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Andrew Bathgate

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On average are the CEO's of the top 100 companies worth their salary?

In my experience many of the top CEO's seem to fall in to their positions by being well connected rather than being particularly talented. This does not apply to those that created their own company. They then manipulate their compensation to far outstrip what the market would set it at if it were working correctly.

Topics: Compensation corruption inequality motivation
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  • David Saia

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    Nov 27 2011: Revolution against unrestrained taxation is what created this country, and we are right back where we were. No one- and I mean no one- can tell us where our money is going when we pay taxes, so it is without representation. Not to mention that our "representatives" have no awareness of the people they represent as they do not live among them. If everything is fine and dandy why do senators and congressmen have health insurance their own districts or state's populations cannot, for the most part, afford? Remember, the 1% don't want estate taxes and are content with the richest Americans paying the least taxes- just ask Warren Buffet who pays less taxes than his secretary. Face it- it is a dying system from an outdated philosophy of modernism. We must embrace the new post-modern age and free ourselves from our masters to decide how we want and need to live. Relax, it won't happen in our lifetimes, and certainly not here. At least we can agree to disagree, right?

    • Andrew Bathgate

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      Nov 27 2011: The causes of the revolution are not exactly what teachers say they were... but that's another debate and a long one.
      However I am not talking unrestrained taxation and certainly not taxation without representation.

      The USA's greatest growth in wealth and its greatest achievements were all when it had top tax rates of 90%. We beat the Nazis and became a super power and held off the commies and put a man on the moon when top tax rates were 90%. It was only in the 70s when we dropped our top tax rates that we suddenly found ourselves unable to achieve great things. We lost our first war, we could not go back to the moon, we began to slide.

      We have been fooled in to thinking that lower tax rates encourage growth but history shows exactly the opposite is true.

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