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> Do the math. A counterpoint with 5 minutes of searching: from [1], Peter Kern (3rd highest paid CEO) got $296M in 2022 overseeing ~15k employees (from [2]).

> Do the math. A counterpoint with 5 minutes of searching: from [1], Peter Kern (3rd highest paid CEO) got $296M in 2022 overseeing ~15k employees (from [2]). Distribute that salary evenly and everyone gets a ~19k boost which, on an average base of $108k (from [3]), is about +17%, if I'm not mistaken. If you want an even more ludicrous example, David Baszucki (Roblox, 7th highest, also [1]) got $232M in 2022 overseeing ~1600 employees (from [4]). Even distribution gives a $145k boost on an average base of ~$135k (from [5]) is about +107%. Which is a bit better than Intel's +0.2%, no? In summary, you can pick and choose examples to make either point. [1] https://www.equilar.com/reports/95-equilar-new-york-times-top-200-highest-paid-ceos-2022 https://www.equilar.com/reports/95-equilar-new-york-times-to... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/EXPE/expedia/number-of-employees https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/EXPE/expedia/numbe... [3] https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Expedia%2C_Inc./Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Expedia%2C_Inc... [4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1279348/roblox-number-of-employees/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1279348/roblox-number-of... [5] https://www.comparably.com/companies/roblox/salaries https://www.comparably.com/companies/roblox/salaries

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
I said you will find outliers. Congratulations. You found one extreme case, and included links to some others. There are many. There are also 5000+ large companies in the US that employ tens of thousands of people. 20,000+ companies globally. This isn't the average. Use a normal distribution, and you'd expect 20+ companies with 3 sigma (where CEO pay would increase pay by 6%+). Corporate profits definitely don't have a normal distribution, neither does CEO pay. This isn't surprising to me. Elon Musk has $200B. He's an edge case of an edge case. Should we pretend all billionaires are like him, too? The average Billionaire has almost 50x less money. The average CEO makes much less than 50x the links you cited. The average CEO for the top 350 companies made $24M in 2020 (a good year). The average CEO for all companies over the last decade makes less than $1M - according to BLS it's $190k: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm#:~:text=%2445%2C760-,The%20median%20annual%20wage%20for%20chief%20executives%20was%20%24179%2C520%20in,percent%20earned%20more%20than%20%24208%2C000 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm#:~:tex.... And that's the average not the median - so people like the links you provided are skewing that higher than the median... > In summary, you can pick and choose examples to make either point. This is called cherry picking. You can always find what you're looking for if you're willing to cherry pick hard enough on a large dataset. Your starting hypothesis is that CEO pay is ridiculous - and you're finding examples to confirm that - rather than looking at averages to easily disprove the idea that the examples you cited are the exception not the norm.
- oreally 4y ago
  The cynicism is huge in your post. Still you gotta admit there is a problem with CEOs making off with huge salaries/stock value especially in very hot sectors, with some of them even trying to dodge taxes. Sure you can make an argument for the increased salary with the increased responsibilities and risk, but there is no cap there and little say from the employees. When CEOs make a few lifetime's worth of money in a year while the employee makes far less in a year, that's going to raise inequalities and eventually render systems unstable. The balance is not there.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    > Still you gotta admit there is a problem with CEOs making off with huge salaries/stock value especially in very hot sectors, with some of them even trying to dodge taxes. I couldn't agree more. It doesn't mean they're the reason workers aren't significantly richer.
    - oreally 4y ago
      Imo, part of the reason at least. Still, I'm interested in your other reasons if you got any.
      - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
        We don't produce enough! Imagine a world in which the only product is apples. If everyone needs 3 apples per day to be healthy and happy - and you only produce 1 apple per person - it does not matter if the richest 0.1% get 200 apples per day. If you distributed them evenly, there is still not enough apples. And distributing them evenly does not even improve things in any significant way. Sure, it is a problem. The bottom decile that lives on .1 apple per day now gets .3 apples per day. But they still don't even have close to enough apples! Neither does anyone else! People like to hand-wave this away. But GLOBAL GDP per capita is less than $11,000 per year. That is NOT enough money for everyone to have a house with a white picket fence, and a car in the garage, and a chicken in the oven, and a wife who stays at home and takes care of the kids. It's not even enough for everyone to live a life that resembles being upper lower class in France. And remember, the rich pay most of the taxes. Now you have to pay an even share - so of your $11,000, 25% of that is taxes! You only actually get ~$8,200. ~$8,200 per year wouldn't even qualify you for a mortgage to buy a $35,000 house. That's barely buying you enough materials to build a dollhouse. It's not buying you land anywhere you'd want live. And it's definitely not enough to connect to utilities. Distribution is a problem. THE problem is total output. ~$11,000 per person per year. Remember this is in inflated 2022 dollars - ~$9000 in 2019 dollars - this is including all-time highs due to massive stimulus and unprecedented levels of debt. ~$9000 in 2019 dollars is Mexico's GDP per capita - Bulgaria & Belarus. I love Mexico to death - but these are not paradises. Globally, the much bigger problem is that there are not enough apples being produced! Locally, in the US and the EU - GDP per capita is quite high. If we lived in a socialized society, sure, things could definitely be better for minimum wage workers. But I'm quitting my job at FAANG tomorrow to be a yoga teacher if I make the same amount of money. I don't know who in their right mind is going to continue being a nurse or most doctors. I'm not sure why many people are going to do hard physical labor like construction or dangerous jobs like fighting fires and crime - if everyone makes the same amount of money... Good luck keeping production high and society functioning...

