First of all, CEOs' bonuses/golden parachutes, containing stock OPTIONS, have a waiting period, before said options CAN be executed. The free and clear ownership of stocks, means just that, they can be sold/traded, at any point in time.
I don't know what you are using as research material, but it obviously hasn't taught you anything.; If you are being honest, please contact me in private, and I'll give you some help for you book...in the form of book lists and where you SHOULD be doing your research.
Yes, compared to today's lower class, the middle class of 100 years ago WILL appear to be living far below TODAY'S poverty level; however, compared to that day's poor, they lived quite well. THE SIZE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS HAS GROWN, SINCE THE END OF WW II, THROUGH TODAY, AT A FURIOUDS PACE; IT IS NOT SHRINKING !
You need to study a LOT more historical data! You assume that people never before lost jobs or their savings.
Stop trying to be "cute" or even vaguely intelligent. No, Conservatism isn't "fascism"; OTOH, your constant class warfare and blinkered take on business, social strata, and money, IS pure, unadulterated MARXISM.
I did not say conservatism is Fascism. What I said is that if you accuse ME of being Marxist because I am concerned about outsourcing and the undermining of the middle class, then what could someone else call conservatism that is equally WRONG and INSULTING.
As to my class warfare, I never said that I thought that 30 years ago when CEOs were earning 40 TIMES what their low level employees earned that this was wrong. What I did question is what has happened in the interim to make these same CEO's 10 to 25 TIMES more valuable than they were before, and is this huge salary inflation at the top one reason for pushing jobs to cheap labor outside OUR country.
If I recall correctly, the Communist ideal was "from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs." I hardly think that a 40 time earnings disparity would ever be approved of in that thought pattern.
"You assume that people never before lost jobs or their savings."
Why would you think I assume that. First of all, I am in my late 60s, and I can remember how scarred my parents generation was by the "great depression". I heard plenty of tales of woe growing up. Before the crash, my fathers parents were earning around $50,000 per year. They lost all their money to an unscrupulous stock adviser. They also lost their work as they were professional artists. If it hadn't been for FDR's projects for the employment of artists, many would literally have starved. My maternal grandfather lost his job as a chief engineer on major passenger liners around 1916, and only could get work on tramp steamers after that. He had just bought a new house for his family, and my mother remembers that food became very restricted after that even though her mother went to work as a nurse/home health aide. Incidentally my grandparents were all loyal Republicans.