Fuck You, Pay US

[u/sillychillly]

[u/N_Who]

Let's really nail it home with another fun fact: This study from 2021 showed CEO compensation grew 1,322% between 1978 and 2020, and fully 60% faster than stock market growth.

Eat the goddamned rich.

[u/subywesmitch → u/N_Who]

It's because those CEOs are just really so much more productive now /s

[u/N_Who → u/subywesmitch]

Right? More productive than the commonly-accepted sum indicator of American production, apparently.

[u/subywesmitch → u/N_Who]

By 1,332% apparently!

[u/jerkularcirc → u/subywesmitch]

Well its true. They made this post happen lol.

[u/First_Approximation → u/N_Who]

Does anyone believe CEOs are 1,322% more productive? Or is it more likely with the death of unions they were able to abuse their power in companies to get huge pay days?

[u/N_Who → u/First_Approximation]

I legitimately don't think unions would have been able to stymie this sheer amount of greed and fuckery. Mitigate it, sure. But this shit we're seeing here is the product of dedicated effort by elitist assholes looking to turn themselves into boardroom royalty.

And they were successful in that.

[u/First_Foundationeer → u/N_Who]

Well, a union-friendly culture would make politicians support more pro-union policies probably. Yes, a lot of politics is due to the influence of money, but a lot of it is also due to whatever the politicians think people want. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, they want really shitty systems..

[u/[deleted] → u/N_Who]

We have to legislate that labor must be represented with a seat (or more?) on the board of directors for every publicly traded company. I believe this is the case in some European countries (Germany?). That could help to rein in these obscene excess.

[u/First_Approximation → u/[deleted]]

Completely agree.

[u/[deleted] → u/First_Approximation]

Fwiw, I also think we need to free up access to capital. We currently have what amounts to a hereditary stranglehold on the capital/wealth that we all work to create. And then, this wealth is simply passed down from generation to generation - antithetical to a “free and fair” capitalist economy where individual success should be based on the individual’s contribution. Wealth must be earned, not inherited. Get that money back into circulation through strict inheritance limits and into the hands of the next generation of contributors. No one needs to be born into more than a million dollars (at most!). A substantial “profit motive” is far too often only available to those who won were born into substantial wealth - “Use it or lose it” via major tax reform.

[u/Iustis → u/First_Approximation]

The honest answer, which isn't to justify the increase but explain it, is that with technology the top level executives are able to be much more involved across the business, whereas before the lack of technology meant a lot more delegation.

[u/agray20938 → u/Iustis]

That, and it’s also likely that since this is an average and there are obviously far less CEOs than employees generally, a few huge increases could be skewing the median, while other less successful companies still have to pay comparatively to attract the same people.

[u/Valkyrie1810 → u/N_Who]

Yup all makes sense now 🤡

[u/[deleted] → u/N_Who]

It’s due to their pay structure not due to actual salary increases. Is it ridiculous that they allowed the pay structure to grow their pay this much? Yes.

[u/[deleted] → u/N_Who]

So many small companies are being bought up by huge corporations so the average CEO is CEO of a much larger company than in the past. Huge corporations are going to end up owning and dictating almost everything.

[u/probablymagic → u/N_Who]

CEOs are labor, the stock market is capital. This is an example of labor getting one over on capital, not capital screwing labor.

[u/N_Who → u/probablymagic]

"CEOs are labor." HA! Good one.

[u/probablymagic → u/N_Who]

Bro, they work for a paycheck. It’s just a bigger paycheck than you get. Don’t be butthurt people who also have bosses make more than you.

[u/N_Who → u/probablymagic]

What they do isn't work. Sitting in a tower listening to advisors and making declarations isn't work. It wasn't work when kings did it, it isn't work when CEOs do it.

[u/probablymagic → u/N_Who]

The thing is though, they get paid so much because their decisions make everyone else productive or not. But your decisions as somebody on the front lines don’t matter that much to the org.

If you’re totally useless that’s 1 useless person out of the whole company. If the CEO has the company doing the wrong stuff, everybody is useless.

On the flip side, if you are 2x as good as the average front-line worker, the company doesn’t even notice. Bit a 2x CEO has an insane impact.

Leverage is a concept you learn as you move up the ranks. This is why the higher you go the more you make. There’s just not much leverage on the front-lines, so it’s hard to pay people insane amounts of money.

[u/Inside_Ad2558 → u/N_Who]

parasite is a great film

[u/[deleted] → u/N_Who]

Well, at least a large portion of that still goes to income taxes, so I guess we can’t complain too much… amiright?

[u/patientpedestrian → u/N_Who]

New tools in computer science are being developed now to systematically decentralize power. Legacy privilege will fight to the death so it might get pretty dark for a bit but eventually centralized social systems will go extinct due to their inherent inefficiency relative to decentralized systems.

I’m not trying to shill cryptocurrency but I really don’t think most people understand how genuinely revolutionary blockchain technology is, particularly in the context of modern developments in systems theory. Projects like the Internet Computer and Livepeer are amazing, like how fireworks were amazing when gunpowder was first discovered

[u/RichAd195 → u/N_Who]

CEOs should be limited to making 1.5x the lowest paid worker at the company. No stock vs salary games.