An interesting bit in, of all places, Gawker:
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I've generally thought that CEO and top-tier executive pay is driven in large part by incestuous self-interest more than any rational, empirical justifications, contrary to the fawning obsequiousness paid to this corporate upper echelon/elite by too many on the right. Perhaps the GM fiasco provides yet another microcosm, as if yet another one is really needed, of this. While there can be many valid arguments made against income inequity on a broader social level, perhaps a more compelling argument to those on the right might be that these soaring incomes are neither truly earned, justified or profitable. So even if the right doesn’t give a poo about the poor or any other social concern, they do tend to get all weak at the knees when PROFIT is introduced. They will have to get over their reflexive idolatry and adoration reflexively given to those of a certain position/net-wealth though.
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Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, spent yesterday being grilled by Congress for her company's years-long failure to fix a known safety defect in its cars. Barra's lack of answers is being blamed on the size of the organization she leads. Which is a great argument against the salaries that CEOs earn. GM's failure to recall millions of dangerous cars goes back a decade. Mary Barra took over as CEO in January. That is a convenient way for both GM and Barra to elude blame, but the issue this speaks to is a structural one in corporate America. Mary Barra's pay package this year could add up to more than $14 million. The problem here is that high ranking corporate managers want to have it both ways: they want the pay of people who carry ultimate responsibility, without any of the responsibility. Why, after all, do we pay CEOs tens of millions of dollars? The average CEO is paid hundreds of times more money than their average employee. Why? Research has shown there's no correlation between higher CEO pay and better company performance. Nor is there evidence that companies can can vault themselves ahead of their competitors by poaching their "superstar CEOs." The realistic reason that CEOs get paid so much, of course, is because their pay is set by a group of peers who all have a self-interest in keeping pay high, creating an upwards spiral that benefits all executives. But what of its alleged business justification? The ostensible justification for executives getting paid more than everyone else is that they have more responsibility than everyone else. They make the hard decisions. They are paid for their judgment. They certainly don't work harder than the janitor, but we suppose that their wisdom and knowledge is so valuable that its benefits for the company at large will outweigh their hefty pay packages. This is, in general, a farce... |
I've generally thought that CEO and top-tier executive pay is driven in large part by incestuous self-interest more than any rational, empirical justifications, contrary to the fawning obsequiousness paid to this corporate upper echelon/elite by too many on the right. Perhaps the GM fiasco provides yet another microcosm, as if yet another one is really needed, of this. While there can be many valid arguments made against income inequity on a broader social level, perhaps a more compelling argument to those on the right might be that these soaring incomes are neither truly earned, justified or profitable. So even if the right doesn’t give a poo about the poor or any other social concern, they do tend to get all weak at the knees when PROFIT is introduced. They will have to get over their reflexive idolatry and adoration reflexively given to those of a certain position/net-wealth though.
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