Purpose of any Company is Profits - screw the workers

[Aliantha]

Capping executive salaries is a good idea in theory, and I've put some thought into it. From where I'm standing, the only way you could do it fairly would be to make executive salaries only a certain percentage higher than their lowest paid full time employee. That percentage would be the issue, but it would certainly limit the amount multi-national corporations could pay their execs, but still allow them to pay the sort of money which is usually comensurate with the knowledge and experience required to fill such positions.

eta: This system would obviously very likely improve the salaries paid to lower income earners which could be a good thing. Kind of like re-distributing the wealth.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Capping executive salaries is a good idea in theory, and I've put some thought into it. From where I'm standing, the only way you could do it fairly would be to make executive salaries only a certain percentage higher than their lowest paid full time employee. That percentage would be the issue, but it would certainly limit the amount multi-national corporations could pay their execs, but still allow them to pay the sort of money which is usually comensurate with the knowledge and experience required to fill such positions.

eta: This system would obviously very likely improve the salaries paid to lower income earners which could be a good thing. Kind of like re-distributing the wealth.

Only that in a free market the government can't steal the profits made by the company. So even if the salaries are capped, the profits will go to the shareholders. Many employers and employees are shareholders.

[kerosene]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Capping executive salaries is a good idea in theory, and I've put some thought into it. From where I'm standing, the only way you could do it fairly would be to make executive salaries only a certain percentage higher than their lowest paid full time employee. That percentage would be the issue, but it would certainly limit the amount multi-national corporations could pay their execs, but still allow them to pay the sort of money which is usually comensurate with the knowledge and experience required to fill such positions.

eta: This system would obviously very likely improve the salaries paid to lower income earners which could be a good thing. Kind of like re-distributing the wealth.

Sounds like a good idea, but those who work the system the way it is now, would find a way to do it again. Not saying something shouldn't be done, but I think if we were to put a limitation on executives at all companies, we would have to limit wages all the way down to the janitors or we would end up finding a lot of slimy personnel records ten or twenty years down the road (I'm thinking instead of executives, they would take different titles, but have the same influence on the company behind the scenes.) And really, nobody wants to be limited to what they can earn...not by some other entity like the government. Would it be fair to limit the wages an admin makes? Or a sales person? Once we go there, we have fallen pretty far down that slippery slope and we are still stuck to stagnant wages for everyone.

Maybe I am just cynical, but I don't think we can force the kind of people who have that much greed to change.

I do think we should change things like not allowing CEOs to be chairmen of the board. I worked for HP when Fiorina was in charge and always felt there was something wrong with that. Too much trust put into one person who hadn't really proved she deserved it.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by case

Sounds like a good idea, but those who work the system the way it is now, would find a way to do it again. Not saying something shouldn't be done, but I think if we were to put a limitation on executives at all companies, we would have to limit wages all the way down to the janitors or we would end up finding a lot of slimy personnel records ten or twenty years down the road (I'm thinking instead of executives, they would take different titles, but have the same influence on the company behind the scenes.) And really, nobody wants to be limited to what they can earn...not by some other entity like the government. Would it be fair to limit the wages an admin makes? Or a sales person? Once we go there, we have fallen pretty far down that slippery slope and we are still stuck to stagnant wages for everyone.

Maybe I am just cynical, but I don't think we can force the kind of people who have that much greed to change.

I do think we should change things like not allowing CEOs to be chairmen of the board. I worked for HP when Fiorina was in charge and always felt there was something wrong with that. Too much trust put into one person who hadn't really proved she deserved it.

Maybe we could just put them all in prison for a few years. Doing hard labor.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Capping executive salaries is a good idea in theory, and I've put some thought into it. From where I'm standing, the only way you could do it fairly would be to make executive salaries only a certain percentage higher than their lowest paid full time employee. That percentage would be the issue, but it would certainly limit the amount multi-national corporations could pay their execs, but still allow them to pay the sort of money which is usually comensurate with the knowledge and experience required to fill such positions.

eta: This system would obviously very likely improve the salaries paid to lower income earners which could be a good thing. Kind of like re-distributing the wealth.

I have actually proposed this before, because the real problem is that fact that executives in the US now make almost 500x more than the average worker. Bring that back down to where it should be and where it is in other countries, which more like 30%. And that is where it used to be in this country as well.