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At least the CEO is actually in a position to dictate the company's success or failure. Thus they can expect and demand and deserve high pay. Not something someone in an entry level can use as an excuse.

You realize that you are the dishwasher, right?

If I am the dishwasher I would not be pretentious enough to say I deserve pay comparable with management or a crazy huge raise when management gets none.

Dish washer or Dish washer operator?

That statement says more about you than any reply ever could.

And everybody else can see the irony of arguing that anybody that thinks they deserve to be paid more than they are qualified for just because other people in the company got a raise even though they think that they don't deserve it, only to turn around and argue that you would quit your job unless you get paid more than you are qualified for just because other people in the company got a raise and you don't think that they deserve it.

We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.

 Grey Templar wrote:
We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.

Says the guy who just made 5+ posts talking about how he is going to quit unless he gets paid more than his merit based pay which is based on his relative worth to the company.

 d-usa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.

Says the guy who just made 5+ posts talking about how he is going to quit unless he gets paid more than his merit based pay which is based on his relative worth to the company.

The reading fail is much strong in this one.

If the guy who is worth X less than my current salary gets a raise, absent other factors, that means my value has also gone up and thus I am worth a higher raise as well.

If one guy gets a 50% pay increase for no reason, everyone else should also get a 50% pay increase. That is all I am advocating.

Rule 1. "The reading fail is much strong in this one" is most certainly not polite. Let's keep this thread open and warning free

 Grey Templar wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
We get it. You hate merit based pay. Which itself is based on relative worth.

Says the guy who just made 5+ posts talking about how he is going to quit unless he gets paid more than his merit based pay which is based on his relative worth to the company.

The reading fail is much strong in this one.

If the guy who is worth X less than my current salary gets a raise, absent other factors, that means my value has also gone up and thus I am worth a higher raise as well.

If one guy gets a 50% pay increase for no reason, everyone else should also get a 50% pay increase. That is all I am advocating.

It is clear to me by the CEO's actions that he does not believe that the guy "is worth x less" than anybody else. It seems he believes they are both of value to the company and is willing to pay them for it.

 Dreadwinter wrote:


It is clear to me by the CEO's actions that he does not believe that the guy "is worth x less" than anybody else. It seems he believes they are both of value to the company and is willing to pay them for it.

I got the impression he wants to give his employees a wage based more on what they need than any perceived give and take. The article states he found that pay based on studies of what income provides a shield from want. He considers it his Christian duty to do what he can for his fellow man.


And I say more power to him. Let the free market decide if they like that better than the lower pay.

I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess that no-one here reads much in the way of economic research, especially not the people claiming CEO wages are determined by merit. Empirical work done by a whole lot of people is finding that demand and supply is far from the only factor in setting prices. Instead, non-quantitative factors like expectations and assumed value are way more important - this explains why individual sectors will often have serious labour shortage for months or even years without seeing spiking wages, while in another sector a glut in labour won't drive down wages like our pretty D&S models state.

And one area this is most clear is with CEO pay. First up, there's barely a market there at all, CEO skills aren't necessarily transferable from organisation to organisation, and pay negotiations are never at arm's length. But even then, its clear that what's driving CEO pay has little to do with the market. I mean, what changed in the market from 1970 until today, as CEO pay increased 150 times over? Did CEOs become 150 times smarter than they used to be? Are people capable of being a CEO 150 times more scarce than they were in the 1970s? Obviously D&S just doesn't explain what's happened.

There's a half joking explanation that travels around, that says in the 1970s you saw the explosion of Monday night football. Money poured in to football, and through genuine D&S mechanics you saw a massive increase in player's pay, all of which was heavily covered in the media. CEOs had considered their pays, an average of 20 times the average employee, to be fair remuneration, now saw athletes earning many times what they earned. So if they got paid that much, why not me as well. So the normative bounds of what seemed reasonable dropped away, and CEO pay skyrocketed.

It's slightly tongue in cheek explanation (though the timing works out really well). But the point is to understand that it really, really isn't market forces that decide remuneration. So stop just accepting pay rates as what they must be, because it just doesn't work like that.

 Grey Templar wrote:
OK, let's add the following to your example.

I make 40k, you make 110k. There is also another guy who makes 65k.

Yes, that is a potential situation that might make this unfair. But, to repeat my point again, you have no fething clue as to what actually happened inside the company. So stop claiming it as a fact.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:
I think this line of reasoning is nonsense.

