So...what is an "obscene" salary in your mind?

[Godhumor]

I am curious to see how people define excess (if they define it at all). At what point, if any, do you say that someone has more money than they should be allowed to have? Do you make allowances for how they earned it or where they live?

I found myself thinking about it today with the announcement of the hedge funds returns, and, while I have to applaud the folks involved with correctly picking the outcome of the sub prime mess, I really, really hope a good deal of the money gets put back into the public "pool", as it were. It does not bother me that they made it, but it does bother me that so much of those amounts will be out of general circulation and earning interest which takes even more out, ad infinitum.

[DS1]

1. 400k or more

especially since that's what fuckface is getting

[muntrv]

2. The $28 million that Ford CEO took even though Ford lost $3 billion last year.

[NaturalHigh]

Ding! We have a winner!

[alittlelark]

3. Here in Silicon Valley it would be 20 million or more.

Basically 100X average Santa Clara county homeowner earnings.

[Beregond2]

4. I think of it in terms

of how the salaries are distributed in the company. For example, I can't see any reason for a CEO to be earning more than fifty times what the lowest paid employee earns.

[Muttocracy]

27. similar thought but relative to minimum wage. ($500,000ish result)

I can definitely say I worked harder (physically and emotionally) at minimum wage jobs than at other jobs I've had. It's hard for me to see anyone's intelligence/experience/judgement/ looks/talent/creativity/etc. being worth 50x the effort of the cheapest labor in society (or a company). So if min. wage is ~$6/hr, $300/hr seems absurd, and that would be ~$600,000/yr. I can't see how anyone couldn't have a lavish existence on $500,000 or $600,000.

[splat]

5. One that's twenty times bigger than mine

[sharesunited]

6. I'm OK with the shareholders deciding, AS LONG AS

there is real democracy in any such vote. "Say on pay" as it is called is a bone the SEC is throwing to shareholders right now. If shareholders are stupid enough to wash their hands of it, then entrenched management will decide per usual for another year. But it is definitely an issue which shareholders should be empowered to vote on every damn year.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Any amount that allows the "earner"...

...to have more than one house, more than one vehicle for the road, at least another vehicle for alternate forms of travel (boat, plane, etc.) and all that money comes from investment or inheritance, because the person has never had to .

Oh, and all those houses this person "owns" are in gated communities.

[ColbertWatcher]

31. never had to work!

Preview is not my friend and neither is this keyboard.

The full post is supposed to read:

Any amount that allows the "earner" to have more than one house, more than one vehicle for the road, at least another vehicle for alternate forms of travel (boat, plane, etc.) and all that money comes from investment or inheritance, because the person has never had to .

Oh, and all those houses this person "owns" are in gated communities.

[AlCzervik]

8. there isn't really a certain number but this guy here, he's obscene.

[Muttocracy]

29. is he made of petroleum products?

:scared:

[smokey nj]

44. Too rich and too ugly.

[Captain Angry]

9. Hedge fund payouts...

The way that a hedge fund is structured causes the high payout. As an investor in the fund, you have to REALLY expect humongous returns.

Ordinarily, the fund will have to hit a hurdle return level. If they make it over that level, the fund managers will usually see a payout of 20% of the profits as well as 2% of the fund value itself.

If you are managing $1,000,000,000 and make a 10% return, the profit was $100,000,000. You would get 20% of that or $20,000,000 as well as 2% of the fund itself or another $20,000,000. Not bad.

If you drive the fund into the ground, and the investors basically lose everything, you just don't get your bonus.

Now, if your investment strategy brought in $100,000,000 and $40,000,000 of it went to the manager, that's still $60,000,000 of profit for the investors. Is that amount of compensation worth that kind of profit? If you can afford to be in that kind of pool, it probably is.


The thing about obscene salaries is that no CEO is ever going to say no to a compensation package. And they are all created by a compensation committee within the board of directors of that company. The board is supposed to be the shareholder's voice, and they've been pretty silent of late. I'm surprised we haven't seen some huge lawsuits by investors that are upset about compensation packages for executives that preside over 50% losses in the value of the company's stock.

