"The More They Gain, Execs Lose Public Trust" (by a rich guy who gets it)

This was on the back page of the Business section of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The writer is retired CEO.
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"A continuing series of articles in the business section of the Star Tribune highlights the annual pay packages of our local corporate executives. Compensation, including gains on stock options, of $10 million or more is not uncommon.

At the same time, the paper has reported on numerous layoffs at local companies (including at the Star Tribune itself), and such events as the recent termination of higher-paid employees at Circuit City who were replaced by those willing to accept lower pay.

The issues are not local; they are national in scope. I believe that if these practices continue unchecked, the electorate's support of the political/economic concept of democratic capitalism will be severely tested.

Our nation's great wealth was the product of free-market capitalism operating within, and ultimately governed by, the political system of democracy. America's social equilibrium has been achieved through an unwritten contract that tolerates the accumulation of great wealth by some as long as those at the bottom see a steady improvement in their incomes."

Read more at

http://www.startribune.com/535/story/1220689.html

This is a guy who tells it like it is.

Wow..a Rich guy gets it..wish he'd hammer it home harder to the rich piggies who STILL do not get it...Hammer it in places the poor are excluded like executive boardrooms,company behind closed door deals,on the greens and in the snooty country clubs as well.Most people get this fact,Seems it is only those who think they are somehow above it all who REFUSE to get it, infected by that over optimistic ever blinded sickening hubris of the fortunate ones, going on as others suffer waving their thievery as if they deserved it all, The rich who won't want to"get it" are arrogant and elitist at their own peril.

for execs. Their bonuses aren't merit-based at all.

FlyerTalk, a board for people enrolled in frequent flyer prorams.

An amazing number of people who were in the highest tiers of more than one frequent flyer program (meaning that they fly over 100,000 miles per year each on more than one airline) thought that the Northwest execs had done a splendid job and that they deserved every cent of their bonuses for "saving the company" (never mind that it was equally "deserving" execs who brought the company to the brink in the first place). At the same time, they thought that the flight attendants, the pilots, the mechanics, and the other people who do what is supposed to be the actual WORK of an airline, namely, taking people from one place to another safely, were a bunch of whiners and were "ruining the airline with their attitude."

A couple of flight attendants entered the discussion and said that they were totally demoralized and were planning their escape routes; in the meantime, they were just marking time until they could find another job.

The highest level frequent flyers (corporate execs themselves, perhaps?) were the least sympathetic to the rank-and-file employees and the most likely to support the post-banruptcy bonuses for the Northwest poo-bahs.

Some of us more lowly frequent flyers tried to defend the rank-and=file employees and say that the rank-and-file employees would have had a better attitude if they had seen the executives sacrificing as well, and for our trouble, we were told that we were burdened with "outdated, Communistic ideas."

It's arrogant assholes like that who make one think, "We want our revolution now."

fat cat CEO and replacing him with one who is willing to work for less?

Removal by Disgruntled Employee??
:evilgrin:

with qualified and experienced CEOs from other industrialized nations (think: Japan, Germany, etc.?) who will do the same job for less - and put a downward pressure on the ridiculous pay packages approved for US CEOs. Knock down the idea that the only way to get "quality" business leadership is to offer these obscene pay and rewards packages that offer huge bonuses even when the companies perform poorly.

:shrug: Just saying - if it "works" for the workers - why not let it work at the top, as well.