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

I said you will find outliers. Congratulations. You found one extreme case, and included links to some others. There are many. There are also 5000+ large companies in the US that employ tens of thousands of people. 20,000+ companies globally. This isn't the average. Use a normal distribution, and you'd expect 20+ companies with 3 sigma (where CEO pay would increase pay by 6%+). Corporate profits definitely don't have a normal distribution, neither does CEO pay. This isn't surprising to me. Elon Musk has $200B. He's an edge case of an edge case. Should we pretend all billionaires are like him, too? The average Billionaire has almost 50x less money. The average CEO makes much less than 50x the links you cited. The average CEO for the top 350 companies made $24M in 2020 (a good year). The average CEO for all companies over the last decade makes less than $1M - according to BLS it's $190k: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm#:~:text=%2445%2C760-,The%20median%20annual%20wage%20for%20chief%20executives%20was%20%24179%2C520%20in,percent%20earned%20more%20than%20%24208%2C000 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-executives.htm#:~:tex.... And that's the average not the median - so people like the links you provided are skewing that higher than the median... > In summary, you can pick and choose examples to make either point. This is called cherry picking. You can always find what you're looking for if you're willing to cherry pick hard enough on a large dataset. Your starting hypothesis is that CEO pay is ridiculous - and you're finding examples to confirm that - rather than looking at averages to easily disprove the idea that the examples you cited are the exception not the norm.

oreally 4y ago
The cynicism is huge in your post. Still you gotta admit there is a problem with CEOs making off with huge salaries/stock value especially in very hot sectors, with some of them even trying to dodge taxes. Sure you can make an argument for the increased salary with the increased responsibilities and risk, but there is no cap there and little say from the employees. When CEOs make a few lifetime's worth of money in a year while the employee makes far less in a year, that's going to raise inequalities and eventually render systems unstable. The balance is not there.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > Still you gotta admit there is a problem with CEOs making off with huge salaries/stock value especially in very hot sectors, with some of them even trying to dodge taxes. I couldn't agree more. It doesn't mean they're the reason workers aren't significantly richer.
  - oreally 4y ago
    Imo, part of the reason at least. Still, I'm interested in your other reasons if you got any.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      We don't produce enough! Imagine a world in which the only product is apples. If everyone needs 3 apples per day to be healthy and happy - and you only produce 1 apple per person - it does not matter if the richest 0.1% get 200 apples per day. If you distributed them evenly, there is still not enough apples. And distributing them evenly does not even improve things in any significant way. Sure, it is a problem. The bottom decile that lives on .1 apple per day now gets .3 apples per day. But they still don't even have close to enough apples! Neither does anyone else! People like to hand-wave this away. But GLOBAL GDP per capita is less than $11,000 per year. That is NOT enough money for everyone to have a house with a white picket fence, and a car in the garage, and a chicken in the oven, and a wife who stays at home and takes care of the kids. It's not even enough for everyone to live a life that resembles being upper lower class in France. And remember, the rich pay most of the taxes. Now you have to pay an even share - so of your $11,000, 25% of that is taxes! You only actually get ~$8,200. ~$8,200 per year wouldn't even qualify you for a mortgage to buy a $35,000 house. That's barely buying you enough materials to build a dollhouse. It's not buying you land anywhere you'd want live. And it's definitely not enough to connect to utilities. Distribution is a problem. THE problem is total output. ~$11,000 per person per year. Remember this is in inflated 2022 dollars - ~$9000 in 2019 dollars - this is including all-time highs due to massive stimulus and unprecedented levels of debt. ~$9000 in 2019 dollars is Mexico's GDP per capita - Bulgaria & Belarus. I love Mexico to death - but these are not paradises. Globally, the much bigger problem is that there are not enough apples being produced! Locally, in the US and the EU - GDP per capita is quite high. If we lived in a socialized society, sure, things could definitely be better for minimum wage workers. But I'm quitting my job at FAANG tomorrow to be a yoga teacher if I make the same amount of money. I don't know who in their right mind is going to continue being a nurse or most doctors. I'm not sure why many people are going to do hard physical labor like construction or dangerous jobs like fighting fires and crime - if everyone makes the same amount of money... Good luck keeping production high and society functioning...