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To: LoneClone who wrote (94563)	2/22/2009 2:38:10 PM
From: axial	1 Recommendation Respond to of 116555

LC, I wish it would work: it's a simple, straightforward solution. However in my opinion, the problem has societal and cultural roots. We believe we inhabit a meritocracy, but we've created our own royalty, our own nobility, many of whom are nothing more than "upper class twits", as Monty Python would say. It will take a decade, easily, to erase the slavish notion that these individuals have some kind of superpower, some kind of endowmenr that entitles them to elevated status and jaw-dropping compensation. The ratio that you suggest makes a lot of sense. Post-WWII, our fathers returned from a great democratizing influence in which they lived, ate, slept, and died with the same people who would work in, and manage the future economy. In most cases, 20X the base wage was at the high end of the norm. Now, the CEO's compensation in an auto company is 40 or 50 times the President's. The CEO of an insurance company makes 500 times the compensation of a physicist. We can dress it up any way we want, but most of these people are hired help. Excessive compensation (for labor or management) adds to the cost of the product, and decreases competitive advantage. And while we're at it, let's not forget that such compensation isn't limited to the person at the top. Where are the voices of shareholders, in this madness? --- About Wall Street jobs, wealth, and the cultural distortion of America: "I have to say it: you have to do something about pay in the financial system. People in this field have way too much money. And this is not right. When I graduated from Duke [in 1986], as a first-year lawyer, I got $60,000. I thought it was astronomical! I was making somewhere a bit more than $80,000 when I came back to China in 1988. And that first month’s salary I got in China, on a little slip of paper, was 59 yuan. A few dollars! With a few yuan deducted for my rent and my water bill. I laughed when I saw it: 59 yuan! The thing is, we are working as hard as, if not harder than, those people. And we’re not stupid. Today those people fresh out of law school would get $130,000, or $150,000. It doesn’t sound right. Individually, everyone needs to be compensated. But collectively, this directs the resources of the country. It distorts the talents of the country. The best and brightest minds go to lawyering, go to M.B.A.s. And that affects our country, too! Many of the brightest youngsters come to me and say, “Okay, I want to go to the U.S. and get into business school, or law school.” I say, “Why? Why not science and engineering?” They say, “Look at some of my primary-school classmates. Their IQ is half of mine, but they’re in finance and now they’re making all this money.” So you have all these clever people going into financial engineering, where they come up with all these complicated products to sell to people." theatlantic.com Jim