# CEO's pay -- 300 times regular folks'! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 23, 2015, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259 "2015-06-23T16:59:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Dibbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dibbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dibbs)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/141 "2015-06-25T17:25:04Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Is it possible to look at any complex individual or situation any other way? Even Jesus said and did some highly questionable things, according to the novel. > > Chrysler brought the minivan to the US market but did not invent it. The rest of the world basically invented every kind of small car and related innovation long before we stopped making fun of the Nash Metro and choosing our cars by extra inches. > > Airbags were coming no matter who took the first steps. > > And Chrysler just might have been worth propping up and saving - and I agree that it’s an economic win in many ways - because they were a major manufacturer of defense hardware like tanks. Save for the Jesus comment, you took the words right out of my mouth.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/142 "2015-06-25T17:51:32Z")
> [@Dibbs](#): > > Please explain. I was trying to reply to a much earlier poster and failed to use the quote function. I’m not sure which post. The dangers of posting after bedtime. I make transactions daily. For food from the grocery, for my time, for my skills. Those transactions only occur when they are mutually beneficial. I come out ahead. My trading partner comes out ahead. I’d like to pay less for groceries. I’d like to get paid more for my time. But I only deserve what people are willing to trade. I buy only certain grocery items when they’re on sale. I can and do grow some of my own food. I pay less for food in exchange for more of my time. Now I normally value my time pretty highly, but gardening gets a discount because I enjoy it. I can and have made my time more valuable to others. That was a choice. I’d like to earn more now, but I don’t deserve more. There are steps I could take to earn more, but I’m not terribly interested at the moment. When I helped hire a CEO last year (not at my company) there were certain skills, experiences, and traits that we wanted. Nobody at the company could do the job. I couldn’t and still can’t do the job, and wouldn’t want to if I could; 80 hour weeks suck. The candidate pool was tiny, and the new CEO is well compensated. She deserves no more or less. She comes out ahead. The owners come out ahead. Everybody involved in the transaction wins. And her pay has no bearing on a low-value transaction made by someone else in the company. If the company had been on a downward trajectory in a difficult market, and if we’d wanted her to come in and take crazy risks, she probably could have demanded greater base compensation in exchange for the added stress, the possible hit to her reputation, and the lower likelihood of the equity stake panning out favorably. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/143 "2015-06-25T17:55:54Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I make transactions daily. For food from the grocery, for my time, for my skills. Those transactions only occur when they are mutually beneficial. And he loses it on the turn, ladies and gentleman. I guess if you have yourself convinced of that, nothing further to say. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/144 "2015-06-25T18:03:51Z")
Which of my transactions are not mutually beneficial? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/145 "2015-06-25T18:07:06Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Which of my transactions are not mutually beneficial? I have no idea, but claiming that you never “make a transaction” that is not “mutually beneficial” is both libertarian wankspeak and so close to nonsense you might as well claim your body doesn’t use oxygen. But as I say, if you have yourself convinced you move in a bubble of perfectly beneficial exchanges, don’t let me be the pin. ---
**Author:** ![Dibbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dibbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dibbs)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/146 "2015-06-25T18:08:07Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I was trying to reply to a much earlier poster and failed to use the quote function. I’m not sure which post. The dangers of posting after bedtime. > > I make transactions daily. For food from the grocery, for my time, for my skills. Those transactions only occur when they are mutually beneficial. I come out ahead. My trading partner comes out ahead. I’d like to pay less for groceries. I’d like to get paid more for my time. But I only deserve what people are willing to trade. > I buy only certain grocery items when they’re on sale. I can and do grow some of my own food. I pay less for food in exchange for more of my time. Now I normally value my time pretty highly, but gardening gets a discount because I enjoy it. > I can and have made my time more valuable to others. That was a choice. I’d like to earn more now, but I don’t deserve more. There are steps I could take to earn more, but I’m not terribly interested at the moment. > > When I helped hire a CEO last year (not at my company) there were certain skills, experiences, and traits that we wanted. Nobody at the company could do the job. I couldn’t and still can’t do the job, and wouldn’t want to if I could; 