OPINION: CEO pay can be linked to slow wage growth, but does that make it theft? - Polidicks

Saying CEOs are important to a company and deserve high wages is one thing, but no one's labor is truly worth as much as a lot of CEOs are paid/pay themselves

9/10 times, CEOs have golden parachutes while the average worker gets laid off with no severance. To say CEOs have higher risks is asinine, especially when said lower workers are barely making it or not making it at all.

We've already established the personal life risk isn't there like it is for a lower employee. But, companies aren't paying you for what you do in your personal life. You get laid for what you do professionally for that company. CEOs, in that regard, have higher risks associated with their job. It's very simple, and I'm getting kind of tired of having to repeat this 10 different ways every time someone tries to twist what I said.

The nature of getting paid for work means that personal life is critical to this, the criticism lies in the fact that CEOs don't personally need that kind of money to live at all and even if they get fired they'll get a hefty gift before leaving, unlike the average worker

It doesn't matter what they need. It matters what they're worth. You can't replace CEOs like you do janitors or cashiers or even managers. They are rare, specialized, and integral to a company and the success of the company. You can't just deprive someone of something because you deem it so. That decision is up to the company. Does someone need a multi million dollar salary with bonuses to function daily? No not at all. Does someone deserve that? That's up to whoever is paying them.

When you're balancing worker's rights over pure profit and who has the least amount of conciseness to push for said cuts, the system is broken and needs government input so CEOs or shareholders aren't getting obscene wealth at the cost of majority of the population's standard of living. You see on the news all the time with companies slashing worker's benefits or keeping them at slave wage, and their CEOs and shareholders hoard the cash with tons of bonuses. Its literally skimming the bottom and putting it at the top. Doesn't matter if the shareholders want to give the CEO a slice of the pie if both parties are the only ones eating it.

I don't think people capable of being CEOS are as rare as you seem to think they are

I'm not at all defending keeping workers below a living wage or slashing their benefits. I totally agree on things like minimum wage increases (~$15), single payer healthcare, UBI, etc. I'm trying to argue that just because a CEO makes more than you think he should, that he doesn't deserve that pay. A CEO can be paid gross amounts by your standards and the workers can still get everything they need, matching their qualifications. Thank you for your insight.

Literally impossible, the only reason CEOs get that cash is from cutting the bottom line. They don't get it for giving their workers more pay/benefits. This is endgame capitalism, cut the bottom line as tight/legal as possible while racking the most wealth for the top levels of corporate. Shareholders just want an CEO that can effectively sign off worker rights to save cash. Any mook with connections can do that, you just have to have no guilt in doing so. There's a reason why majority of CEO/shareholders are total narcissists.

I'm also not advocating for CEOs increasing their pay. I'm defending why they are valued 200 times more than a basic employee. Some people here are basically arguing that they want to put caps on what people can earn, and I feel like that is wrong and it doesn't solve anything. I think that performace-based payouts like I mentioned with Elon Musk are a great way of handling this. The company sets a bounty on a target they want, and if it is reached, the CEO did his job and he is paid as such. How companies handle their employees is a completely different topic from how/how much a CEO is paid. There are plenty of examples than can support highly paid CEOs and poorly cared for employees, and there are plenty of examples of highly paid CEOs who do care for their employees. One is not exclusive to the other. I left out the last part of your post because that is an emotional claim with no backing, and it doesn't add anything to the discussion.

There’s good reason to “twist what you said”, because what I was arguing about was personal risk, not how much responsibility you have at your company.

You can't tie personal risk to salary. They aren't relatable like that. Sure lower salary probably means higher personal risks if your job were to go. But you can't really use personal risk of lower employees as a way to argue CEO pay. The moral justification for paying CEOs 200 times more than the Average Joe? There doesn't really have to be one. The CEO gets paid what he is worth to the company based on what he can provide the company. Just like every other employee. It's just the fact of the matter than the lower you go, the less you individually provide, and therefore, the less you make. That's not to say lower workers are useless people, but they are more replaceable the further down you go. There's a lot of open area in this discussion because there are a lot of variables at play. A janitor was mentioned earlier. If that janitor makes $40k a year cleaning the first floor of an office space, and there are 9 other janitors who clean the other floors of the building for the same pay. Say, Evil Corp lets go of 5 of those janitors, now we have our janitor cleaning two floors of the office for $40k. That would be wrong in my eyes. But say you cut 5 janitors because 1 janitor cleaning 1 floor is kind of wasteful, and they have a lot of down time at work. So now you have 5 janitors cleaning 2 floors each, but they also make $60k as a result of the increased work. That makes more sense to me, morally. The point of that analogy was to highlight the idea of worker value. 5 people lost their jobs, but the other 5 just got a raise. Is it morally wrong in that situation?

lol ok, no backing: https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-we-keep-hiring-narcissistic-ceos

I read that article before I made that post. It doesn't support the claim that a majority of CEOs are narcissists. At best it says that CEOs can have narcissistic tendencies that are often either associated or required of leadership roles. Then in the same motion, says that everyone has these "dark side" traits and that managing how they come through.

People who have narcissistic qualities are not narcissistic. Good to know. Don't know why you keep blowing CEO's cocks, but sitting around saying they deserve their pay just reinforces their standing. Every CEO is focusing on the race to the bottom. Without government involvement or people uprising, its going to get worse and worse as the years go on.

Ceos are over valued. I dont care. Argue what you want but their bonus structure and valuation is over the top and unrequired. They may be high powered leader ship roles but it’s harmful to the companys culture overall. CEOs aren’t likely to find themselves over valued and over paid, so that when the company has a good year they can take a larger bonus, shareholders can get good returns, but the work force that created that value WILL in all likelihood in our economy today not see any increase, and will actually likely have benefits cut, or slashed. and you know what? The stockholders will reward a CEO for cost saving measures in regards to the employees coverages. Really? CEOS don’t need you cheerleading for them. Yes they have a high powered difficult job. No they are not rare. Yes they are way over valued. Their bonus structure is a is a result of culturally occurring paradigms, not because they’re literally creating 200!times the value of any other employee.

Also this is insultingly bad, You know damn well they don't pass that saved wage to the workers who have to carry the burden of the workers who were laid off. Atm the biggest con that all corporations and businesses are doing is promoting cross training. Which is fancy talk for laying off a chunk of your workers and forcing the other workers to pick up the slack in the chain. Why pay two workers 12/hr when you can fire one and have the other take both positions for 12/hr. They hide it under "it teaches you more responsibility before you move up" or promises of higher pay later down the road, when actually they are just putting the gears on you till you quit. Then they can hire another worker and take your place. Jobs used to give a shit about keeping their establishments at an higher regard when compared to other companies due to competition in the workforce. Now they all just keep lowering the bar constantly so there's no reason to fund benefits. This is late stage capitalism, and only the people or government can fix it. Waiting for companies to randomly up their standards will never happen.

Yeah actually. I have, I am in one right now. We just changed CEOs to someone else and I have actually lost benefits. Our long term goals are completely dependent on my store making bank and they refuse to give us full time jobs. And the worst part is that I've actually met the guy and he has been pushing for reforms. It is quite literally the middle managers whose he tried firing but they know the stockholders.