To claim that CEOs don't have "harder jobs" is, IMO, a bit ridiculous. The increased level of responsibility is enough unto itself. They may not work as many hours, but that hardly means it isn't "harder."

Further, CEOs don't just become CEOs because someone liked them. Nearly all bust their asses to become them.

Meh. I don't disagree that they work harder (I don't particularly agree either, any assessment of CEO work is a hopeless generalisation). But all of that is just total fething nonsense when compared to CEO pay levels. No amount of hard work can possibly explain a $30 million pay packet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yup. I had an entire class around inventory management. Its a bitch.

Really? Man when you get to Throughput you're going to cry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
How is this exceedingly difficult? I mean, they could just go back and look at their order log for the time. How much food are we going to need for Thanksgiving? Lets check last years log and run it against how we are doing this year! "For thanksgiving last year we needed this much. Going by that data, I am going to assume we will need this much again."

In reality this is not a difficult job and it does not require a college education to accomplish. You are just attempting to make it sound difficult.

It depends on how much detail you're willing to put in to it. At the most basic level you just pick a certain level of stock, and when you reach that point you re-order.

But you can add a lot of science in to deciding exactly what level of stock is. The simplest question is how long does order & delivery take - to make sure the new stock arrives before the minimum stock runs out. But then customer orders vary, one night they might order 50 units, the next they might order 80. So you bell curve that stuff, and compare the cost of running out of stock against the cost of holding too much inventory, to find an ideal risk of running out, and therefore a best re-order point. And then you start adding in bundling, because you don't want a whole truck carrying new stock if all you need is one crate of ball point pens.

And so on. It isn't rocket science, but it's enough to get some undergraduates confused for a little while.

 sebster wrote:


Meh. I don't disagree that they work harder (I don't particularly agree either, any assessment of CEO work is a hopeless generalisation). But all of that is just total fething nonsense when compared to CEO pay levels. No amount of hard work can possibly explain a $30 million pay packet.
.

I agree that you can't really quantify it. However, I simply can't swallow that entry level work = CEO work, on the level of responsibility and corporate stewardship alone.

In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.

 cincydooley wrote:
In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.

A cap works quite well in nations which have set them.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
In that same regard, I don't think there should be any kind of cap on CEO salaries, etc. If their boards can justify them, then so be it.

A cap works quite well in nations which have set them.

Great. I can't say I care about those countries.

I think it's an anti-capitalist ideal. There should be no limit on one's earning potential.

 cincydooley wrote:

I think it's an anti-capitalist ideal. There should be no limit on one's earning potential.

I partially agree.... when that unlimited earnings comes at the cost of worker salary, that's when you really begin to lose goodwill. Or rather, when your business pays less in taxes (personal and corporate) than what it costs the State to support your workers, that's when we should be taking a good hard look at what you're doing, because I, and many others, think that that's wrong.

Maybe, but what if that company is owned by the CEO in question? Surely he has a right to run his personal property how he sees fit and can pay himself whatever he wants.

A company has no obligation to ensure its employees aren't living below the poverty line. It is only obligated to pay them an agreed upon rate for their labor. If that rate is below what a particular employee needs to make ends meet that isn't the company's concern, morally or legally IMO. Especially since there is no objective way to pinpoint what exactly a 'living wage' is.

It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Maybe, but what if that company is owned by the CEO in question? Surely he has a right to run his personal property how he sees fit and can pay himself whatever he wants.

A company has no obligation to ensure its employees aren't living below the poverty line. It is only obligated to pay them an agreed upon rate for their labor. If that rate is below what a particular employee needs to make ends meet that isn't the company's concern, morally or legally IMO. Especially since there is no objective way to pinpoint what exactly a 'living wage' is.

It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.

How is that last line true at all? When a CEO makes 100x more than any other employee in the company, bringing their salary down to a reasonable level allows you to redistribute the wealth to other employees and give them raises, benefits, possibly hire more in areas that desperately need it.

So....lets do the math:

Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.

There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.

Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.

That's an increase of $7B.

Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.

Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).

FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.

 cincydooley wrote:
So....lets do the math:

Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.

There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.

Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.

That's an increase of $7B.

Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.

Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).

FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.