80 hour weeks suck. The candidate pool was tiny, and the new CEO is well compensated. She deserves no more or less. She comes out ahead. The owners come out ahead. Everybody involved in the transaction wins. And her pay has no bearing on a low-value transaction made by someone else in the company. > > If the company had been on a downward trajectory in a difficult market, and if we’d wanted her to come in and take crazy risks, she probably could have demanded greater base compensation in exchange for the added stress, the possible hit to her reputation, and the lower likelihood of the equity stake panning out favorably. Thanks for taking the time to explain all of that. In your case it sounds like everyone did pretty good. But I’m curious, what do the janitor(s) make there? (If you don’t wish to go there, it’s okay.:)) ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/147 "2015-06-25T18:17:55Z")
> [@Dibbs](#): > > Thanks for taking the time to explain all of that. In your case it sounds like everyone did pretty good. But I’m curious, what do the janitor(s) make there? (If you don’t wish to go there, it’s okay.:)) I honestly don’t have any idea; I didn’t have that kind of fidelity. Cleaning-related work was split up. The more office housekeeping type of work was contracted out, I think. I suspect they made close to the minimum wage for that state. Work in shop and manufacturing areas was more specialized. It required safety training, and they were doing some prep and maintenance work, so I suspect it paid more. But that’s all guesses. ---
**Author:** ![Dibbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dibbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dibbs)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/148 "2015-06-25T18:42:33Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I honestly don’t have any idea; I didn’t have that kind of fidelity. Cleaning-related work was split up. The more office housekeeping type of work was contracted out, I think. I suspect they made close to the minimum wage for that state. > Work in shop and manufacturing areas was more specialized. It required safety training, and they were doing some prep and maintenance work, so I suspect it paid more. > > But that’s all guesses. Thanks for your time Sir, you’re a good guy!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/149 "2015-06-25T18:47:15Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I have no idea, but claiming that you never “make a transaction” that is not “mutually beneficial” is both libertarian wankspeak and so close to nonsense you might as well claim your body doesn’t use oxygen. > > But as I say, if you have yourself convinced you move in a bubble of perfectly beneficial exchanges, don’t let me be the pin. There is of course an element of risk. There is the possibility of fraud, misinformation, incomplete information, and misinterpretation, although these are certainly not all the norm. We are also not narrowly self-interested, and may act irrationally. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/150 "2015-06-25T18:50:12Z")
> [@Dibbs](#): > > Thanks for your time Sir, you’re a good guy!🙂 Hardly. No spouter of libertarian wankspeak is allowed to be a good guy. It’s in the rules somewhere. Because I don’t feel anyone in particular deserves a higher or lower wage, I’d rather focus on living standards that we feel hard-working people deserve. I’d prefer to be taxed to do something about that and let the job market do what the job market does. It’s a complicated topic though, and I don’t have a canned plan ready for action. ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/151 "2015-06-25T19:05:14Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Japan built heavy, clunky, primitive cars until the later 1970s because that’s the best they could do. The body sheetmetal on many, for example, was twice the thickness it should have been (even if durability was the aim) because that’s all Japanese steel mills could produce. > > Not that what you say is wrong, precisely, but the truth is a bit more subtle than “they changed to meet NA expectations.” It wasn’t in any way that they were building the great cars of later decades and 'Murricans somehow didn’t want them. I realize that it is more subtle than that. I was trying to simply my argument but thanks for the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/152 "2015-06-25T19:22:43Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > There is of course an element of risk. There is the possibility of fraud, misinformation, incomplete information, and misinterpretation, although these are certainly not all the norm. > We are also not narrowly self-interested, and may act irrationally. The absence of perfect information is often the culprit. I had an econ prof in B school who used to talk about how much gas stations hated the custom of putting their prices (for a commodity good, for the most part) out for all to see. I would suggest that the web has boosted the prevalence of perfect information by several orders of magnitude. Not just the disintermediation (think of costs of air travel, hotels, stock trades… laid bare for all to see) but also for the feedback loop involved. For example, I just discovered today that the Troy Bilt pressure washer I bought about 5 yrs ago, and used maybe 5 times, has gone bad. I now have a vehicle, through the web, of publicizing that in the form of product/store reviews that wouldn’t have been available to me before… giving someone else better information to make a rational economic decision. I guess the equivalent for jobs would be Glassdoor, all the recruiting sites, and such. