Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid. Since then, CEO pay has skyrocketed to 280 times the pay of a typical worker; in big companies, to 354 times.

Meanwhile, over the same thirty-year time span the median American worker has seen no pay increase at all, adjusted for inflation. Even though the pay of male workers continues to outpace that of females, the typical male worker between the ages of 25 and 44 peaked in 1973 and has been dropping ever since. Since 2000, wages of the median male worker across all age brackets has dropped 10 percent, after inflation.

This growing divergence between CEO pay and that of the typical American worker isn't just wildly unfair. It's also bad for the economy. It means most workers these days lack the purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing -- contributing to the slowest recovery on record. Meanwhile, CEOs and other top executives use their fortunes to fuel speculative booms followed by busts.

Anyone who believes CEOs deserve this astronomical pay hasn't been paying attention. The entire stock market has risen to record highs. Most CEOs have done little more than ride the wave.

There's no easy answer for reversing this trend, but this week I'll be testifying in favor of a bill introduced in the California legislature that at least creates the right incentives. Other states would do well to take a close look.

The proposed legislation, SB 1372, sets corporate taxes according to the ratio of CEO pay to the pay of the company's typical worker. Corporations with low pay ratios get a tax break.Those with high ratios get a tax increase.

For example, if the CEO makes 100 times the median worker in the company, the company's tax rate drops from the current 8.8 percent down to 8 percent. If the CEO makes 25 times the pay of the typical worker, the tax rate goes down to 7 percent.

On the other hand, corporations with big disparities face higher taxes. If the CEO makes 200 times the typical employee, the tax rate goes to 9.5 percent; 400 times, to 13 percent.

The California Chamber of Commerce has dubbed this bill a "job killer," but the reality is the opposite. CEOs don't create jobs.Their customers create jobs by buying more of what their companies have to sell -- giving the companies cause to expand and hire.

So pushing companies to put less money into the hands of their CEOs and more into the hands of average employees creates more buying power among people who will buy, and therefore more jobs.

The other argument against the bill is it's too complicated. Wrong again. The Dodd-Frank Act already requires companies to publish the ratios of CEO pay to the pay of the company's median worker (the Securities and Exchange Commission is now weighing a proposal to implement this). So the California bill doesn't require companies to do anything more than they'll have to do under federal law. And the tax brackets in the bill are wide enough to make the computation easy.

What about CEO's gaming the system? Can't they simply eliminate low-paying jobs by subcontracting them to another company - thereby avoiding large pay disparities while keeping their own compensation in the stratosphere?

No. The proposed law controls for that. Corporations that begin subcontracting more of their low-paying jobs will have to pay a higher tax.

For the last thirty years, almost all the incentives operating on companies have been to lower the pay of their workers while increasing the pay of their CEOs and other top executives. It's about time some incentives were applied in the other direction.

The law isn't perfect, but it's a start. That the largest state in America is seriously considering it tells you something about how top heavy American business has become, and why it's time to do something serious about it

you by Jewh8ter2!

You came to the wrong place with your intelligent facts.

The people on here for the most part are mean yet, weak f*ckers who make $60,000 a year and love a good supply of poor people to pick on and abuse. They will always stick up for the CEO's as if in their own minds they are or will someday be one of them.

Have you heard of the one where CEO's of "non-profits" had their crony's enact a law that a charity CEO most be paid in equality to that of a private sector CEO?

Its all such a joke and these empty-eyed weirdos just stick up for them. Give em a couple hundred dollars over the next loser and they are quite happy & superior in their own silly minds.

Really, the most valuable job to society is a hospital cleaner, we'd all be dead without them and they couldn't even afford a shack in this town.

Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid

-------------------------------
that's a lie. if you worked and weren't a fucking drunk in the 80's you could get a good paying job

CEOS were far fewer and went poor, were not bailed out, if they failed

---------------------------

and gov workers were making 3x less comparatively. no wonder fucking why so many foreginers are in DC ousting whites to get at the jobs: which is theft now adays

--------------------------
your talking out your ass connecting things that never happended with no evidence. not here. not in fairfax

the terror of huge wage disperity, facism, and gov workers pay abusing citizens did not happen until the late 1990's when the foreigners started rushing in and bull o va came into power

============================

everthing in this area for 30 years is the work of democrats ousting richmond, skipping court, and refusing direct orders from republicans in richmond

so go ahead and complain. it's your fucking ass doing it.

and the difference is proof

proof 1: democrats have been in power 20 yrs. proof 2. democrats have 3x pay and built mc mansions and cheated HR to hire friends and family

you know what fuck off. i'm suing.

