More CEOs Rake In $50 million And Up

More CEOs rake in $50 million and up

You don't have to remind me that in a free enterprise system, it is the "right" of any individual to earn as much as he possibly can. You don't have to tell me that the government should not be the arbiter deciding how much any person in the private sector should earn. You don't have to convince me that the men and women who work the longest, hardest - and smartest - hours and take advantage of the current system better than everyone else should take home the biggest piece of the pie.

I agree with all of that. But don't try to then tell me that these folks are about job creation or primarily about trying to do a public good or must be paid $50 million in a year because they are just that darn indispensable - because they are not.

You can't say with a straight face that you can't find someone to do as good of a job - or better - than each of these guys for, say, $2 million a year or $5 million or $10 million instead of the $50 to well over $100 million these guys have been paid.

One of those guys is the Apple executive taking over for Steve Jobs. Just a few days ago the New York Times explored why Apple can't produce the iPhone in this country. It is a complicated reason and illustrates why our country must rethink the way it envisions labor and education. But a couple of quotes from the article stand out to me today in light of the CEO compensation story from USA Today:

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

They don't make these choices because of a 35 percent corporate tax rate - especially because most corporations don't pay nearly that much and many Fortune 500 companies paid either no income taxes or got a rebate in recent years - as evidenced by the 2005 corporate tax holiday which allowed corporations to bring home $312 billion in profit from offshore at a 5.25 percent rate with the promise that they'd create jobs. Instead, they pocketed about 92 percent of that money in the form of dividends and other such things - and then they cut more than 600,000 domestic jobs.

In addition to that, between 2008 and 2010, corporations paid more money to lobby Congress - to create more tax loopholes and beg for more subsidies and special treatment for their particular businesses and industries - than they did in federal taxes. Talk about a great return on investment. 

On top of that, we have people who earn $5 billion in a single year by doing things that helped lead to the financial crash, or make tens of millions through investments, including the guy who might become the GOP presidential nominee, paying a lower tax rate than many middle-class people who earn wages. And we have corporations who earn billions in profit taking in billions of taxpayer-funded subsidies - even as there is a big outcry to cut services to the poor and middle class just to make sure we don't have to ask for a single penny more from those at the top of the food chain to help lower the rising deficit, which was largely caused by massive tax cuts when we had a projected surplus.

I say there's something terribly wrong with that picture. And if that makes me sound envious or jealous or wanting to start class warfare, so be it - even though I am none of those things. It makes no sense - ethically, morally or practically - to protect the most comfortable at the expense of everyone else.

Corporate CEOs don't have to listen to any of this. It is their choice, their right, in a society built upon capitalism, to take as much as they can, if that's what they want to do. I get that.

But we don't have to subsidize them while they do it. And neither should we be quiet about it.

You can't say with a straight face that you can't find someone to do as good of a job - or better - than each of these guys for, say, $2 million a year or $5 million or $10 million instead of the $50 to well over $100 million these guys have been paid.

One of those guys is the Apple executive taking over for Steve Jobs. Just a few days ago the New York Times explored why Apple can't produce the iPhone in this country. It is a complicated reason and illustrates why our country must rethink the way it envisions labor and education. But a couple of quotes from the article stand out to me today in light of the CEO compensation story from USA Today:

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

They don't make these choices because of a 35 percent corporate tax rate - especially because most corporations don't pay nearly that much and many Fortune 500 companies paid either no income taxes or got a rebate in recent years - as evidenced by the 2005 corporate tax holiday which allowed corporations to bring home $312 billion in profit from offshore at a 5.25 percent rate with the promise that they'd create jobs. Instead, they pocketed about 92 percent of that money in the form of dividends and other such things - and then they cut more than 600,000 domestic jobs.

In addition to that, between 2008 and 2010, corporations paid more money to lobby Congress - to create more tax loopholes and beg for more subsidies and special treatment for their particular businesses and industries - than they did in federal taxes. Talk about a great return on investment. 

On top of that, we have people who earn $5 billion in a single year by doing things that helped lead to the financial crash, or make tens of millions through investments, including the guy who might become the GOP presidential nominee, paying a lower tax rate than many middle-class people who earn wages. And we have corporations who earn billions in profit taking in billions of taxpayer-funded subsidies - even as there is a big outcry to cut services to the poor and middle class just to make sure we don't have to ask for a single penny more from those at the top of the food chain to help lower the rising deficit, which was largely caused by massive tax cuts when we had a projected surplus.

I say there's something terribly wrong with that picture. And if that makes me sound envious or jealous or wanting to start class warfare, so be it - even though I am none of those things. It makes no sense - ethically, morally or practically - to protect the most comfortable at the expense of everyone else.

Corporate CEOs don't have to listen to any of this. It is their choice, their right, in a society built upon capitalism, to take as much as they can, if that's what they want to do. I get that.

But we don't have to subsidize them while they do it. And neither should we be quiet about it.