Would you support a law limiting a CEO's yearly income...

[JPJones]

To say 100 - 400 times the lowest wage paid in the company (including outsourced employees)?

Even though it probably can't be done by law, pension funds and mutual funds should be DEMANDING this.

[Dookus]

1. Nope

not a law. But I agree funds should push for it.

[Fitzovich]

2. No

I would love to see some principles among CEO's that see the workers as merely an expense of their operations but, I don't think that a law should be enacted or would work. You cannot legislate smart or stupid.

[aquart]

4. You damn well CAN legislate smart or stupid.

That's what a seat belt law is. That's what No Smoking signs mean. People were too dumb to do it on their own so laws were passed. Not before thousands died, however.

If CEOs are too stupid and greedy to understand that their salaries are destroying the economy of the nation, then they have to be legislated into intelligence. There is NO excuse for sitting on our butts ALLOWING ourselves to be destroyed so that some assholes in $5,000 suits can have solid gold faucets.

We have the OBLIGATION to protect our nation from locusts.

[Eric J in MN]

11. But you can legislate the rules of publicly tradd companies (nt)

nt

[BrotherBuzz]

3. 100 - 400 times? Whoa!

I'm inclined to go 6 - 8 - 10 times what the lowest wage earner makes. Didn't Ben and Jerry's have something like this before they sold out? I want to believe top executives salary at B & J's wasn't more than twenty times that of an entry level wage earner.

on edit: they did it without a law telling them to do it.

[DerBeppo]

7. wait...

so the person running a multibillion dollar company shouldn't make more than 150k a year?

nope.

[BrotherBuzz]

16. Nope...

If a CEO is pulling down 6 - 8 - 10 million dollars a year, the lowest wage earner should be making a ton of money. I prefer to think the glass is half full.

[Peak_Oil]

19. well, that would be if their lowest-paid worker was making 1.5k/yr

Sound fair?

As an investor I would welcome this development. Keeps the looting to a minimum.

Imagine if they were capped at 50x lowest worker wages, and minimum wage was $10/hr. That means the CEO would be capped out at $500/hr, or 4k/day, or 800K/yr. Still a particularly brutal spread between rich and poor, but not as bad as $10 million a year and $.40/hr for Chinese labor.

[Kimber Scott]

5. The stockholders are the ones who get bilked when CEOs take

huge salaries. This is a problem for investors to haggle with not the government. It's their money.

[Eric J in MN]

12. easier said than done, when compenstation boards

Easier said than done, when compenstation boards consist of other CEOs, not true representatives of the stockholders.

[Kimber Scott]

15. You're right, but that's where the legislation could come in -

publicly owned companies could have rules placed on them by the regulatory agencies as to who can and cannot serve on the boards in order to best serve the interests of the investors and the companies themselves. This I'll wash your back if you wash mine CEOs making up their own compensation packages for each other is wrong.

[izzie]

6. Seems to me it is the stock holders job, or business its self.

I do not think people really care as they keep buying into these places and buying goods from them.Greed feeds us all I guess. Most people do not seem to tie any of the high cost of goods into what the big guys in a company get, as they have been told so many years it is the fault of the Unions or high wages. It is interesting in a way. It seems to be that the people who run business have better PR people than the workers.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Stockholders don't have that much power anymore.

Board of Directors, which are often composed of CEOs from other corporations, have steadily voted in measures to decrease the stockholder's direct control. For example, most corporations don't allow stockholders to vote for their own accounting firms. This was a sticky issue that came up during the Anderson fiasco.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Yes, but in a reasonable manner.

Their salaries and perks should be directly tied to worker and stockholder's compensation. In other words, they cannot lower worker wages in order to justify salary/bonus increases for themselves. They may be able to do so to improve profit for the stockholders, but not for personal gain.

[Eric J in MN]

10. Yes, with regard to publicly traded companies.

A company doesn't have to choose to go public or stay public.

Going public already has lots of requirements.

Limiting CEO pay to some multiple of the lowest paid worker's salary should be added to those.

[JSJ]

13. a fair corporate tax would limit ceo salaries and bennies n/t

[Nobody]

14. That's a thought

Tie the amount of tax to the percentage of the lowest wage paid the C level execs get. Including everything, not just the salary, and the lowest wage includes part timers, temps, and outsourced employees.

The wider the gap, the higher the tax. And let these taxes go for providing things like food stamps, subsidized housing, health care, and other subsidies for workers who are paid so little that they need these services.

These execs tend to be the ones screaming the loudest about not wanting their tax money to go for public assistance. Meanwhile, someone who is working should by all rights make enough to survive on.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. There should be some sort of regulation in place

so that the top employee is not paid so much that the guys on bottom are on welfare and medicaid. (Ie Michael Eisner vs. the guy in the Goofy suit at Disney World.)

Thanks heavens there are some ceos out there who make sure everyone's income is fair.

http://responsiblewealth.org/aboutrw/profiles/index.html

[LuminousX]

18. No

[wadestock]

20. Tax the Salary....

We must be careful we don't fall down that ever slippery slide to socialism or its soul mate communism....so be careful here.

What you do is use the consensus of opinion that you're attempting to generate on an issue like this to lobby for an UPPER UPPER tax rate....which should be there in the first place.

This would hit the extremely wealth 1/10th of 1% in the country and generate a boatload of revenue.

Tax those making in excess of 1 million per year 50% on earnings.
It will not in any way shape or form stifle our capitalistic system or in any way stop those hounds from trying to maximize wealth.

[jokerman93]

21. Some ratio

Some ratio of salary between the CEO and the lowest salaried range in the same company should be established as a social norm. By law? Probably not.

The rising water should lift all boats.