we were just talking about this, weren't we?

[ProblemAgain]

CEOs Earn 354 Times More Than Average Worker

By Jennifer Liberto | CNNMoney.com – 6 hours ago

Chief executives of the nation's largest companies earned an average of $12.3 million in total pay last year -- 354 times more than a typical American worker, according to the AFL-CIO.

The average worker made $34,645 last year, according to the group that represents over 50 trade unions.

Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison's $96.1 million pay package topped the list, followed by $54.3 million earned by Credit Acceptance Corp.'s (CACC) Brett Roberts and Discovery Communications (DISCA) CEO David Zaslav's $50 million, according to the union's pay project.

The one stand out was Apple (AAPL) CEO Timothy Cook, whose pay dropped to $4.2 million from $376 million in 2011, when his compensation package got a boost from long-term stock awards.

The dip in Cook's pay was enough to lower the overall average for CEOs of top companies by 5% from 2011.

The discrepancy in pay between CEOs and the average worker has skyrocketed over the years, peaking in 2000, when the gap was 525 times. In 1980, CEO pay was 42 times that of the average worker.

The AFL-CIO each year highlights the pay disparity between workers and chief executives from companies that are part of Standard & Poor's 500 stock index.

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president, said he hopes the project will remind Washington leaders that most workers "continue to struggle."

"They struggle every day to make ends meet, their wages are stagnant, their companies are trying to take away their health care and pensions, and they're angry," Trumka said. "And very few them know what's happening with CEO (pay)."

The union wants regulators to enforce an outstanding rule from Wall Street reforms for publicly traded companies to reveal CEO pay compared to their average employees. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed efforts to craft that rule, in part because of heavy lobbying by companies.

The labor group unveiled an updated website database on Monday compiled from 327 companies based on SEC filings. The site will post CEO pay for all 500 companies as the data is made public.

Trumka himself makes $302,000 in total compensation, according to federal records, or 8.7 times the average worker.

Tita Freeman, spokeswoman for CEO lobbying group The Business Roundtable, would not comment on the pay gap. She said CEOs represented by her group support efforts to tie executive pay to performance.

[blithe spirit]

So whats wrong with class warfare? Must depend on whose the giver and whose the taker...

Oooo right...they earned it!

[ProblemAgain]

they earned it by laying off american workers and outsourcing to foreign countries...or like the ceo of penneys who managed to halve the value of the company as he burned thru half their credit line and cash and LOST sales yet he walks away with 150 million when he was handed his papers while the employees who were sacked sign up for unemployment...there is something so very very wrong when business execs have yearly incomes sufficient to guarantee their descendants become part of the aristocracy of wealth and it is built up by cutting the income and the benefits of the employees who are also vilified as thugs etc..

[Lifesighs]

These stats just make me want to weep. When will they ever have enough? There are kids that are hungry at night because their parents can't make enough money or can't find a job.

[frenchy]

just wonderin , does that also include bonuses and gifts or their company cars plus the insurance and the gas ?? or their health insurance ?? or whatever the company pays them if they need to move for movin expenses ?? how about the membership to the private golf course ?? i mean after all you can't have the ceo's bumpin elbows with the union guys if they should have enough money for a round of golf once in a while could you now ?? or their company credit card they get to use for lunch or just about anything .. gifts to whomever .. i mean if i was makin 35 grand a year and they just gave me all of that stuff i'd be ok with just 35 grand . whats a new car plus the operatin costs cost you per year ?? and we ain't talkin no yugo here neither .. or who knows maybe they have a driver thats part of the package ?? i'm willin to bet that just their perks alone are probably more than what the average guy makes a year .. they probably have a condo nearby they can use whenever they feel a little too tired to drive home . or they just wanna go over some fine details with that new 22 year old secretary .. just to help her out cause she's new and all .. aww shit don't even get me started .. 

[ProblemAgain]

meanwhile back at the ranch, all that blame being heaped on unions and public workers  as being greedy thugs.....here's an interesting look at it...turns out the greedy public workers thuggish pensions are funded by THEIR OWN DEFERRED COMPENSATION. in other words, the whining has been about them GETTING THEIR OWN MONEY BACK> now ifthe state hasn't put that deferred compensation into the pension fund when they were contractually obligated to do so, isn't that embezzlement? no matter that they used the employees money to run the state then and keep from having to raise taxes to actually pay their bills....after all, you could get voted out of office for being fiscally responsible

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2/25/2011 @ 11:56AM |510,090 views

The Wisconsin Lie Exposed - Taxpayers Actually Contribute Nothing To Public Employee Pensions

1,041 comments, 299 called-out

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Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.com exposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

Via tax.com

How can this be possible?

Simple. The pension plan is the direct result of deferred compensation- money that employees would have been paid as cash salary but choose, instead, to have placed in the state operated pension fund where the money can be professionally invested (at a lower cost of management) for the future.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/02/25/the-wisconsin-lie-...