Could you possibly use another company as an example? One such as Gravity where the raise was possible instead of an outrageously huge company. One that clearly has more than one person at the top making outrageous amounts of money.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
So....lets do the math:

Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.

There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.

Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.

That's an increase of $7B.

Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.

Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).

FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.

Could you possibly use another company as an example? One such as Gravity where the raise was possible instead of an outrageously huge company. One that clearly has more than one person at the top making outrageous amounts of money.

Why?

I think the argument can be made that smaller companies should be even less keen to do it.

The Gravity payments example is a perfect one to show why it can potentially be a bad idea.

Smaller companies will be paying their executives much less than a huge company, which are the ones getting flak for these huge executive paychecks. Yet once distributed over the company it is miniscule.

If Doug McMillon gave up his entire yearly salary to all Walmart employees it would be only another $11 bucks a year each. They could go see a movie, no popcorn.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
So....lets do the math:

Michael Duke made $35MM the last time it was reported. His successor, Doug McMillon, makes $25MM.

There are 2.2MM WalMart employees. The average hourly wage for a wal-mart employee is $8.80/hour, or an annual pay of around $15,500. That totals $34,100,000,000.

Lets say they all get a raise of $2.00/hr. That increases their avg. annual salary to $19,000 and the total yearly expenditure to $41,800,000,000.

That's an increase of $7B.

Dukes' Salary would be .5% of that increase. McMillon's even lower.

Unless my math is wrong (and it certainly could be).

FWIW, if they wanted to raise it to $15/hr like the fast food workers want, that would mean an increase of total salary to $58.3B, or an increase of $24B.

Could you possibly use another company as an example? One such as Gravity where the raise was possible instead of an outrageously huge company. One that clearly has more than one person at the top making outrageous amounts of money.

Why?

I think the argument can be made that smaller companies should be even less keen to do it.

The Gravity payments example is a perfect one to show why it can potentially be a bad idea.

Except that in the smaller company it brought up a very noticeable pay raise which is helping many employees. Just because a few people left because they are greedy does not make it a bad idea.

Not greedy, angry over not getting the raises that their contribution would have normally warrented. Instead noobs got obscene raises they didn't deserve or work for.

He basically alienated his staff for no good reason.

Because they are greedy? Get the feth out of here.

 cincydooley wrote:
Because they are greedy? Get the feth out of here.

No. Why else would they be upset about another person making more money?

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Because they are greedy? Get the feth out of here.

No. Why else would they be upset about another person making more money?

Pride?

Aka Butt hurt.. BLAM Brought it back.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Because they are greedy? Get the feth out of here.

No. Why else would they be upset about another person making more money?

Did you read any of the other posts addressing that in this thread?

Are you familiar at all with equity theory?

Or simple notions of meritocracy?

For you to make this blanket accusation that greed is the reason is inflammatory and unfounded.

 Grey Templar wrote:

It is beneficial if a company's employees aren't struggling, but if it would actively hurt the company to help then they shouldn't be forced to do it. CEO salaries are really small beans comparedto salaries overall. You will never get any meaningful across the board salary increases by limiting CEO salaries.

There most definitely IS something wrong with a company that says to it's employees: "If you're not making enough here, get another job, or get welfare benefits. Ohh hey, look what I found: it's a copy of a welfare application, you want this one?"


Even then, with the numbers that others have posted for CEO Salary at one company (the $25MM per year), every single article that I've read on the subject has flat out said that when these people get into that kind of money territory, you're actually looking at someone who's just hording that money, and is making probably triple that (as in, 25% or less of their annual income is that "salary" provided by the company they head) in stock investing. Yeah, that CEO pay might be "small beans" to the company, but you really aren't hurting that "CEO" by cutting their pay



Many of the arguments that I'm seeing here, and usually see from right leaning folks, is that Rockefeller was right, and earned his money fair and square, so we should all be so happy that these rich folk are so kind and benevolent as to give us a scrap of "their" money, and because we should be happy, we need to shut up about how fethed the situation is.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Because they are greedy? Get the feth out of here.

No. Why else would they be upset about another person making more money?

Did you read any of the other posts addressing that in this thread?

Are you familiar at all with equity theory?

Or simple notions of meritocracy?

For you to make this blanket accusation that greed is the reason is inflammatory and unfounded.

I have read all the posts. If they do not like what they are getting paid, they can find a new job. Is that not the common response to people saying they are not getting paid enough?