Spread the wealth

[nplenzick]

emayer wrote:

Just playing devil's advocate here to represent free market forces and American capitalism on which this country is founded....

Are you saying that supply and demand should not dictate salaries?

Well if you take the Merck example then I would say it's not working.

Do you prefer that companies be managed like Ford, GM, Chrysler, Lucent, Bethlehem steel etc?

There lies the problem it's how these companies are managed that' creating some of the mess we're in.

While the American auto industry is choking under the weight of inefficiency, pension/healthcare costs, unions, etc. and are now looking for a bailout from the good 'ol American taxpayer, Porsche handed out a roughly $1500 additional bonus to every employee this year. BTW, Wiedeking has a generous salary package too- (though weighted toward stock options).

I really wouldn't say that's what is choking our auto industry. Mis management is more likely the problem. Ford and GM both build fine cars overseas and have been for many years and it's not because they are actually built better. Can you imagine any of the big three handing out a $1500 bonus to it's employees? That mindset doesn't exists in Detroit. Don't blame the unions, pensions, etc, ether, as the employees of the German companies have all of this and then some. Are we going to have to bail out our auto industry? It's already started with a 20+ billion package last month. Are we going to have to pay more? Probably, in the late 70's Renault was in deep trouble, the French spent a great deal of dollars bailing them out even supporting the F1 team which at the time was spending a great deal of money developing their turbo cars. Do you think that investment was worth it?

I'm not arguing that plenty of CEO packages are pillaging shaky companies, one need look no further than the financial industry. By the same token, generous salaries should not be discouraged if market forces support this. Most of these companies are publicly traded and have oversight...

It doesn't look like this is working at the moment. Greed comes into play here.

Perhaps the best model is to have CEO compensation linked directly to corporate performance, though this must be pursued with caution lest they attempt short-term gains at the long-term expense of the company. We are not privy to Merck's employee compensation, but in principle employee's should be able to reap some of the benefits of a company performing well (perhaps they are already)....

Once upon a time CEO compensation was linked to corporate performance but as pointed out in my posting it's apparent that it's way out of whack.

I am somewhat privy to Mercks employee compensation and it's been going downhill for quit sometime.

Here's the bottom line, we give large companies huge tax brakes, local, state, and federal, to build their factories and their offices here all in the pretense of creating jobs which they do at first. Then after a few years the company is making money and looking for expansion. So where do they expand? Overseas. Not that they can't make money here, but they can make more money overseas. Obama wants to give a $3000 tax credit to companies who create jobs that stay here. It's a beginning but there's more to be done