#3 this is NOT California. take your complaints there not here.

===========================
so obama ceo's who build businesses and buy farms using "grant money" (legally it's theft when abused) live it up buying crap mansions and sexing the beaches, off the tax payer - they don't actaully make any products like GE does (continually being attacked by china imports from California), are better than the ceo's who built things like, "frigid air, USA" ??

you simply have no argument to a republican in VA who was the subject of rampant abuse by democrats and is being asked to pay

i'm suing not only a little but in a bit way

i already filed it. and it is about the stolen money.

allot of the CEOs your talking about walked in to businesses that were already built and the owner died. some asses take control and start pyrammiding to get around share-holder voting laws and maknig golden parachutes: which is something the democrat supreme court just pushed aside as unimportant

today's companies are being built using grant money or from contract money earned by providing services to government (allot of cheating takes place)

=================

when are $150,000k a year gov workers going to start paying tax ?

they have many tax dodges and enable tax dodging to keep their pay high.

AT even $60,000 they can fail continually and pay fines or what and always win over someone who's better and in private industry getting $10,000 who cannot afford a single large loss

and democrats are continually concocting large losses

====================

maybe your right about modern CEO however it's been democrats who've continually been stealing from inside the industry and supporting pay abuse and gov abuse

and the evidence is clear that it's worse and higher in democrat areas and under obama

under obama NY stock exchange can steal at will without making products in USA , niggers can buy farms and start businesses through politically charged loans which whites would not have been given 30 years ago

and under obama loosers like microsoft (who lost to linux and appple)
are made winners because of stock options and by getting laws written and grants and conracts to make them the sole provider

under obama the idiocy of having 500 501c charity organizations and less than no aid for anyoen needing aide: has expanded. and while illegals are in gov giving illegals aid they are refusing aide to white people

--------------------------------
as a denizen who followed rules and expected other to within at least crimininally cuplable laws

go to hell you might have a bitch but it is not with me

i'm suing

DMHNm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on
> average, 30 times what their typical worker was
> paid
>
> -------------------------------
> that's a lie. if you worked and weren't a fucking
> drunk in the 80's you could get a good paying job
>
> CEOS were far fewer and went poor, were not bailed
> out, if they failed
>
> ---------------------------
>
> and gov workers were making 3x less comparatively.
> no wonder fucking why so many foreginers are in
> DC ousting whites to get at the jobs: which is
> theft now adays
>
> --------------------------
> your talking out your ass connecting things that
> never happended with no evidence. not here. not
> in fairfax
>
> the terror of huge wage disperity, facism, and gov
> workers pay abusing citizens did not happen until
> the late 1990's when the foreigners started
> rushing in and bull o va came into power
>
> ============================
>
> everthing in this area for 30 years is the work of
> democrats ousting richmond, skipping court, and
> refusing direct orders from republicans in
> richmond
>
> so go ahead and complain. it's your fucking ass
> doing it.
>
> and the difference is proof
>
> proof 1: democrats have been in power 20 yrs.
> proof 2. democrats have 3x pay and built mc
> mansions and cheated HR to hire friends and
> family
>
> you know what fuck off. i'm suing.
>
> #3 this is NOT California. take your complaints
> there not here.
>
> ===========================
> so obama ceo's who build businesses and buy farms
> using "grant money" (legally it's theft when
> abused) live it up buying crap mansions and sexing
> the beaches, off the tax payer - they don't
> actaully make any products like GE does
> (continually being attacked by china imports from
> California), are better than the ceo's who built
> things like, "frigid air, USA" ??
>
> you simply have no argument to a republican in VA
> who was the subject of rampant abuse by democrats
> and is being asked to pay
>
> i'm suing not only a little but in a bit way
>
> i already filed it. and it is about the stolen
> money.


LOL if you actually believe any of those lies you are a bigger idiot than people who support the current oligarchy in power. You sir are an idiot.

Our now infamous one percent own more than 35 percent of the nation's wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 40 percent of the country is in debt. Just this past Tuesday, the 15th of April -- Tax Day -- the AFL-CIO reported that last year the chief executive officers of 350 top American corporations were paid 331 times more money than the average US worker. Those executives made an average of $11.7 million dollars compared to the average worker who earned $35,239 dollars.

