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SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

reuters.com

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Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#71

Post by drauh »

kristopolous wrote: post #58
sambe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The owners of the company? i.e. Shareholders. It's not anyone else's business. Workers are free to renegotiate their contract, resign, buy shares, or start their own company. Who else other than the owners should decide?

Let me show you how close to feudalism this idea is: Serfs are free to renegotiate their constitution, move, buy land from their king, or start their own kingdom. Now all these options sound a little more silly... Because we accept the power structure of feudalism. But many doubt there is any power structure in capitalism. Landless wage labourers? Yes. Debt based economies? Yes. Taxes given as handouts to the owners?…

The United States is an illegal country. It seceded from the United Kingdom, so it was owned by the King of England at the time. Property rights are paramount, so property cannot be seized by the state (or anyone else).

We need to hurry up and restore all the monarchies of the world because we are living on stolen property.

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#73

Post by austenallred »

dbcfd wrote: post #55
austenallred wrote: post #21

Seems like the most worthless piece of data you could gather about a company.

It provides a proxy to whether the management is looking to increase worker morale and productivity for long term gains, or inflate stock prices for short term gains. It also provides a way to compare companies within an industry, to see which might be overpaying management, with stock returns varying accordingly.

By median pay of other employees?

OK, so McDonalds is 10,000:25,000,000

Now what?

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#74

Post by ThomPete »

sambe wrote: post #57
ThomPete wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be true if they success of the company was 100% depending on the companies ability alone, however it's not. There are many factors external to the company itself that are involved in creating successful companies.

That isn't relevant. The company has owners, and owners get to decide what to do with their property. If they decide most of the success was due to external factors then they can change their compensation appropriately. Evidently they do not agree with you on average.

It's relevant in a bigger context which is the one I am raising. Feel free to isolate it to a more narrow one if you would rather debate that. Personally I find that trivial but each to their own of course.

Property rights if you really want to go there is not a natural right but something that is guaranteed by the state.

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#75

Post by JohnTHaller »

kevinpet wrote: post #31

How does this political agenda relate to protecting investors? Is the SEC now the department of labor?

Investors have a right to know how the company they invest in is spending money. Lots of investors don't exactly like the absurd levels of C-level pay or golden parachutes for failed execs.

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#76

Post by norea-armozel »

untog wrote: post #66
paulhauggis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you think CEOs are 10x more effective than they were in the 60s?" Why is that for you to decide? The world has become globally competitive since the 1960s, which means it takes a lot more work for a CEO to run a company successfully. "but at the same time many people are growing concerned about a wealth gap in the US - that the rich are getting subtantially richer, while the middle class haven't seen meaningful g…

Why is that for you to decide? It's for society to decide. I know the libertarian perspective is that society/government have no role in deciding how businesses operate, but that isn't actually the reality today. You might just as well ask what gives anyone the right to make companies pay tax. This will continue to happen when we put more and more restrictions on owning and starting a business I'm curious as to why y…

Even as a libertarian myself, I can't justify the virtual nepotism that is happening on Wall Street. To me, the free market is so suppose to make every company to work hard for the dollars it earns. If companies have enough cash to throw at CEOs than working towards capturing market share or wooing investors with dividends then they're just being as lazy and apathetic as governments or worse. So, I believe it's the role of the people to take companies to task whether it's through the government or through the market place when they get this way (corrupt and slothful). Otherwise, we'll wind up with a situation similar to how the USSR ended with millions starving and an economic wasteland.

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#77

Post by [deleted] »

zajd wrote: post #50
brandonmenc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US's absurdly low income tax rates for the wealthy The top 20% of earners pay over 80% of the income taxes. That's low?

