The subject always comes up. That is the subject of highly paid executives, some of them so high that it staggers the imagination. Well, it’s making the rounds once again. Did you know that there are some governmental officials, who shall remain nameless for now, that are talking about what to do regarding the inequality of income between people – usually they mean white people versus people of color – and they never touch on any of the reasons for such vast differences or inequality of income.
The complainers conveniently overlook the fact that some people work exceptionally hard in order to get ahead or that they concentrate on their education so as to be best at something. Or maybe they were naturally born with those traits. Some people do well simply because they are in the right place at the right time or maybe it’s because they know the right person. Regardless, you can never do it on just nothing. You have to have some talent or ability to begin with.
The question is: Excluding those individuals with very extraordinary talents such as those in entertainment, sports or service industries or in those instances where the individual owns his or her own company, should we be forced to pay executives, regardless of their so-called talent, tens of millions of dollars, or more, per year?
Stockholders that go along, because they don’t know any better, or maybe they are cajoled or bullied in to going along, with outrageous salary/stock arrangements together with equally ludicrous retirement packages, deserve what they get when the chips are down and the usual you-know-what hits the fan.
Take the last recession in which a number of corporate executives were getting their full salaries, and in some instances bonuses, while their company was in the toilet. They should have been held accountable and immediately terminated so that they would know what it’s like to be on unemployment. Instead, they were rewarded for doing a piss-poor job.
What about those executives that made their companies profitable by farming out thousands of jobs to companies overseas? One of those individuals, who made a ton of money by doing just that, is now pursuing the nomination to run for President of the US of A.
I can tell you from my own personal experience, which includes working as an Actuary for most of my life, with and for companies of all sizes, generally, the higher up that one climbs on the corporate ladder of success, the LESS work they do and the MORE they get paid. There are of course exceptions.
Is there such a thing as inequality of income across this great land of ours? Damn right there is. Do we ever want the government to tell us what rules to apply in order to offset this inequality? Hell, no. How then do we deal with it? By ourselves? Certainly not by the legal profession and all the bullshit they can contrive, but by the public and the average stockholder applying something that they haven’t done in a very, very long time – good old fashioned judgement and common sense.
Will the powers that be take heed of what I’ve said? I doubt it.
Once again, you’re right on target. Will that ever change with grossly highly paid executives who are so not worthy of their astronomical
incomes getting less money? When pigs fly — and I’m looking at the sky and I don’t see one flying pig!!! But we’re talking about the greedy
ones. The school districts, too, fall prey to that where certain administrators and higher-ups get ridiculously high salaries while the money
that should be spent on academics and students is nowhere to be found. This highway robbery is here to stay!
What about inequality of effort by staying in school or sticking with an imperfect job?
Did you know that Obama wants to change local zoning laws to create more diversity
of housing by denying communities HUD grants that do not cooperate?