are paid?
A "living wage" is something that is the responsibility of an individual to EARN, not an employer to GIVE.
Complete bull ****. In that case our societies are no better than most of the third world. Unregulated capitalism is nothing but a huge exploitation machine. At the time England was the richest country on earth they were still pulling little children up and down chimneys as sweeps. By the way they found out that soot causes cancer at that time because most of these kids died of it by age ten or so. The working man was not as well off as your average beast of burden. At least the beast had food and decent shelter. These same conditions existed everywhere including Canada and the USA. In Toronto around 1900 or so up to twenty people had to live in one stinking tenament with no running water, very little heat primitive cooking facilities etc. Infant and maternal mortality rates were sky high. People died like flies from TB, influenza and other infectious diseases. It was just overall a very ugly situation. Maybe you wnat to go back to those good old days but I surely do not!!!!
I don't know how people like yourself come up with such tripe. It's like you have absolutely NO knowledge of history. Not even the history of your own country or city. It's just mind boggling.
The thing the extreme right wingers fail to get a grip on is that their reactionary ways and ideas have always been the cause of the total distruction of their system where the people have finally risen up and threw off what they percieved to be their oppressers. In most cases what they ended up with was no better then what they had but that's another story altogether.
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