[sandnsea]

10. If you can't go a week without aimless shopping

You're making too damn much money.

[babylonsister]

14. That's what credit cards are for.

And BTW, I "hate" aimless shopping, or any kind of shopping.

[sandnsea]

23. I watched Oprah last night

I never watch, but the topic of 2 families who 'cut back' for a week was interesting. The first family threw away more food in a week than I have ever bought. The woman literally threw food away so she could go buy $200 more. She'd cook several meals a night because her kids wouldn't eat the same thing, then throw half of that away. For leisure, they got online and just shopped. It was just bizarre. The other family was a little more normal, just too much tv and video game time, too much fast food, stuff we all fight. It was just on my mind when I read the question. Who goes food shopping when their refrigerator and cupboards are jammed full??

[NaturalHigh]

15. I've always said that if you have too much money to spend...

then you have too much money. I'm pretty capitalist-minded and don't have a socialist bone in my body, but there is no justification for anyone to be sitting on millions of dollars while other people starve in the streets.

[Breeze54]

11. Anything they took that wasn't legal or kosher. n/t

[cloudbase]

12. It depends on what the person does

and how well they do it. Personally, I think that something of some value should be produced, even if it's not immidiately tangible.

[OmahaBlueDog]

13. I like the European model of CEO compensation

A CEO should ideally make 5-10 times what the average worker in his company makes, plus perqs.

CEOs here (and often many far down the tree) maks 100-1000 times what there average worker makes -- that's obscene.

[notesdev]

16. I'd say it's fair to say that 1000-1

or more vs. the average person's income can be described as obscene. If the average person is making $40k/year, then figures above $40 million/year are hard to justify, unless that money represents an extraordinarily positive impact on the society.

The thing that is obscene is not the money, it's that big money goes to a lot of people who aren't producing that much value.

[Fovea]

17. 100% greater than mean wage.

Should be the cap for a CEO in any company that is not a private proprietorship. By law, even.

I don't mean average, and I don;t mean only salaried employees.
100% more than the middle point between the mailroom clerk and the next highest compensated employee.

Any more than that, and you need to be the owner of your business.

[AngryAmish]

36. Why would anyone ever take that job?

Everybody gets mad at you as CEO. Would I do that for just double the money of some guy who didn't finish high school? Never.

[Fovea]

47. Love of power.

Which is why they did it back in the day when salaries were not obscene, and the top tax rate was 90%.

Why does anyone run for President?
By wall street standards, no one would want it.

[Schema Thing]

18. >35 X the lowest wage paid in an enterprise

[drmeow]

19. It depends on what someone is doing

The people I consider worthy of earning "obscene" salaries are not the people who earn that much. People who risk their lives to help others (doctors in war zones or highly infectious disease areas, etc), people who really truly work for the greater good (inner city school teachers, people who work with the homeless), people who really do contribute to the greater good, who richly benefit society, etc. Let them make millions a year, I don't care. But people whose actions hurt thousands to enrich a handful, whose callousness and indifference hurts many, whose actions make neighborhoods become unlivable, who have a complete disregard for humanity - $400K's too good for them.

It also depends on where you live.

But, if I had to pick a number to label as truly obscene - not just unnecessary, outrageous, ridiculous, gross, disgusting and most probably ill-gotten (depending on where you live but assuming NYC - anything over about 500,000/year) but actually obscene I'd have to say more than 2 million a year.

[Blue_In_AK]

20. No one needs more than half a million a year...

If you can't live on that, you need to re-examine your lifestyle.

[Greyhound]

38. That's the number that came to my mind too. $10 Grand a week is more than enough.

But then it is the concept of 'enough' that we seem to have a problem with.

[HeresyLives]

21. Anything bigger

than mine. :rofl:

[CoffeeCat]

22. No salary is obscene if you actually earn it...

Also, you can do amazing things with a high salary--help others.

No salary is obscene, but some people are.

