MSN - CEO Pay Rises - Just Give Your Check To Your CEO - He Needs It More Than You.

[TheMastersNemesis]

I am amazed how many workers support their CEO or corporation. I hear a lot of particularly young white males calling talk radio and defending their CEO or corporation with "they earned it" talking points. Yet the reason they will have no pension or good job by the time they are older.

It should be obvious that the reason workers are losing ground is that CEO's are getting most of the profits.

[rurallib]

1. there should be no one below the 1% that vote Republican

but somehow Republicans still get 50% of the vote.
Must be the same people.

[HughBeaumont]

2. It's a hell of a drug . . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth

Academy Award winning American filmmaker, author, and liberal political commentator Michael Moore is vocal in his opposition to the Horatio Alger myth. In 2003, Moore remarked, "So, here's my question: after fleecing the American public and destroying the American dream for most working people, how is it that, instead of being drawn and quartered and hung at dawn at the city gates, the rich got a big wet kiss from Congress in the form of a record tax break, and no one says a word? How can that be? I think it's because we're still addicted to the Horatio Alger fantasy drug. Despite all the damage and all the evidence to the contrary, the average American still wants to hang on to this belief that maybe, just maybe, he or she (mostly he) just might make it big after all".

snip

Harlon L. Dalton, Professor of Law at Yale University, not only objects to the Horatio Alger myth, but also maintains that it is socially destructive. Dalton explains that the Horatio Alger myth conveys three basic messages, &quot 1) each of us is judged solely on her or his own merits; (2) we each have a fair opportunity to develop those merits; and (3) ultimately, merit will out. Each of them is, to be charitable, problematic".[6] The first message is a variant on the rugged individualism ethos…In this form, the Horatio Alger myth suggests that success in life has nothing to do with pedigree, race, class background, gender, national origin, sexual orientation—in short, with anything beyond our individual control. Those variables may exist, but they play no appreciable role in how our actions are appraised".[6]

snip

The myth suggests we are judged solely on our individual merits, in turn implying that caste has little practical meaning, apart from race-based advantages or disadvantages. Generally Whites are more successful than African Americans, as they are facilitated by their preferred social position, while African Americans believe that they can "simply lift themselves up by their own bootstraps". It is in America's national interest, Dalton believes, to give the Horatio Alger myth a rest, because it is a mythology that assures us we can have it all, when in reality, "we live today in an era of diminished possibilities".

[Purplehazed]

3. Deliberate corporate training programs

Teaches/brainwashes employees to believe that their employment hinges on maximum return for the share holders, That wage concessions, lack of raises, decreased health benefits, elimination of pension programs are necessary for the health of the company. They say things like "If you believe that upper management earns too much, that limits should be set, then please tell us who should set the compensation limits for your job? The entry level worker perhaps?"

When Koch takes over a company, they send every employee through one of these programs called "MBM University"

[HughBeaumont]

4. Hilarious too, since "Shareholder Value" is a CHOICE . . .

. . . not the "legal obligation" everyone believes it is.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/dumbest-idea-world-corporate-americas-false-and-dangerous-ideology-shareholder-value?page=0%2C1&paging=off

This book argues that the Deepwater Horizon disaster is only one example of a larger problem that afflicts many public corporations today. That problem might be called shareholder value thinking. According to the doctrine of shareholder value, public corporations “belong” to their shareholders, and they exist for one purpose only, to maximize shareholders’ wealth. Shareholder wealth, in turn, is typically measured by share price—meaning share price today, not share price next year or next decade.

Shareholder value thinking is endemic in the business world today. Fifty years ago, if you had asked the directors or CEO of a large public company what the company’s purpose was, you might have been told the corporation had many purposes: to provide equity investors with solid returns, but also to build great products, to provide decent livelihoods for employees, and to contribute to the community and the nation. Today, you are likely to be told the company has but one purpose, to maximize its shareholders’ wealth. This sort of thinking drives directors and executives to run public firms like BP with a relentless focus on raising stock price. In the quest to “unlock shareholder value” they sell key assets, fire loyal employees, and ruthlessly squeeze the workforce that remains; cut back on product support, customer assistance, and research and development; delay replacing outworn, out- moded, and unsafe equipment; shower CEOs with stock options and expensive pay packages to “incentivize” them; drain cash reserves to pay large dividends and repurchase company shares, leveraging firms until they teeter on the brink of insolvency; and lobby regulators and Congress to change the law so they can chase short-term profits speculating in credit default swaps and other high-risk financial derivatives. They do these things even though many individual directors and executives feel uneasy about such strategies, intuiting that a single-minded focus on share price may not serve the interests of society, the company, or shareholders themselves.

This book examines and challenges the doctrine of shareholder value. It argues that shareholder value ideology is just that—an ideology, not a legal requirement or a practical necessity of modern business life. United States corporate law does not, and never has, required directors of public corporations to maximize either share price or shareholder wealth. To the contrary, as long as boards do not use their power to enrich themselves, the law gives them a wide range of discretion to run public corporations with other goals in mind, including growing the firm, creating quality products, protecting employees, and serving the public interest. Chasing shareholder value is a managerial choice, not a legal requirement.

[Purplehazed]

5. Insightful article

This book is now on my "must read" list. The article mirrors my experience in the corporate world which is gladly behind me. It is also very appropriate given the recent intense focus on the DOW as the sole indicator of the economy's health.

I am curious if the book delves into the issue of public corporations going private while maintaining the same "shareholder ideology". A case in point is the Koch brothers who most certainly espouse the primacy of the share holder. They have leveraged this ideology to become some of the wealthiest/pwerful.influential in the US.

[smirkymonkey]

6. The stupid just burns.