Personally, I think that a salary directly related to profits would be the best option. If I were deciding what a CEO's pay was for a huge corporation, it would be $100,000 (an easily sustainable living if that's all they made) plus 10% (or pick your number based on the company) of all profits. This way, they have money to survive on if the company was already posting a loss at the time of hiring, but the potential is huge. $1 billion dollar profit? I'd love that paycheck. $1 million dollar profit? I don't make $200,000.
This gives incentives for CEO's to perform well while not putting some artificial socialist CAP on their pay.
The best way to reduce CEO salaries is to raise wages. Wages cut into the profits used to pay CEOs. With thousands of workers at a large firm, a $1 a day raise can cut millions of dollars into a CEO's pay. Force the bosses to hire the janitors as real employees who get health insurance, and not as subcontracted labor paid minimum wage with no benefits, and you'll find the CEO's pay's cut just a bit to pay for these janitors.
How to do this? When the janitors form a union, and sue the company to hire them as real employees, or demand more from their subcontractor, the desk-jockeys should join their strike.
I love Myscha's point about getting a salary in retrospect. We have lived in a series of fixer-uppers which I've been able to improve dramatically during my time at home.
Each home has netted us around $50,000 for 2 years. Not only was that tax-free gain, but the "salary in retrospect" did not increase our taxable income in the way that even a $25,000 office job would have bumped us into the next bracket.
I registered on their site and never received my wubbanub and I also never got an e-mail from the. I have e-mailed them several times. They do not respond. DO NO WASTE YOUR TIME.
Who 'should' decide on CEOs' salaries? Certainly not you or the government.
It's like that numbskull of a congresswoman - Maxine Waters! She actually threatened nationalizing the oil companies. Yea, right, the government could do a better job! They'd have idiots like Water's running serious companies! Ha, it's laughable - no frightening because so many of you agree!
The owners - stockholders - can vote or sell their shares if they disagree with anything a public company does. Yes, even now, they still retain that freedom.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people - generally liberal thinking folks - who want someone, the big assed government, to tell others how to live their lives! The concept of government control really rubs me the wrong way.
But that's me. Call me revolutionary.
Vote Obama (and, yes, McCane, because he's a more centered liberal) if you want more socialism, more government control!
I'm still waiting on my X-Men DVD to come back too. I've been waiting for about 4 years.
I've never had a problem with a DVD player conking out, 10+ years and still going strong. Have you ever tried a laser lens cleaner? That may be all you need...
And those VHS tapes from the 80s are probably unwatchable. Magnetic tape only has a shelf life of about 15 years. That may be no big deal for movies, but if you have family video on VHS, digitize it or loose it.
The solution is hard-drives. Especially for the guy with high-speed internet who records TV on cassette??!!!! Although the movie studios want to lock you into a single degradable physical object, they will lose.
I love the jump to the scene of a DVD. I love stop a VHS tape, pull it out, watch something else, then put the first one back in and it's still on the same spot.
I still have a VCR because I refuse to pay for cable and a digital recorder. I record all my favorite shows in my VCR so I can fast forward through the commercials.
I'm a frugal man who hates to part with is money, unless it's a really worthy cause, like high speed internet or my iPod.
My hubby is a movie collector. We have 400+ movies, mainly VHS. The problem is they take up a lot of space. A LOT. And moving with them is a giant PITA.
My kids have been watching the same Thomas the Tank Engine video for years, but the Letter Factory DVD video I bought a few months ago is already junk because the toddler scratched it getting it in and out of the case.
We'll be sticking with VHS so long as there is a toddler in the house.
My husband and I work for top companies in the world, and we absolutely hate it. The jobs we applied for are not the jobs we have been given. My supervisor is a 12yr old moron who thinks he's right and has the best ideas, totally clueless that the rest of the department hates him because he has manageritis. I've told him off countless times and he doesn't get it. My husband works in IT and somehow got stuck planning furniture moves. It's so draining to come home everyday exhausted from the sagas at work. Where's the part on how to think positive and attract the job you want? I must admit, I'm not a self help guru, but I read The Secret. Helps until I get to work. Have thought about throwing it at my boss, but wouldn't really give me that positive thinking over time. It has some good points too, and actually, we were able to sell our house in 4 days and in this market...maybe time to read it again and chant. I want the manual on how to outwit, outlast management. Where's that book?!!!
