Re: Dems: highest 2% of earners,who already pay 50% of all incm taxes, must pay even
The market decides what it can bear...not you, not me. If the market places that value on a CEO, then so be it. Let the free market work.
30 years ago, I may have agreed. However today there is no such thing as "free market." We have a "manipulated market" that is no longer based on real value, but on perceived value (of products, of inventory, of people, of intellectual properties, of stocks). It is not the real, general market that decides how much a CEO should be paid, it is the small, elite that sits on as many as 20 or 30 of the largest corporations boards of directors, and who "scratch each other's back."
If there was such a thing still as "free market" deciding how much a CEO makes, it would have been very clear that companies such as AIG, BofA, Morgan Stanley, etc. . . .who showed such huge deficits that they had to be bailed out by "the little peoople" in order to save our economy, would have NOT given their CEO's and top directors ANY bonuses, but would have shown them the door. . .maybe even the door of some golden prison!
I am not sure what I am supposed to take from this story...yes the guy making $100,000 is working hard and being a good worker, but what does that make the guy making $1,000,000?
Maybe the guy making a million started a company and built it up from nothing. Does he not deserve more reward than the guy who perhaps just went to work for someone else?
Many people believe that, although most "private enterprise" fail, sometime several time before succeeding. And "success" usually doesn't amount in Millions of dollars, except for a very small percentage of entrepreneurs.
In addition, if you look at the VERY wealthy, most of their wealth doesn't come from "income" but from accumulated wealth. Most don't work at all, but reap the benefits from huge dividends, AND the extremely favorable tax shelters and tax codes that allow them to pay a MUCH smaller tax rate on investment income, and none on wealth.
To support this with factual numbers, here is a extract from Domhoff: Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power in America
sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html - CachedSimilar
Who Rules America? By G. William Domhoff, University of California at Santa Cruz
"We also need to distinguish wealth from income. Income is what people earn from work, but also from dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own. In theory, those who own a great deal of wealth may or may not have high incomes, depending on the returns they receive from their wealth, but in reality those at the very top of the wealth distribution usually have the most income. (But it's important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not come from "working": in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. See Norris, 2010, for more details.)"
He is also paying a lot more in for those services too, in terms of actual cash.
Are you sure about this? Who do you think is "supposedly" the owner of those jets? The "corporation," who earns money, but doesn't pay tax. So, the "corporation" shows "business expenses and depreciation" for that jet, the wealthy has the free use of it, and even gets the airports subsidized by the government so he can land that jet securely, but HE doesn't pay taxes on anything.
It should be all about what the free market says your skills are valued at, nothing more.
Again, if I believed there was still such a thing as "free market," I would agree. Today, there is no free market. It is manipulated market that is being manipulated by olygopolists who "fix" everything to, obviously, their advantage.