As that analysis circulated on Tax Day, the economic analyst Robert Reich reminded us that in addition to getting the largest percent of total national income in nearly a century, many in the one percent are paying a lower federal tax rate than a lot of people in the middle class. You may remember that an obliging Congress, of both parties, allows high rollers of finance the privilege of "carried interest," a tax rate below that of their secretaries and clerks

at state and local levels, while the poorest fifth of Americans pay an average tax rate of over 11 percent, the richest one percent of the country pay -- are you ready for this? -- half that rate. Now, neither Nature nor Nature's God drew up our tax codes; that's the work of legislators -- politicians -- and it's one way they have, as Chief Justice John Roberts might put it, of expressing gratitude to their donors: "Oh, Mr. Adelson, we so appreciate your generosity that we cut your estate taxes so you can give $8 billion as a tax-free payment to your heirs, even though down the road the public will have to put up $2.8 billion to compensate for the loss in tax revenue."

I'm all for CA doing whatever the hell they want to do to the people in their state. Tax the hell out of them if they want. Just don't come whining for federal bailouts like Detroit and Chicago are doing when all their policies end up bankrupting them.

"but the AFL-CIO came up with that, it MUST BE LIES" stay stupid my friends. Keep listening to your corporate overlords and Consume,Consume CONSUME!

the U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined (or the next 14 nations in order of spending, depending on where you read), six times more than its nearest military rival (the Chinese). And it incarcerates people at five times the world average, per capita, and has the most prisoners of any nation, beating all those so-called tyrannies, even North Korea.

And then there was the recent sub-prime mortgage / derivatives meltdown, the biggest economic failure in history.

So we've got to suppress and dominate the population, spy on their every conversation, and we've got the largest economic failure in history....

...But capitalism's Okey-dokey, I tell you!

Seriously, it's beyond astonishing to hear from the staunch defenders of what is essentially one of history's biggest failures, and obviously so. Capitalism, gotta love its propaganda!

okieDokieArtichokie!!!!! Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the U.S. spends more on its military than the rest
> of the world combined (or the next 14 nations in
> order of spending, depending on where you read),
> six times more than its nearest military rival
> (the Chinese). And it incarcerates people at five
> times the world average, per capita, and has the
> most prisoners of any nation, beating all those
> so-called tyrannies, even North Korea.
>
> And then there was the recent sub-prime mortgage /
> derivatives meltdown, the biggest economic failure
> in history.
>
> So we've got to suppress and dominate the
> population, spy on their every conversation, and
> we've got the largest economic failure in
> history....
>
> ...But capitalism's Okey-dokey, I tell you!
>
> Seriously, it's beyond astonishing to hear from
> the staunch defenders of what is essentially one
> of history's biggest failures, and obviously so.
> Capitalism, gotta love its propaganda!


Yep. Just ask the people in Cuba or Venezula how great socialism is working out for them. It's not captialism. It's our corruption of capitalism and how politicans take advantage of the corruption and vice-versa.

The US, in about 120 years, rose to become a world power. In about 200 years, it became the dominate country in the history of the planet. It has invented more medicines, technologies and services in the past 60 years than the rest of the world did in the previous 6000 years. It is the only country to put a man on the moon and that was almost 50 years ago and with less than 10 years of effort.

Now, we suck. Thanks liberals and big-government-types on both sides of the aisle!

Inequality reduces the incomes of the middle class, and therefore demand, which in turn stunts growth. To understand why, imagine running a car dealership. Would you prefer if 1 person in your time owned 99% of the wealth and the rest of the population had nothing, or if wealth was distributed more equally, so that more people could purchase your cars?

INEQUALITY HURTS THE ECONOMY. ITS NOT SOCIALISM TO WANT A SLICE OF THE PIE THAT THE GREEDY BASTARDS ARE HOARDING FOR THEMSLEVES. GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK FUCKING SKULL.

Every other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has far lower levels of inequality than the United States. Since there are no economic benefits of inequality, why hasn't the right conceded the argument? Because it's based on class interest, not empirical evidence.

Corporate taxes don't make any sense. Any tax imposed on a corporation doesn't come out of the profits. This is a cost factored into the price of the product delivered to the middle class (since the upper class doesn't purchase enough products to make a difference and lower income classes don't make purchases other than necessity). So corporate taxes turn into a double tax on the middle class after you count the sales tax on a product.

Clever huh?

XYkc9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Corporate taxes don't make any sense. Any tax
> imposed on a corporation doesn't come out of the
> profits. This is a cost factored into the price
> of the product delivered to the middle class
> (since the upper class doesn't purchase enough
> products to make a difference and lower income
> classes don't make purchases other than
> necessity). So corporate taxes turn into a double
> tax on the middle class after you count the sales
> tax on a product.
>
> Clever huh?

You know whats even more clever? Corporations are people. People get double taxed to death already. So If Corporations are people LET THEM GET TAXED to death too! Hey whats good for the goose!