Posted on 12/21/2006 8:36:07 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
No wonder drug prices are soooooooo $$$$$$.
I am not proposing any government intervention, but can't SOMEONE at the company prevent this type of distortion of reality from occurring?
If corporate boards were actually governing bodies of any sort, then this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Instead they've turned into an old boys' network where backs are reciprocally rubbed and everyone looks the other way. If the investor's best interests aren't being looked out for, why would one presume that the interests of consumers or workers would?
Capitalism is good. This is not capitalism but cronyism. In effect the cronies on the board of directors are looting the profits of the company and in effect screwing the shareholders. Unfortunately in many of the major companies this is common and not the exception. These actions will eventually disgust the public and shareholders and will be replaced with something even worse,GOVERNMENT CONTROL>
If we start limiting what someone can make, it will trickle down and whatever any of you are making now will go down as well.....we can do without socialism...
Whatever any of you are making is probably much more than the clerk at Wal-Mart or the janitor in my building....
So, you should cut your pay to be in line with those who make less than you....
It's all relative....why not get a better education or work for a multinational company, and move up the ladder a be a wonderful manager?
Puts him on par with pro athletes (salaries.) Granted, it's a retirement vs wages for the athletes. The overall payout figures are comparable.
I assume that Ellen, the author, is an anti-capitalist.
If (big If) the facts are as stated and one deducts the detailed sums noted, it appears that the retiring Exec only got about 12 million as a retirement pkg. Most of the rest was earned from his time serving (pension) or deferred from prior years.
Now, if one hates capitalism, one will try and agglommerate all possible sums to make a really, really big number, in an effort to incite a riot. Pretty juvenile way to present an argument, IMHO.
What a bunch of class-envy freepers here!! They should just go back and reread Capitalism.
bttt
Nobody has talked about having the government limiting what an executive can make. The question is whether cronyism in upper management is diverting returns that should rightly be going to elsewhere into executive compensation packages.
this is why its politically impossible to be against a minimum wage increase. people like this aren't "building" great american companies - they are looting them.
The part I don't get is why so many people think that whatever this tool makes has anything to do with what the janitor gets paid or what the minimum wage should be. Its not like anybody else in the entire country would make a dime more if they guy got $1M instead of $180M.
I thought this was a country where people wanted to become rich instead of just hating others for getting there? If anybody else became the CEO of one of the countries larger pharma companies and created and rolled out a $15B drug, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't turn down the $180M they offered you since you drove the stock price up by somewhere around ten to twenty billion in market cap.
Too much envy going around.
Personally, I'm not sure why the institutional shareholders like CALPERS and other bigboys aren't putting their own people on the boards so they can improve their returns by limiting excessive compensation like this.
Damn! No wonder the stock sucks.
No, the stock sucks because Zoloft and Z-Pak lost patent, Lipitor's is not far behind (not to mention the generic competition from Merck's molecule) and torcetrapib got axed before it got out of the gate.
Many people are FAR more well-educated than that chap. And, wonderful managers seldom MAKE IT TO THE TOP! Arrrgh!!! We are all entitled to our opinions. The poster who indicated that this is cronyism pretty well nailed it. This has nothing to do with rightful earnings for services rendered, education or other worthy reasons -- this can NOT be justified on the basis of those arguments. I'm telling you and everyone else and you can read and understand or reject (you have that right): If much more of this occurs, we're going to see major sociopolitical turmoil result. Now, right that down and see if it does or doesn't come true.
Yes sir.
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