I like money. I like to work. I enjoy being able to have the diverse options that financial security allows. BUT--the thought of "living in a mansion or driving a fancy car" kind of make me feel sick. I hope to live in my small-scale, 100-year-old house that was built in simpler times and drive my 21-year-old classic car until I die. (Although I may upgrade the car to something more eco.) Having financial security is great. Flaunting money in a vain effort to impress others does not lead to a healthy life, in my opinion. But maybe that's just me.
A CEO should be able to make whatever they can convince the board members to give, plain and simple. Now, it comes down to stockholders holding the boards accountable for their decisions. If the CEO is not worth what he is being paid, in your opinion, then hold the board accountable. If you are concerned about a specific company, get some shares.
I, however, have a beef with large severance packages. At the absolute most, these CEOs should get six months worth of base salary, and they should be held to the same rules as other employees when it comes to vesting of stock options, etc. This is me speaking as shareholder, not a greedy hater of those that earn more than me (because that is not what I am). As a shareholder, an owner of a company, I don't want to reward someone for a lack of performance. It is as simple as that.
I think you need to divide the CEOs into 2 groups. One group, where the CEO started or toiled from scratch. Those CEOs certainly deserve whatever they want, since it is their efforts that made the company what it is.
The second group, "walk in" CEOs, are certainly undeserving on such exorbitant salaries. They are paid this way because it is an image game to the corporate board. I bet you that one can find CEOs cheaper and just as good to run the company, but the corporate boards refuse. They want the best because they think they need best to get the same job done. The truth is that this knowledge that can be found in the overpriced CEOs can be found in an abundance of under priced CEOs.
So what you see is the corporate board showing they can spend more money than the next company to find overpriced talent, just as they would to find an much wanted athlete. And since everything trickles down to the bottom line, good luck finding cheap tickets at the next football game (if you know what I mean)
Whether you love or hate money, money is a tool to fulfilling your goals. You shouldn't become emotionally attached or even avoid it. Loving it won't necessarily make you more money unless you find ways to increase your income. Hating it will just won't make current financial problems go away, or secure a future for your retirement. Take a balanced approach to your life.
1 - Am I saving for a purpose? Without a purpose, you have no incentive to save...
2 - Do I have my money setup for retirement on an ongoing and consistent basis to reach that goal?
3 - Is my money earning the interest it should to get me there? Don't assume that it will, but use a money calculator to find. If not, what should you be investing in?
4 - Do you have a guide to help decide what to invest in and why traditional investing doesn't work? (OK, a little self promotion - I wrote a guide on my site, but you can also listen to greats like Warren Buffet or Ben Franklin who preach similar investment philosophies).
The most important thing you can do about money is to find pathways - a pathway to invest, a pathway to save, a pathway way to get out of debt or a pathway to achieve your goals.
I accidentally found your page, yesterday i watched a re-run of Oprah with Dr. Oz, he mentioned and showed purslane as being very healthy to eat, then i saw it and remembered that i yanked a similar weed out of my garden recently, so i spent most of today googling the web for purslane and also stumbled onto your page, thank you for your insights and humor, this has been very educational, now i'm going to make salad out of the purslane and cook the amaranth from my (weed) garden and shock my niehgbors and guest when i offer it to them!
Why couldn't she just say that most ethnic markets have certain ingredients at lower prices?
And a gallon jar of kimchee isn't $3. A little jar is $3! That stuff is expensive, even in Koreatown.
"white" markets have some things at better prices, too. That's why some ethnic people shop around, because they don't want to get jacked by the stores.
If you're lucky enough to live in a diverse area, by all means, shop everywhere. You'll find some different things, and even learn a lot about our country. I once saw a frozen armadillo at an Asian store here -- they were catering to Vietnamese from Texas.
First is that stockholders in a company lack the power to control the CEO's pay. The people who might have been the people to say no, like bankers and possibly labor reps, aren't present. Penny-ante shareholders who wring their hands at the CEO's paycheck should learn to shut the hell up and count their meager dividends from their 100 shares of stock. Corporate democracy is one dollar, one vote.