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/153 "2015-06-25T19:56:15Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > There is of course an element of risk. There is the possibility of fraud, misinformation, incomplete information, and misinterpretation, although these are certainly not all the norm. > We are also not narrowly self-interested, and may act irrationally. All of that, yes, but what I think you might be under-thinking is that a very large number of “exchanges” in life are more complicated, opaque and fraught than buying a gallon of milk over the counter. Even with perfect knowledge and comprehension, you no doubt complete many exchanges a year that are a total reaming… because you have absolutely no choice. It’s a worthy notion and ideal. It’s just on a level with world peace. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/154 "2015-06-25T20:28:58Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Even with perfect knowledge and comprehension, you no doubt complete many exchanges a year that are a total reaming… because you have absolutely no choice. Could you point some of them out? Do you mean things like interacting with your family and children? Paying taxes? Paying insurance? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/155 "2015-06-25T20:43:50Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Could you point some of them out? No, because I have no idea what “exchanges” Ruken makes and generalities can be hand-waved away as easily as “mutually beneficial” can be hand-waved in. Even without being a rabid anti-taxer, though, it’s unlikely that all government revenue Ruken pays represents a “mutually beneficial” exchange except at the highest meta-level of throwing money at some nebulously defined public good. That Ruken cheerfully pays X amount for something and both s/he and the seller feel gratified at the mutual benefit doesn’t mean there are layers of that transaction that are not “mutually beneficial” beyond an artificial notion of what the transaction is worth. As I said, quite clearly: if you believe you move in a bubble of nothing but “mutually beneficial exchanges”…\* á santé.\* Just don’t try to create a political/economic system around such personal fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/156 "2015-06-25T21:18:17Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > No, because I have no idea what “exchanges” Ruken makes and generalities can be hand-waved away as easily as “mutually beneficial” can be hand-waved in. > > Even without being a rabid anti-taxer, though, it’s unlikely that all government revenue Ruken pays represents a “mutually beneficial” exchange except at the highest meta-level of throwing money at some nebulously defined public good. > > That Ruken cheerfully pays X amount for something and both s/he and the seller feel gratified at the mutual benefit doesn’t mean there are layers of that transaction that are not “mutually beneficial” beyond an artificial notion of what the transaction is worth. > > As I said, quite clearly: if you believe you move in a bubble of nothing but “mutually beneficial exchanges”…\* á santé.\* Just don’t try to create a political/economic system around such personal fantasy. As someone who made an early career out of making those CEOs rich (I wrote exec comp plans), I will happily argue that all CEO pay agreements were thought to be mutually beneficial agreements when signed. The amount of pay at the CEO level very rarely could be divided down to the rank and file to make a serious dent. That said, I do think that our tax system could use some adjustments, but that has little to do with what a company chooses to pay its execs. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/157 "2015-06-25T21:26:26Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > I will happily argue that all CEO pay agreements were thought to be mutually beneficial agreements when signed. My entire contention is that some “exchanges” go far beyond the two parties on the blanket, even if they think the whole lies somewhere between them. I don’t think any one exchange - such as Ruken buying a gallon of milk from kindly Mr. Chen - can be disconnected from the other exchanges that are part of that chain and support it. Reducing your politico-economic thinking to “I have nothing but mutually beneficial exchanges” is breathtakingly short-sighted and narrow-minded. It reminds me of discussions I’ve had with upper-class types who lived in Pinochet’s Chile and could tell me with a straight face that things just weren’t that bad. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/158 "2015-06-26T00:15:43Z")
> [@Dibbs](#): > > Be a sport and elaborate on this: “I don’t think that you are serious when you say that you have no problem with CEOs that create their own corporations.” OK: I submit that if a CEO created his own corporation, and made 300X etc… that you \*would \*have a problem with it. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/159 "2015-06-26T00:27:49Z")
I come home with milk – something I wanted but didn’t have to buy – at a price I was willing to pay. I benefited. Mr. Chen benefited. What are we missing? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259/160 "2015-06-26T00:44:14Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I have no idea Then please tell us what voluntary trades you make that are not mutually beneficial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ceos-pay-300-times-regular-folks/723259.md?page=9)