The top 20% of earners tax rates isn't the problem, it's the tax rates on the .01%, which starts at around 1.9mm/yr Even better, the .001%, which starts at around 10.2mm/yr Not that people making $150k couldn't afford to pay more taxes (I'm one of them), but the issue really isn't with the top 20%. Even worse, the fact that capital gains aren't treated as income and the fact that we let parents pass billions on to th…

[deleted]

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#78

Post by brandonmenc »

zajd wrote: post #50
brandonmenc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US's absurdly low income tax rates for the wealthy The top 20% of earners pay over 80% of the income taxes. That's low?

The top 20% of earners tax rates isn't the problem, it's the tax rates on the .01%, which starts at around 1.9mm/yr Even better, the .001%, which starts at around 10.2mm/yr Not that people making $150k couldn't afford to pay more taxes (I'm one of them), but the issue really isn't with the top 20%. Even worse, the fact that capital gains aren't treated as income and the fact that we let parents pass billions on to th…

2000 people earn over $10M a year.

Let's say you take $100M from each of them. That's $200B. The Federal budget is $3.8T. So you increased the budget by just 5%.

It seems that the desire to tax the rich is simply to bleed them down to a normal level, not because we really need their money.

I get that it's a desire to get back to 1950s level income equality, but that time seems to be an historical accident due to the US economy being the only one left standing after WW2. Sure, white guys in the United States were all earning at relative parity, but global poverty was far, far worse than it is today, women here weren't allowed to work, etc.

And are the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer? Doesn't seem so. Rockefeller's net worth was $400-$600 billion in today's dollars, while our current richest person, Bill Gates, is worth a paltry $80B. Globally, the poor are earning more than ever.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when people talk about restoring income equality, at least in this country, they're unintentionally pining for the days when the United States middle class earned more, at the expense of the rest of the working world.

> Cute statistic though, spoken like a true facebook comment

Was this comment facebook-ey enough for you?

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#79

Post by zajd »

brandonmenc wrote: post #78
zajd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top 20% of earners tax rates isn't the problem, it's the tax rates on the .01%, which starts at around 1.9mm/yr Even better, the .001%, which starts at around 10.2mm/yr Not that people making $150k couldn't afford to pay more taxes (I'm one of them), but the issue really isn't with the top 20%. Even worse, the fact that capital gains aren't treated as income and the fact that we let parents pass billions on to th…

2000 people earn over $10M a year. Let's say you take $100M from each of them. That's $200B. The Federal budget is $3.8T. So you increased the budget by just 5%. It seems that the desire to tax the rich is simply to bleed them down to a normal level, not because we really need their money. I get that it's a desire to get back to 1950s level income equality, but that time seems to be an historical accident due to the…

2000 people earn over $10m a year because capital gains aren't considered income. If you consider capital gains income, that number changes significantly. Also, why would you use $100m per person? It should be 90% of earnings over $1m and 95% of earnings over $4m.

Your comments are typical drivel that go on top of a meme. You should consider applying to work in Fox News' statistic department

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but when people talk about restoring income equality, at least in this country, they're unintentionally pining for the days when the United States middle class earned more, at the expense of the rest of the working world.

You are wrong. I'm not talking about restoring anything back to the 1950s. I'm talking about real solutions to the problems we face today, like ensuring education is affordable and available to everyone. Ensuring that every citizen has the right to have access to our healthcare system. etc. etc.

It's not about having the middle class earn more, it's about the poor not being treated like complete shit in the US. The proper measure for a society is how we treat those who cannot provide for themselves. We're failing bigtime in America.

Re: SEC adopts rules mandating disclosure of CEO-worker pay ratios

#80

Post by dragonwriter »

brandonmenc wrote: post #27
zajd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly CEO's getting paid a ton isn't really much of a problem as opposed to the US's absurdly low income tax rates for the wealthy. Not to mention capital gains... estate taxes... etc

> US's absurdly low income tax rates for the wealthy The top 20% of earners pay over 80% of the income taxes. That's low?

> > US's absurdly low income tax rates for the wealthy

> The top 20% of earners pay over 80% of the income taxes. That's low?

The wealthy aren't so because of earnings (wages subject to income and payroll taxes), so its not so much low or high as a non-sequitur.

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