Second, some CEOs do have a stake in the company, because they're kind of like banks. They have a lot of capital that they invest in the company, by purchasing the stock.
Third, lately, it seems like capitalism is just a big cartel. In order to participate, you need someone to get you in with the "in crowd." So you need the CEO to keep you in the game. With billions of dollars at stake, why waste money on a no-name CEO who can't get a phone call in to anyone important who can invest in the company.
Fourth, it's the job of the CEO to treat the workers in whatever way it takes to get them to perform at the highest productivity for the least cost. If that means paying lobbyists to get Congress to decimate labor laws, then, the wise CEO will budget for that.
Fourth - our CEO President and VP have done quite fine with the country. They've helped steer the ship of state in the direction of larger profits for the oil companies and private armies.
Sixth - people talk about CEOs "working". They aren't paid to "work". They're paid for their connections and decision-making leadership. Their leadership isn't about "leading" per-se, but making decisions that put the corporation in the proper alignment with other corporations, to avoid unnecessary competition and conflict that can reduce profits. It's about moving in the right direction to enter and dominate emerging niche markets that have been defined by the small businesses.
"Reward for hard work" is an ethos that's taught to the serfs and peons in our economy. The CEOs are more like princes and kings, valued for their power and not their labor. Justifying their pay based on their "hard work" is total bullshit. There's no way an exceptional human being can be 300 times more productive than the average human being.
Does a fast runner finish the mile in 1/300th of the time it takes you? I don't think there's anyone running the "1.4 second mile".
Can a graduate of Evelyn Wood read a novel in two minutes? Can a super-bricklayer build a wall in three minutes?
No, and no.
A better example is the difference between a jet plane and a pedestrian. A pedestrian walks at a leisurely 1 mile per hour. The jet plane flies at 600 miles per hour. The CEO is like the plane. The CEO is an aluminum tube filled with tubes, computers, fuel, and human cargo, kind of like a slave ship. Except it's more like one of those giant anime robots, with a guy in the big robot, controlling it in a battle against another robot. So the CEO is like a giant anime robot, slave ship, that moves at 600 miles per hour.
For The Lust Of Money?....It's as shallow as the relationships built upon it. As disposable as the beliefs it betrays. As empty as the convictions it buys and the content of character it dissolves. It is as deceiving in promise and intent as the clutched tight fist it hides. As ugly as the nightmare it creates. As vulnerable as the heart it breaks. As fraudulent in power as the arrogance it breeds in. As enticing as heroine is to its addict. As unforgiving as the face it has aged. It is the law lived, the law broken. The ruler of many, the leader of none...The deal maker, the deal breaker. It is the reason...it is the cost. Loyal to no one, not even its lover...For Lust of Money...
That's true, just wanting wealth vs. being greedy about wealth are two totally different things. On a personal level, I don't think that wealth is really an end to itself. But financial wealth is not an inherently bad thing either to avoid so there is no point in hating wealth.
In the end, like Ken said, money is just a tool. A painter can have the most expensive and extensive brush set and exotic paints, and yet still be an awful painter. And alternatively, a painter can have the simplest and most basic tools yet be a great painter. It's not what you own or the number of tools that makes you valuable to other people, but rather-- what you do constructively with it.
Doesn't it seem odd that the "CEO" of America - a.k.a. the President - makes nowhere near the kind of money that even lesser-paid CEOs often make? Something is terribly askew when the CEO of, for example, a county hospital in a city of roughly 100k people earns more in raw salary (to say nothing of addt'l perks & compensations) than the President of the United States?
Of course, we should also address the issue of the flabbergasting amounts of money that professional game-players - a.k.a. atheletes - earn. But I can at least choose not to buy insanely-priced tickets or the wares hawked during televised sports events and thereby have made some move to not pad their pockets with any of my money.
Personally, I think that a salary directly related to profits would be the best option. If I were deciding what a CEO's pay was for a huge corporation, it would be $100,000 (an easily sustainable living if that's all they made) plus 10% (or pick your number based on the company) of all profits. This way, they have money to survive on if the company was already posting a loss at the time of hiring, but the potential is huge. $1 billion dollar profit? I'd love that paycheck. $1 million dollar profit? I don't make $200,000.
