If it's so easy to run a major corporation, get your friends on the board, make up fake numbers to make the bottom line look better, blah ,blah ,blah... then why aren't you a CEO?

I've read all of the posts here so far and there seems to be a general agreement that CEO's are a group of know nothing, lazy, greedy good ol boys who wouldn't know shit from shinola. It would seem that the job requirements are very low and all of you would qualify. So, why don't you have the job?

What, you don't want to make 30 million a year? No problem. You can refuse the pay ( like you did when you refused your last raise) and work for alot less than they offer. Pretty simple.

So- why aren't you a CEO? It's easy money. Right?

davenhal is exactly right. we shall kneel before these gods in human form. they are the milk and the honey, the alpha and the omega.

it is easy to see that all big earners - the ballplayers, the CEOs, and the famous actors - are essential to the very fabric of our society, ordinary humans should praise god (as they understand Him) every night and thank their lucky stars that these people exist on earth to show us the Light and the Way.

Because it isn't easy to get to that level. But once you're at that level, it's hard to drop below.

Also, your logic is impeccable. Clearly, $30 mil. is justified because not everyone can do it. Perfect.

The real question is, does a CEO making $30,000,000 bring an extra $25,000,000 worth of value to his or her company over a CEO who only makes $5,000,000?

Having met a fair number of CEOs of companies of all different sizes, the answer, usually, is: no. Most high-end CEOs don't add value to their companies that comes anywhere close to their compensation.

The massive paycheck of a Fortune 500 CEO can be compared to the money earned by losing a championship boxing match. Yes, any of us can stand in a ring and be beaten senseless in return for a few million dollars; the hard part is getting the right to stand in that ring. Did the human punching bag "earn" his cut? Not in that particular fight, no. But his loser's take is a payoff for actually earning the chance to be there.

A fair number of people could competently manage a large corporation, and would do it for less than $30,000,000; however, there can only be 500 Fortune 500 CEOs at any time, and the hard part is joining the club. The CEO does not "deserve" that giant paycheck; he or she does nothing to justify it; his or he skills are not six times greater that those of the CEO of a smaller company who "merely" makes $5,000,000 a year. Nonetheless, that Fortune 500 CEO is being rewarded for finally having joined the club.

Excellent Rocket, it would be nice if the ship of fool folks finally woke up and grasped the fact that there IS such a thing as PROPORTION. The downfall of the "MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE" the media has crammed down the collective throat of the American public was long overdue. No screeching socialism necessary- the wall street crowd did it to themselves. Whether by greed, "luck" ("oh look, I just fell into a big pot of money! I must DESERVE it") or by delusion of skill "my pay means I'm 300 times more talented than the avg. worker" it was just a runaway train that Bernie Madoff had an EASY time catching a ride-no questions-nope, we don't want to know WHAT makes you 300 times more talented just make that money appear out of thin air and we'll wrap our economic theory around your gift.

I agree with Rocket that there are only 500 CEO positions available in the fortune 500 and that to get that kind of compensation you have to have somehow joined the "club". It would be interesting to know how these people earned the right to be in the club in the first place. Was it by birth, or the right school, old money, knowing the right people, past performance. I should have read more of the biographies on these people. I'm sure it's a varied mix of reasons. However, it still does not justify the out of control increases in executive compensation. I don't care what you had to do to earn the right to be considered for the CEO position. Nobody is worth 30 million.

No dave, you're quite right. It takes certain skills to "make up fake numbers to make the bottom line look better" as this financial crisis has revealed. Definitely they deserve to be richly compensated.

You really are a tool.

Oh, and as for why I'm not a CEO (technically I am, but my company isn't exactly on the fortune 500): because I had no interest in spending my career as a corporate drone and whore, politicking, bootlicking and backstabbing my way to the top like my life depended on it. I've been there. I've seen who rises to the top in large corporations. It usually isn't pretty.

So, you run your own business? How do you determine how much to pay each of your employees? Do you pay them what ever they ask for? Do you pay them 5 times what ever your competition pays their employees? Or do you pay them half as much as your competition does?

Or does the market determine what you pay your employees?

I guess if you think people should be highly compensated for ruining their company and country youve got a point.Those Enron,Worldcom,GM, AIG,bankster guys were worth every penny. Heck of a job huh?

AIG,the banks, defrauded investors.When will someone go to jail?

THIS is what representation looks like:

Kucinich: This is NOT acceptable, Mr. Liddy. I'm not going to let you get away with it!

<link>

good for you stand with the criminal class!

When risking or playing with other peoples money the levels of compensation ought to be different than when risking one's own. However, if shareholders are foolish enough to allow the rip off I find it hard to feel sympathetic. There should be no limit to the amount of money a person can earn if they own and or operate a company with private capital. My guess is that most of these managers would find it impossible to earn the kind of money they can make if they had to build and create a company from scratch using their own resources. It might take more than several generations and considerable luck to build a company that made a before tax profit of ten million dollars a year, much less a high multiple of that figure.

My bet says not one in a thousand of this group has what it takes to create, build, and operate a company like the one they head. And while being a good manager is valuable and essential to operating a large company it is not as rare, unique or noteworthy as the talent, skill and courage it takes to create a company 1/10th the size of a small (1 billion in annual sales is small by todays standards), The numbers are simply absurd. They only make sense in an insane world and environment where top players of various ball games are paid between 100,000,000. and 20,000,000. a year and this:

Haitians celebrate recent minimum wage increase to 5.50 per day. "Georges Sassine was quoted by the Canadian online journal, the tyee.com, as saying, "Do we want 100,000 jobs paying 200 gourdes (US$5) a day or 200,000 jobs at 100gourdes (US$2.50) a day? What's better? 200,000 people working if I were a politician"......

Hey good news!!!

Haliberton scumbags get bonuses for electrocuting U.S. Soldiers!!

KBR Got Bonuses for Work that Killed Soldiers By Jeremy Scahill May 20, 2009

The nation;The Department of Defense paid former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install electrical wiring in Iraq. The award payments were for the very work that resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers, according to Department of Defense documents revealed today in a Senate hearing. More than $30 million in bonuses were paid months after the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated, 24-year-old Green Beret, who was electrocuted while taking a show at a US base in January 2008. His death, the result of improper grounding for a water pump, has been classified by the US Army Criminal Investigations Division (CID) as a "negligent homicide." Maseth's death had originally been labeled an accident. Bonuses were paid to KBR in 2007 and 2008, after CID investigators had officially expressed concerns about the quality of KBR's electrical work. For its part, KBR denies any culpability for the electrocution deaths.

Yup they deserve every penny!!

Its hard work!