Thursday, June 22, 2006

Why you're strapped for cash, your stock holdings are down, your job got shipped to Bombay and America needs a 97% tax bracket for incomes over $2mil

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060621/us_nm/financial_pay_dc

2 comments:

Buce said...

George Orwell in Lion & the Unicorn recommended a pay differential of 15:1. Tis said that JP Morgan endorsed 25:1, though this may be an urban legend.

Peter Druker in the 70s said that one of the glories of American business was the steadily narrowing gap between boss pay and worker pay

The New York Crank said...

Yeah, well the gap between boss and worker pay is now widening, to the tune of 365:1 instead of 15 or 25 to one..

That's why stock dividends (and therefore prices) are so low. That's why you can't get a raise, or only got a piddling one. That's why CEOs who used to want their jobs so they could lead great enterprises now take the job to stuff their pockets. That's why corporation "outsource" jobs.

We need two things: 1) Higher top rate income taxes on earnings over $2 million to discourage this kind of legalized theft.

2) Infuriated stockholders (including pension funds) coming to annual meetings and raising bloody hell.

3) Federal regulation of out-of-control corporate governance. That's a hifalutin way of saying there oughta be a law.

Thanks for your comment.

--The Crank