We're not all created equal

[Gigabitch]

What does that have to do with being born equal?

[Lipp]

That being a genius (and especially being born good-looking, unless you want to be a model, bleh) isn't worth jack shit if the person can't put in the effort, and thus wouldn't be born as "better" than others.

But does it make things easier? Probably. Then again geniuses being born doesn't happen often enough to consider equality in the general population.

[Gigabitch]

Well, would you say that initiative is an innate trait or a learned behavior?

[Lipp]

What good is initiative if it's not pursued for long?

Initiative might be a trait that you are born with, but knowing the value and purpose of your undertaking (as the reason why you keep at it) is learned behavior.

[BoredGeorge]

This is sort of a companion thread to my healthcare thread.

CEOs get paid millions. We can use that money to hire like 6000 minimum wage
workers or something.

But we don't because CEOs deserve what they make and 6000 minimum wage workers wouldn't be able to replace what that one guy does. And somewhere out there, people are unemployed and struggling because of this.

Sorry, but we're not all created equal. Some people are just worth more than others.

Based on what I just said - How many people think I'm a complete douchebag and how many people agree with me?

I'm just curious.

I think that you are no very smart.

6000 minimum wage workers makes a CEO a CEO can't do dick without the company. Very poor analogy, CEO's are just members of a special group that support their own interests.

A better example.

A software developer might make $200,000 pa contract rate, and an office admin might make $40,000 a year plus free tampons, you could hire five of them for $200,000 but five admins could not do the job of one developer.

Agree in principle but not with the example. People should be paid what they are worth.

[BoredGeorge]

No, but I believe leading a company's direction has a higher value than 6000 people mopping floors.

That is essentially why Americans are failing at business - they don't know what they hell they're on about.

Stop mopping floors for one day and see how well the company goes. Is it in the food business ? Watch all the revenue generating stores close.

CEO pay in the states is a joke, china can run much better companies with CEOs earning 100th of what an American CEO earns, the numbers are similar in Europe.

[bluesummer]

I don't always think people are paid what they're worth. For instance, I don't think CEO's are worth millions of dollars. Six figures maybe, but the amount of money these guys make for the amount of work they do is appalling. The sad part is, the higher up the executive chain you go, the less you do and the more you earn.

I can think of other cases where pay is disproportionate. Teachers, for example. They make next to nothing but they put in a TON of hours (trust me, I know a LOT of teachers) and they are educating our children. Yikes. Then there's union workers. A job that should be paying $10 an hour suddenly pays $25, just because the union demanded it. I've met unionized supermarket cashiers making $22 an hour. Ridiculous.

[Lipp]

Ya, I'm not expecting to earn any large amounts up ahead, but then again I won't need to spend tons to compensate for having a depressing job that pays well because no one else wants to do it.

[IndiReloaded]

Yes. CEOs, COOs, Executive Directors, etc. deserve to be paid more than a relatively unskilled worker. They do things that others can't. In a perfect world, like Giga said, they should actually be making the company money, and creating the jobs that employ those large number of workers.

Those bonuses that were given despite appalling performance were disgusting tho. That kind of greed shouldn't go unpunished. I hope they tax them to the eyeballs w/an audit on top.

[Sanctuary]

I think that you are no very smart.

6000 minimum wage workers makes a CEO a CEO can't do dick without the company. Very poor analogy, CEO's are just members of a special group that support their own interests.

A better example.

A software developer might make $200,000 pa contract rate, and an office admin might make $40,000 a year plus free tampons, you could hire five of them for $200,000 but five admins could not do the job of one developer.

Agree in principle but not with the example. People should be paid what they are worth.

lol hi George.

[Sanctuary]

Everyone agrees CEO's deserve good pay, its just that the pay differences are not reflective of what CEO's contribute as much as they are reflective of the disparate bargaining power a CEO has compared to a wage worker in the same company.

That's like line of the week right there.

I acknowledge that executive compensation is a big issue but what do you suggest we do about it? When there's a rare or valued commodity in a given market (in this case the labor market), can you really blame the commodity for being overvalued by the market due to speculation? What they should do is figure out a way to tie compensation to long term performance.

Wage workers on the other hand are a dime a dozen.

Moving on to the articles, I've never really agreed with the stuff Krugman has written (then again, who am I to argue with the most recent Nobel Prize winner for economics), he's so liberal..

I agree with him that perhaps Wall Street is overpaid but you can't discount the importance of financial intermediaries in a capitalist society.

And if you wanna talk about the social good you give to society in relation to pay, then why does Eli Manning get paid so much more than surgeons? All he does is throw a football. Surgeons save lives.

[Sanctuary]

No, I meant the OP.

I feel like he's trying to take a point out of context.

Yea I kinda take it out of context but people take CEO pay out of context all the time (though two wrongs don't make a right).

I'm sick of opening the paper everyday hearing about everyone feeling like they deserve something just cuz they work hard or w/e (maybe I should stop reading the NY Times - so liberal lol). You deserve what you deserve. Life isn't fair - it never was.