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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (778562)	4/5/2014 12:13:11 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1588634

I used to work out in Silicon Valley, where all the CEO's sit on each others boards, and vote on each others compensation. It's "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" all the time, and an easy little bonus check for almost no work. As a comparison, imagine you had a bunch of workers determining their own salaries. They might tend to overpay themselves. As too much became normal, they might pay themselves even more! That's what's driven CEO pay to the ridiculous levels it's risen to in this country.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (778562)	4/6/2014 11:46:16 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1588634

Yeah, that's not going to change either until stockholders can hold votes, which bind the Board of Directors to stockholder majority rules. Unfortunately, stockholder votes are currently non-binding. So the only hope we have to curb CEO pay are shareholder activists that make a big public stink. But that isn't very effective. We need Democratic rights for stockholders and that would do the trick. We also need to make it illegal for a CEO to also be Chairman of the Board. Conflict of interest anyone? Sheesh. Its really disturbing how blatant and excessive its become. There seems to be no limits. And its spilled over into other professions. I posted an article yesterday where the archbishop of Atlanta was forced to sell his $2.2 million mansion because of angry parishioners. And don't get me started on the fact that the highest paid public servant in WA state is the football coach at UW. The US is becoming more and more like Russia.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (778562)	4/6/2014 12:00:25 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1588634

>> We need Democratic rights for stockholders and that would do the trick. You understand that the organizers of a corporation could choose "democratic rights" for shareholders if they wanted to, but choose not to do that because it is obviously not a workable way to run a corporation? There are good reasons that operation of a corporation is vested in a BOD. Someone didn't just wake up one day and say, "How can we maximize CEO pay?" Great CEOs are rock stars and there is no reason they shouldn't be paid like rock stars. There is a market for them, and market forces work perfectly in that environment. If the BOD wants a particular rock star badly enough they will pay for him. The arbitrary assertions that CEOs should make more than X times the lowest paid employees is just left wing idiocy. Go pick on Michael Jordan.