Posted on 04/19/2015 11:31:27 AM PDT by grundle
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is drawing a populist bead on lavish Wall Street pay packages as she revs up her march to the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, but in some respects the fat-per-speech fee she can charge puts her far ahead of the top 10 highest-paid American CEOs.
"I think it's fair to say that if you look across the country, the deck is stacked in favor of those already at the top. There's something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the American worker...," Clinton said during her first campaign swing last week at an Iowa community college.
Bashing Wall Streeters is part of Clinton's strategy of remaking her image to appear more sympathetic to middle class voters, while also appealing to left-wing Democrats who are attracted to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and the even more radical supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who talks of seeking the 2016 nomination.
Clinton gives more than one paid speech per year, just as corporate CEOs typically receive their total compensation from multiple sources like stock options, pension contributions and salary. This means a fairer comparison is to look at Clinton and the top 10 CEOs by calculating their total compensation divided by the Department of Labor standard of 2,080 work-hours in a year, as in the nearby chart.
On that basis, the CEOs are pikers compared to an hour of Clinton speaking for $300,000. Hammergren, for example, makes only $63,076 for the same hour of labor. Clothing magnate Ralph Lauren, the second best-paid CEO on the Forbes list receives $32,067. Vornado Realty's Michael Fasitelli, the third-place CEO, gets $30,961 per hour.
The per-hour average for the CEOs is $54,213, or about one-sixth of Clinton's $300,000 premium speaking fee.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
That’s a ridiculous comparison. She isn’t charging out $300,000 per hour for 2,080 hours per year.
The author should compare her estimated annual compensation to annual CEO comp.
The more valid point is that she is getting paid $300,000 for doing NOTHING but reading the same old platitude-filled banal speech over and over again. It’s nothing but a disguised payoff/bribery scheme in the hopes that she will look kindly upon the payer if she is elected.
The author could have made the valid point that she is creating nothing of value for those payoffs and she is being paid princely sums for that nothing.
That would be like comparing to a baseball closer who gets $1,000 per out or such.
The standard response from the non-Democrats should be: “yes, there is a wide disparity in incomes and wealth, and the solution to that is the free market”. If we have a truly free market, those who are worth more will get more; those who are slothful will get less...maybe much less.
I suppose only Ted Cruz will speak knowledgeably about the free market, what it is and why it’s the only solution. Anything (fill in the blank) equality is a pipe dream.
Hard to believe that anyone could have lower credibility than Obama but she does.
Keep believing that. CEO’s and other top executives are way over paid. Anyone can make the decisions they make. Move jobs to India and China get a big bonus. Get huge golden parachutes if they fire you while getting rid of your american work force.
There are a few things that I stated. Which one(s) am I to keep believing?
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