[El Pinko]

40. so... do CEOS work 5000 times harder and longer than rank-and-file workers?

Do they have 5000 times as much education and talent?


I don't have a problem with exceptional people being rewarded, but in the US, the rewards are TOTALLY disproportionate to talent, work, education, or the results these people produce.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. Working temp for three years turned me into a democratic socialist

I worked both industrial and clerical jobs, so I saw American industry (Twin Cities version) from top to bottom.

Frankly, a lot of those executives did nothing but sit around and talk on the phone,go to lunch, and occasionally dictate a few letters. Their secretaries did all the real work.

Factory owners were some of the worst. They'd give their workers a total of 30 minutes off in an 8-hour day (one 10-minute coffee break and one 20-minute lunch break) AND they'd make them punch out for that time. God forbid that they should pay an extra $2 a day (at 1980s wage rates). Then on the rare occasions when they'd show up in the plant they'd stroll through in their expensive suits and haircuts, mumbling about increased efficiency. One openly told the workers that he'd move production to Mexico if he even heard whispers about unionizing.

I daresay that most of the companies that moved production offshore were actually doing okay. They were providing their executives and shareholders with comfortable lives--but the greedy cusses wanted MORE, because they heard that someone somewhere else was making $2 million instead of their measly $1 million.

Years ago, I heard a commentator say, "These multi-million dollar bonuses are just a way of keeping score."

[XOKCowboy]

24. No limit..

It's how you use it.

I don't begrudge people making money. It's what they do with that money that matters.

[drmeow]

25. I have some problems with

how they earn it sometimes. If you earn it but screwing the little guy - outsourcing jobs, breaking unions, cutting safety, destroying the environment, lying, covering up, bribing, filing ridiculous and frivolous lawsuits against people who can't afford lawyers or protracted legal battles, and generally trying to stomp every other possible person into the ground in your greedy f**ked up pursuit of money then, quite frankly, I damn well f**king begrudge people making a lot of money.

[Warpy]

26. Anything over a million is excessive

even for sports and rock stars. Their paychecks need to be averaged out over a period of a couple of decades. Not only would it make more financial sense, it would keep them from going nuts and squandering it all before they turn 25.

Anything over 10 million is utterly obscene. There is nobody on the planet who is worth that kind of money. It's why we need confiscatory tax rates at the top, to discourage this kind of greed, to force these people to share.

This country has always been great at creating wealth. This country has always been piss poor at distributing it among all those who work to create it.

[magellan]

28. When it's ill-gotten gain

Which describes too many CEOs to count these days. It's SOP under Repub administrations.

[provis99]

30. the $300 milllion in BONUSES that American Airlines executives took

and look at the fuckin state of their airline today. That bonus is obsene.

[fujiyama]

32. I think 10-20 times more than the average employee of a company is excessive

Few employees at any company could justify that kind of compensation.

I'm actually thinking a cap may be a decent idea. Seriously, we have CEOs in CA, NY, etc. making millions a year, while the average employee makes around maybe 45K, say nothing of the janitor that makes a few dollars an hour (often with no benefits because they are contracted services anyways). Hell, if people are struggling in areas that are relatively affordable, how can many afford living or working in SF, NYC, etc?

It's a racket. And it makes American companies look stupid for approving these salaries. Cap it. Or tax it at extremely high rates. Or tax it at higher rates. At least temporarily until we fix the mess Bush has left us with.

[B Calm]

33. Have you ever checked out the "CEO and You" website?

CEO Pay Database

Home > Corporate Watch > Executive PayWatch > CEO Pay Database

For a true picture of the vast inequities in the American workplace, try comparing the pay of your company's CEO with your own. Here are two ways to find out what's in your corporation's executive compensation packages:

Executive PayWatch Database

Compensation data for the CEOs of some of the largest companies in the United States are included here in the Executive PayWatch database. If you're looking for the executive pay data at a Standard & Poor's Super 1500 corporation, this database will lead you to the following information:



What the CEO of your company took in last year.
How his/her pay package compares with yours, how long you would have to work to earn what the CEO gets in one year and the number of workers at your salary the CEO's compensation would support.
How his/her pay package compares with that of the average worker, a minimum wage earner and the president of the United States.
A fact sheet on all of these comparisons.
Check the database to see whether your company is listed.

