The people who say that this is too much money for one person, or too much money for Apple, or Apple should do something else with this money, etc.... seem to believe that Apple exists in a bubble without any competition
There is an amount of money that an Apple executive is worth. And that number is not based on any absolute amount of money that you personally feel is too much.
arn
arn, you are missing the point. Most of us are not suggesting that this was an unexpected or ill-advised move on Apple's part. This is how our system works. Apple alone cannot be expected to operate differently than all the other corporations. So your argument is really moot. It is readily acknowledged that this is the expected and desired way of doing business in corporate America today. My response to that is - the PEOPLE should change this system. (btw, I don't expect that to really happen for another 50-100 years or so).
This belies a fundamental lack of understanding of how businesses work and what makes them successful. You think there is some kind of fold scale to balance out the factory worker versus the CEO.
People who do their jobs really well get rewarded for it.
Your comment exemplifies a fundamental lack of understanding of my argument. In no way did I say that every worker contributes the same to the success of the company or that people who do a good job shouldn't be compensated commensurately. The issue is the growing size of that gap between the average workers and the executives. From the Instutute for Policy Studies:
"Among the nation's top firms, the S&P 500, CEO pay last year averaged $10,762,304, up 27.8 percent over 2009. Average worker pay in 2010? That finished at $33,121, up just 3.3 percent over the year before."
As things get worse, it's sad to see the poor/middle class direct their anger towards the rich. I'm middle class but I have no problems with a CEO being paid overly large amounts of money *if* they are doing a good job.
They have conditioned you (and many others) to think this way. Based upon what you were taught in school, what you read in the "news"paper, and what you see on TV, this is exactly what you
should think.
We need to look at the root cause for the perceived problems. Costs are going up because unions and law suits plus a lot more. We're part of the problem (e.g. lawyers and the 99%).
Again, this is the "party line" of the rich. Lawsuits! That's the problem! WHY would corporations want you to think that? It's because the courts have traditionally been the ONE place where the "common man" could get justice when he has been harmed by the wealthy and powerful (insurance companies, financial institutions, manufacturers of defective products, etc). Corporations MUST stop this ability of people to make them pay for their misdeeds. So they convince the gullible that "excessive" jury verdicts are harming the average American - that they cause their insurance rates to go up and products to cost more. In reality, when an Exxon or BP is sued for the egregious destruction of the environment, it only cuts into their PROFITS. Thus we get legislation restricting jury verdicts, and things like the Oil Pollution Act that caps liability for damages from an offshore spill at $75 million per incident.
Those who are complaining the loudest are probably those who are too lazy to work hard or too spoiled to appreciate what they have. I work hard and make little but I get a lot of satisfaction from my efforts and know I earned them...they weren't handed out to me.
Attacking the person instead of the argument is referred to as
argumentum ad hominem, and is a logical fallacy.
Go live in a socialist country. You've no concept of capitalism at all.
I think we all see how capitalism works in our culture. It concentrates wealth at the top.
If you think there is a great "conspiracy" to overspend on this part of a company's budget, one that affects the bottom-line profitability so directly, you are making quite a demonizing leap of faith in the existence of a Boogeyman (or cadre of "boogeymen").
Bottom-line profitability? You DO understand that the distribution of those profits to the rich IS the goal, right? After all the overhead, R&D, marketing, etc, the PROFIT is what's left and what gets paid out to execs. So NO, giving obscene amounts of money to execs does not "affect bottom-line profitability"......it
IS THE WHOLE POINT.
No conspiracy among corporate boards to keep the exec salaries high. They'd love to pay them less if they could get away with it. But in a competitive marketplace it cannot be done.
The lucky 1% are not conspiring to inflate one another's salaries. If they could, boards would pay less for executive salaries.
Sorry, but it's a fact that Boards are made up of the ultra rich - the "boys club", the 1%....these people are all part of the same eschelon of society. They run in the same circles. They eat the same caviar and drink $10,000 bottles of wine together. They ALL benefit from a system that pays exorbitant sums of money to the top tiers of corporate society. After all, you correctly point out that Apple has to pay bonuses commensurate with the marketplace. This is kind of the whole point. These people make the rules. The "market" for CEOs pays hundreds of millions because
they decided it should
Like many of the protesters, you probably have an incredibly high standard of living, on any historical or geographical comparison (your being on this forum is good evidence of that) and you act like you have to go to work every day and get whipped on the assembly line.
No. I freely admitted that I am financially comfortable. Can you not conceive that someone might speak out on behalf of
all human beings and not just be concerned with himself?
LMAO!!!! Best oneliner of the day!!!! 