This gives incentives for CEO's to perform well while not putting some artificial socialist CAP on their pay.
The best way to reduce CEO salaries is to raise wages. Wages cut into the profits used to pay CEOs. With thousands of workers at a large firm, a $1 a day raise can cut millions of dollars into a CEO's pay. Force the bosses to hire the janitors as real employees who get health insurance, and not as subcontracted labor paid minimum wage with no benefits, and you'll find the CEO's pay's cut just a bit to pay for these janitors.
How to do this? When the janitors form a union, and sue the company to hire them as real employees, or demand more from their subcontractor, the desk-jockeys should join their strike.
I love Myscha's point about getting a salary in retrospect. We have lived in a series of fixer-uppers which I've been able to improve dramatically during my time at home.
Each home has netted us around $50,000 for 2 years. Not only was that tax-free gain, but the "salary in retrospect" did not increase our taxable income in the way that even a $25,000 office job would have bumped us into the next bracket.
I registered on their site and never received my wubbanub and I also never got an e-mail from the. I have e-mailed them several times. They do not respond. DO NO WASTE YOUR TIME.
Who 'should' decide on CEOs' salaries? Certainly not you or the government.
It's like that numbskull of a congresswoman - Maxine Waters! She actually threatened nationalizing the oil companies. Yea, right, the government could do a better job! They'd have idiots like Water's running serious companies! Ha, it's laughable - no frightening because so many of you agree!
The owners - stockholders - can vote or sell their shares if they disagree with anything a public company does. Yes, even now, they still retain that freedom.
Never ceases to amaze me how many people - generally liberal thinking folks - who want someone, the big assed government, to tell others how to live their lives! The concept of government control really rubs me the wrong way.
But that's me. Call me revolutionary.
Vote Obama (and, yes, McCane, because he's a more centered liberal) if you want more socialism, more government control!
People, can you see which way we're headed?
I'm still waiting on my X-Men DVD to come back too. I've been waiting for about 4 years.
I've never had a problem with a DVD player conking out, 10+ years and still going strong. Have you ever tried a laser lens cleaner? That may be all you need...
Yikes, that's a typo! I meant $23 for a gallon jar of kimchee, which is how much I saw it for recently at one of our larger, more expensive markets.
And those VHS tapes from the 80s are probably unwatchable. Magnetic tape only has a shelf life of about 15 years. That may be no big deal for movies, but if you have family video on VHS, digitize it or loose it.
I can't believe the audacity of the commenter who talked about how much people should be "allowed" to be paid.
Hello! When the government gets to decide how much you can or cannot be paid as a privately employed person, we call that Communism. No thank you.
The solution is hard-drives. Especially for the guy with high-speed internet who records TV on cassette??!!!! Although the movie studios want to lock you into a single degradable physical object, they will lose.
I love the jump to the scene of a DVD. I love stop a VHS tape, pull it out, watch something else, then put the first one back in and it's still on the same spot.
I still have a VCR because I refuse to pay for cable and a digital recorder. I record all my favorite shows in my VCR so I can fast forward through the commercials.
I'm a frugal man who hates to part with is money, unless it's a really worthy cause, like high speed internet or my iPod.
My hubby is a movie collector. We have 400+ movies, mainly VHS. The problem is they take up a lot of space. A LOT. And moving with them is a giant PITA.
I couldn't agree more!
My kids have been watching the same Thomas the Tank Engine video for years, but the Letter Factory DVD video I bought a few months ago is already junk because the toddler scratched it getting it in and out of the case.
We'll be sticking with VHS so long as there is a toddler in the house.
My husband and I work for top companies in the world, and we absolutely hate it. The jobs we applied for are not the jobs we have been given. My supervisor is a 12yr old moron who thinks he's right and has the best ideas, totally clueless that the rest of the department hates him because he has manageritis. I've told him off countless times and he doesn't get it. My husband works in IT and somehow got stuck planning furniture moves. It's so draining to come home everyday exhausted from the sagas at work. Where's the part on how to think positive and attract the job you want? I must admit, I'm not a self help guru, but I read The Secret. Helps until I get to work. Have thought about throwing it at my boss, but wouldn't really give me that positive thinking over time. It has some good points too, and actually, we were able to sell our house in 4 days and in this market...maybe time to read it again and chant. I want the manual on how to outwit, outlast management. Where's that book?!!!