How to Track Down Executive Pay

If your company is publicly held but isn't included in our database, you can still find out how much your CEO earned last year.

Read these instructions on how to find and use proxy statements.

Does the CEO Deserve that Big Pay Package?

Is your CEO raking in the big bucks while running the company into the ground? Here's how to find out.

Terms & Methodology

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/

[FunkyLeprechaun]

34. Not just the CEOs

But ANY professional sports players. Tiger Woods got $80.3 million for playing golf (granted most of that was from Nike and other stuff). A-Rod got paid $30 million.

And that's just in 2004's Forbes list.

I find that annoying when I know of good doctors, nurses, teachers, etc having to scrape the barrel just to get by and these people are getting so much money for just playing sports.

I go to local theatre sometimes and there's better actors and actresses than the highly paid movie stars. Tom Cruise is one of the most vapid stars I've seen in theatres lately.

Like that person said, I don't mind capitalism sometimes but heck, things like that need a cap. You don't need $80 million just to play golf. You don't need $30 million just to play baseball. If independent filmmakers and directors can produce a quality film for less than 1 million, we'd get much better films if they were budgeted on a shoestring.

[blindpig]

35. 10 x minimum wage

How could any humans work be worth more? Anything else is disrespectful to humanity, even that bothers me.

[KharmaTrain]

37. If Someone's Willing To Pay It...

Just like the old sports analogy...someone had to offer that money...and one would be a fool to turn it down. The last thing you can do when you discuss salary or money is to describe something as too expensive...if someone has the money and is willing to pay, then it's "reasonable". For someone who has 10k, 100k seems like a fortune...for someone with 100k, that barrier moves up to 250k...and so on. I've met plenty of people with money in my years and the last thing I ever hear is "I have plenty"...there's always someone with more.

If a company is willing to pay what many would consider obscene amounts, it's not the person who took the money, but the one who offered it that deserves the scrutiny. Your best option is to avoid buying the product (and this includes educating yourself on subsidiaries) and spreading the word to your family and friends. I have many companies I avoid either due to politics or greedy business practices. As long as we have a society built on greed, money will be the ultimate determinator of quality of life. That's what needs to be changed...the perspective of what a good life is...and for some of us, money can't buy it.

[El Pinko]

39. I don't know at what point it becomes "obscene"

But at present dollar value, anything over $1 mil per year seems to be more than anyone would need to live a quite luxurious life.

I really don't understand your comments RE subprime, though.

[Godhumor]

41. Another thread

George Soros, plus two others raked in nearly 2 billion dollars each by betting subprime mortgages were going to collapse for their hedge funds. Not a salary, but that is a lot of money leaving general circulation.

[bemildred]

42. $400K/year for the worst president in history. nt

[Orangepeel]

43. allowed to have? Eh, I don't agree with that perspective

I support regulations that protect workers' rights, health and safety standards, and a living wage. I support policies that support fair trading policies and limit monopolies. I support progressive taxation.

I don't support not "allowing" people to make lots and lots and lots of money.

[MadHound]

45. I have no problems with a person's salary

Just so long as they were paying back a sufficient amount of taxes. However for the past thirty years, the rich have paid less and less in taxes, using more and more tax loopholes.

I say raise the taxes on the rich, eliminate the loopholes that allow the rich to hide their money, and then they can make whatever they want.

[lumberjack_jeff]

46. It doesn't matter.

Taxes are for getting stuff done. They should be allocated on a basis that serves society best. They aren't an end, they are a means.

That they aren't allocated in a way that serves society is a different issue than the question of who has more than we should allow them to have.

[kitty1]

48. Oprah's

[leftofthedial]

50. anything in excess of 40 times the minimum wage