[Young Scholar]

3. Pay million dollar bonuses at the same time they cut people's jobs, benefits and so on. I understand companies having to make cuts but you know yourself... if you had to pull in the belt at home and told your spouse to cut up the credit cards and you couldn't eat out once a week anymore and the kids were going to have to go to the 2nd hand store (no more news stuff) but you then went out and bought a brand new "insert your 75K sport car here," do you think that might be considered sinful (or selfish?)

Your mistake is thinking a company is a joint venture (like a family) between management and employees. It is not; the employees and management both work for the company, and it is entirely reasonable to pay them what they are worth to the company (or fire them if they aren't worth paying). This could at times mean laying off low-level workers and paying valuable executives high bonuses. Of course, it can also mean firing a bad executive even while hiring new workers.

4. Cutting employees but requiring the "left-behinds" to pick up the slack and do the work of two or more people and not compensating them fairly. This has personally happened to me on two occasions. It is happening to a lady I work with right now.

Again, that is not wrong; it is just the way the marketplace works. In a tight labor market, workers can make demands on companies (higher pay, etc.), but in a looser labor market, companies can make demands on workers (such as doing more work for the same pay). If you think the company is making unfair demands, you are always free to quit. If your work really is worth more than what the company is paying you, you should have no problem finding a better job elsewhere, or even better, starting your own business.

[Paved Paradise]

Your points are well taken. The problem I have is that even an executive is human. He has the very same 24 hours in any given day and I find it ludicrous and, again, I'll be redundant, sinful, when the top dogs make a salary that is many millions x what the worker makes. When you show me the human that can work an infinite number of hours and has an infinite brain, then I'll believe there is a humanbeing worth some of these salaries/bonuses/perks.

Maybe there is an occasional super-hero exec out there but I'm speaking in general. I guess one of the people I think was a big jerk was Jack Nasser and how he screwed up Ford and then took his Golden Parachute. Also, he then got hired into Polaroid and got a big, fat bonus there but 30+ year employees got screwed our of their pensions! You can believe that corporations are still a good thing and see the sin in a lot of what goes on. One doesn't have to toss the baby out with the bath water you know.

Thanks for your comments.