I like money. I like to work. I enjoy being able to have the diverse options that financial security allows. BUT--the thought of "living in a mansion or driving a fancy car" kind of make me feel sick. I hope to live in my small-scale, 100-year-old house that was built in simpler times and drive my 21-year-old classic car until I die. (Although I may upgrade the car to something more eco.) Having financial security is great. Flaunting money in a vain effort to impress others does not lead to a healthy life, in my opinion. But maybe that's just me.
A CEO should be able to make whatever they can convince the board members to give, plain and simple. Now, it comes down to stockholders holding the boards accountable for their decisions. If the CEO is not worth what he is being paid, in your opinion, then hold the board accountable. If you are concerned about a specific company, get some shares.
I, however, have a beef with large severance packages. At the absolute most, these CEOs should get six months worth of base salary, and they should be held to the same rules as other employees when it comes to vesting of stock options, etc. This is me speaking as shareholder, not a greedy hater of those that earn more than me (because that is not what I am). As a shareholder, an owner of a company, I don't want to reward someone for a lack of performance. It is as simple as that.
I think you need to divide the CEOs into 2 groups. One group, where the CEO started or toiled from scratch. Those CEOs certainly deserve whatever they want, since it is their efforts that made the company what it is.
The second group, "walk in" CEOs, are certainly undeserving on such exorbitant salaries. They are paid this way because it is an image game to the corporate board. I bet you that one can find CEOs cheaper and just as good to run the company, but the corporate boards refuse. They want the best because they think they need best to get the same job done. The truth is that this knowledge that can be found in the overpriced CEOs can be found in an abundance of under priced CEOs.
So what you see is the corporate board showing they can spend more money than the next company to find overpriced talent, just as they would to find an much wanted athlete. And since everything trickles down to the bottom line, good luck finding cheap tickets at the next football game (if you know what I mean)
Whether you love or hate money, money is a tool to fulfilling your goals. You shouldn't become emotionally attached or even avoid it. Loving it won't necessarily make you more money unless you find ways to increase your income. Hating it will just won't make current financial problems go away, or secure a future for your retirement. Take a balanced approach to your life.
1 - Am I saving for a purpose? Without a purpose, you have no incentive to save...
2 - Do I have my money setup for retirement on an ongoing and consistent basis to reach that goal?
3 - Is my money earning the interest it should to get me there? Don't assume that it will, but use a money calculator to find. If not, what should you be investing in?
4 - Do you have a guide to help decide what to invest in and why traditional investing doesn't work? (OK, a little self promotion - I wrote a guide on my site, but you can also listen to greats like Warren Buffet or Ben Franklin who preach similar investment philosophies).
The most important thing you can do about money is to find pathways - a pathway to invest, a pathway to save, a pathway way to get out of debt or a pathway to achieve your goals.
I accidentally found your page, yesterday i watched a re-run of Oprah with Dr. Oz, he mentioned and showed purslane as being very healthy to eat, then i saw it and remembered that i yanked a similar weed out of my garden recently, so i spent most of today googling the web for purslane and also stumbled onto your page, thank you for your insights and humor, this has been very educational, now i'm going to make salad out of the purslane and cook the amaranth from my (weed) garden and shock my niehgbors and guest when i offer it to them!
@brownie - :-)
Why couldn't she just say that most ethnic markets have certain ingredients at lower prices?
And a gallon jar of kimchee isn't $3. A little jar is $3! That stuff is expensive, even in Koreatown.
"white" markets have some things at better prices, too. That's why some ethnic people shop around, because they don't want to get jacked by the stores.
If you're lucky enough to live in a diverse area, by all means, shop everywhere. You'll find some different things, and even learn a lot about our country. I once saw a frozen armadillo at an Asian store here -- they were catering to Vietnamese from Texas.
"Does living in a mansion and driving a fancy car make you unattractive, or attractive?"
It makes you a big honkin' target.
I've known wealthy people with high-consumption lifestyles targeted by every huckster out there.
My net worth and income are...comfortable, but I make sure to live in a modest home, wear jeans, and drive a 5 year old car.
I splurge out of town, on vacation, but here locally I'm a regular Joe.
