ROTTEN SONS-A-BITCHES! ALL THEY DID WAS STEAL IT FROM THOSE WHO WORKED ABD ACTUALLY CREATED THE WEALTH!by Jameson |
The country struggled, but if you happened to be a CEO of a major company, 2013 was a good year, indeed.
A USA Today review of the combined income of Standard & Poor's 500 companies, found that the average CEO was paid $10.2 million last year. That's an astonishing 13% increase in pay from just the year before. Things like salary and bonuses were factors, but the biggest payday for executives came from a rebounding stock market which - given the sizable stock options written into their contracts - means huge profits in a growing market.
"The stock market's rebound has created a massive wealth effect, and the speed with which people can amass hundreds of millions of dollars is accelerating," notes long-time corporate compensation analyst Paul Hodgson, who says 2013's batch of publicly held company mega-earners may be the largest since the 2008 financial crisis crippled Wall Street and corporate earnings.
In fact, some executives did much better than the average. USA Today identified four CEOs in particular that amassed dizzying fortunes in 2013.
These massive takes by company heads comes at a time when much of the country is struggling to get by. In a climate of growing frustration at the one percent, CEOs are in no rush to disclose how much they make. It also adds to the furious debate over how best to address growing wealth inequality.
By having their money tied to stock options, so the thinking goes, CEOs will have an incentive to grow their business and please the shareholders. Unfortunately, the stock market numbers are often divorced from what is good for the average employee or his productivity. It's no wonder we see that worker pay has stagnated and poorer Americans are still hurting from the recession, even while the stock market continues to break records.
Here is a graph that should give any economist nightmares:
The stock market increases have little influence on what workers make. It does, however, make a big difference to what executives make. Right now, with an economy beholden to the stock market numbers, America is ensuring that only the top earners in the country benefit from economic growth.
What's worse, consumer spending power has actually been falling (that's what happens when wages stagnate, but inflation keeps marching on). The actual purchasing power of the average American is in a decline year-by-year.
The time to act is now, but Congress continues to dither. It's hard to be motivated when the biggest campaign donations are coming from the companies telling you not to help their workers.
Now that corporations are seeing major profits while still managing to pay their workers very little, there is a clear incentive to maintain the status quo. It's the ultimate flaw in the wage earners playbook. By accepting a paycheck by time-served rather than, like an executive, company performance, you are forever cut off from reaping the real benefits of your labor. Things like federal and state laws, and unionization, are the typical methods of counteracting that untenable position. If there is one thing that workers have in their favor it is their vast numbers and the fact that they, you know, do something that gives their company value. Unfortunately, they are now playing in a rigged game. Corporations and politicians have colluded in order to strip away any power the workers might have. So-called "right to work" laws have blocked access to unions and collective bargaining rights have been eroded as well.
Rather than put the power into the people's hands through collective negotiations, politicians have made it so that they are the only ones who can truly get pay raises for workers. So far, despite the Obama administration's call to action, a group consisting of nearly every conservative and a few liberals have shown a steadfast opposition to having that discussion. The game has been decided in advance, there is a clear victor, and the ones sitting at the top of the food chain have already claimed the spoils.
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