And that's the way I like it.
There are multiple problems going on here.
First is that stockholders in a company lack the power to control the CEO's pay. The people who might have been the people to say no, like bankers and possibly labor reps, aren't present. Penny-ante shareholders who wring their hands at the CEO's paycheck should learn to shut the hell up and count their meager dividends from their 100 shares of stock. Corporate democracy is one dollar, one vote.
Second, some CEOs do have a stake in the company, because they're kind of like banks. They have a lot of capital that they invest in the company, by purchasing the stock.
Third, lately, it seems like capitalism is just a big cartel. In order to participate, you need someone to get you in with the "in crowd." So you need the CEO to keep you in the game. With billions of dollars at stake, why waste money on a no-name CEO who can't get a phone call in to anyone important who can invest in the company.
Fourth, it's the job of the CEO to treat the workers in whatever way it takes to get them to perform at the highest productivity for the least cost. If that means paying lobbyists to get Congress to decimate labor laws, then, the wise CEO will budget for that.
Fourth - our CEO President and VP have done quite fine with the country. They've helped steer the ship of state in the direction of larger profits for the oil companies and private armies.
Sixth - people talk about CEOs "working". They aren't paid to "work". They're paid for their connections and decision-making leadership. Their leadership isn't about "leading" per-se, but making decisions that put the corporation in the proper alignment with other corporations, to avoid unnecessary competition and conflict that can reduce profits. It's about moving in the right direction to enter and dominate emerging niche markets that have been defined by the small businesses.
"Reward for hard work" is an ethos that's taught to the serfs and peons in our economy. The CEOs are more like princes and kings, valued for their power and not their labor. Justifying their pay based on their "hard work" is total bullshit. There's no way an exceptional human being can be 300 times more productive than the average human being.
Does a fast runner finish the mile in 1/300th of the time it takes you? I don't think there's anyone running the "1.4 second mile".
Can a graduate of Evelyn Wood read a novel in two minutes? Can a super-bricklayer build a wall in three minutes?
No, and no.
A better example is the difference between a jet plane and a pedestrian. A pedestrian walks at a leisurely 1 mile per hour. The jet plane flies at 600 miles per hour. The CEO is like the plane. The CEO is an aluminum tube filled with tubes, computers, fuel, and human cargo, kind of like a slave ship. Except it's more like one of those giant anime robots, with a guy in the big robot, controlling it in a battle against another robot. So the CEO is like a giant anime robot, slave ship, that moves at 600 miles per hour.
And, you're a pedestrian.
For The Lust Of Money?....It's as shallow as the relationships built upon it. As disposable as the beliefs it betrays. As empty as the convictions it buys and the content of character it dissolves. It is as deceiving in promise and intent as the clutched tight fist it hides. As ugly as the nightmare it creates. As vulnerable as the heart it breaks. As fraudulent in power as the arrogance it breeds in. As enticing as heroine is to its addict. As unforgiving as the face it has aged. It is the law lived, the law broken. The ruler of many, the leader of none...The deal maker, the deal breaker. It is the reason...it is the cost. Loyal to no one, not even its lover...For Lust of Money...
That's true, just wanting wealth vs. being greedy about wealth are two totally different things. On a personal level, I don't think that wealth is really an end to itself. But financial wealth is not an inherently bad thing either to avoid so there is no point in hating wealth.
In the end, like Ken said, money is just a tool. A painter can have the most expensive and extensive brush set and exotic paints, and yet still be an awful painter. And alternatively, a painter can have the simplest and most basic tools yet be a great painter. It's not what you own or the number of tools that makes you valuable to other people, but rather-- what you do constructively with it.
Doesn't it seem odd that the "CEO" of America - a.k.a. the President - makes nowhere near the kind of money that even lesser-paid CEOs often make? Something is terribly askew when the CEO of, for example, a county hospital in a city of roughly 100k people earns more in raw salary (to say nothing of addt'l perks & compensations) than the President of the United States?
Of course, we should also address the issue of the flabbergasting amounts of money that professional game-players - a.k.a. atheletes - earn. But I can at least choose not to buy insanely-priced tickets or the wares hawked during televised sports events and thereby have made some move to not pad their pockets with any of my money.