First let me state that I'm not coming back to get entangled in this argument. I just want to point out a few things that I think you're missing here. As someone else said it's opinion, and far from fact.
You may find it obscene to pay someone X amount of dollars, and that's fine. I dislike greed as much as the next guy. But, unlike the OWS people, I stand by the right of the parties involved to create their own terms. No one forces you to work somewhere where you feel you can't be compensated. If you're stuck, that sucks, but that doesn't mean you can't try to better your situation.
And in this case, these people are basically being paid a retainer. Apple has all the right to pay those people to retain their talent for Apple's future success.
Sure, they could pay the base employees more, but they don't represent the same value. And I'd be willing to bet that they don't invest themselves in Apple as much as the execs. So they have a choice—jump ship or try to move up in the company, just as the execs did. The execs didn't start at the top you know. Obviously it's possible to get to the top.
And that get's me to your American Dream comment. The people who slave away in a crappy job all day aren't always trying to better themselves. If they were, they'd save their money and make good financial decisions. They wouldn't be working a job they hate. I'm not saying that there aren't people stuck in bad situations, but they're certainly not the majority. Others are just content at where they are. They have a mortgage, and a family, and that's enough. And that's a dream in itself and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Not true. U.S. workers are getting progressively "poorer" and the disparity between the working class and the elite continues to expand. From Kiplinger:
"Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker."
What about inflation? A dollar in 1950 would be worth about $9.29 now. That means a current dollar is about 1/9 the value of what a dollar would have been in 1950. You could also look at it as needing to work 9 times as much to have the same standard of living.
So adding this to their calculations you'd need to work 360 hours to break even. I made it 40 hours, because I've never heard of a 44 hour work week (11x4). So that would mean that, factoring in a productivity increase, you'd need to work 90 hours to maintain a 1950s standard of living. So I'd say we're ahead of the curve.
Additionally, I'd argue that our standard of living is, for the most part, higher than in 1950.
This is why I hate most studies. They don't factor in other things that are relevant to the discussion. And I left out differences in income taxes because I didn't want to bother. It was higher then, but probably not enough to work more than twice the hours.
Resources, output, wealth. When a worker labors to build something, that labor produces a product or service that is then sold at a profit. He trades his labor for a wage. Someone other than the worker then reaps the majority of the benefit (money) from that labor. When I referred to redistribution, it was my intent to convey that.
One reason the top people at a company make more is because they have invested capital. They are taking a risk. It's business 101. Greater risk = greater reward.
Also, you're really oversimplifying this. For one thing, it costs way more to produce something than just labor. You also have material costs in the case of products, you have equipment, software, rent, utilities, government regulations that mandate how you must do certain things (OSHA, etc), health insurance, FICA contributions, payroll taxes, disability, various other insurances, etc.
So yeah, at the end of the day the top guys are reaping a majority of the benefit, but they're also putting up all the capital necessary for someone to earn a wage.
It's not a question of people "making good" or being productive and successful. It's a question of what constitutes an appropriate reward for that success. Why $100M per year? Why not $1B per year? $10B per year? Where does it stop? Do you think that if corporate execs could get all the non-executive workers to work for $20K per year and pay themselves $1B per year that they would do it? Would you then say, "Well, it's a free market, you choose to work for $20K per year - don't hate on those who are more successful" ?
Being a Libertarian, I'd say that what is appropriate is whatever the market will bear. The market is a good thing. The problem is, government tampers with it too much. We don't actually have a free market. That's why we have things like the bailouts that the OWS protesters—and I by the way—are totally against. My issue with the OWS—besides some fringe stupidity in not understanding how business or economics work—is that they're hating on a symptom and not a cause. Bankers will do what they will no matter what. Crony capitalism is the problem—not capitalism or free markets. If they didn't have the security of being "too big to fail" they would have failed or made safer decisions. I bet they would have chosen the latter.
I'd also like to add that what does it matter what private entities do with their money? If they're not using government funds, it really doesn't matter. They're not taking anything away from me. If they think someone is worth 60 million that's their prerogative, not mine.
I'm going to think this one over. My first reaction is that it's a bit different than corporate compensation. The movie star is effectively freelance and works for the studio just like the sound editor. I would say my argument holds against a studio head. The movie star is paid based upon what the corporation values their service at (i.e. how much box office they can expect by having that name on the marquee). The movie star is not a "business" in the sense that they don't use other people's labor to make their "product" - they just sell themselves.
Ah, closer to my industry. Familiarity is good. Look, this example is EXACTLY the same. The star brings in the money and his reputation sells the film. He invests his reputation, and he is compensated thusly. He could just as easily go with another production. So he must be paid enough or incentivized enough so that he chooses to spend his time with that production rather than another.
Finally, I appreciate reading everyone's opinions. I don't want to personally criticize your perceptions. I think that our culture has indoctrinated most of the populace in this concept of the "American Dream" - work hard and persevere, and with talent and determination, you too can be rich. Without something like that to believe in, how could the people be kept under control and made to trudge to work every day? They look forward to finally being able to get that new car or paying off that credit card or taking that vacation. Personally, I think it is a sad deception.
If you're trudging to work, you're not following the American Dream. It's a land of opportunity, not a land of guarantee. I think it's pretty clear.
Getting laid off due to the economy was the best thing that happened to me. Now I have freedom. I pick my clients. No one can tell me what to do and I'm making roughly the same amount of money while spending way less time working on jobs I don't like. And if I happen to take a job I end up hating, it's temporary.
The American Dream is about creating your own wealth. If you don't believe it's possible, that's fine. But all you have to do is look around to find tons of stories of people who are successful and did it on their own. They became entrepreneurs and sweated it out in their home offices, garages, etc. Hell, even Apple started out in a garage. So for you to say that it's a dream designed to dupe the middle class to keep them subservient is kind of a slap in the face of everyone that has taken the initiative to make something of themselves.
Let me leave you with one last thought:
What if we continued to compensate the "high performing" executives very well, say $1M per year (a substantial sum to most people), and used the rest of the corporate profits to double the salaries of all the other workers, then used any remainder to pay for infrastructure and social improvements. (I'm sure some will see "communism" and high taxes here, but read on) With this structure, workers would share greatly in the success of the corporation, parents could go from 2-income to single income households, allowing a parent to stay home with the kids if they wanted. The extra money going for the common good could vastly improve health care. Our schools could provide top-notch educations to ALL kids. The list of benefits goes on. Remember, all that extra money comes from the hundreds of millions of dollars that is currently being hoarded by individuals who have more homes, cars, jets, and private islands than they can ever use. And we would all still have those $1M jobs to aspire to.
I'll leave you with another. Do you think that if every company in the US did the same thing, it would be wonderful? Or do you see that if every company were able to double the salary of every worker that everything would cost twice as much and we'd be no better off? Actually, we'd be even worse off because we'd be able to compete in the global market even less than we already do now.
It's sad, but we've priced ourselves out of a lot of things. That's kind of why we don't really build much anymore, and why Toyota is the largest car brand.
If you have the time, watch the video of Peter Schiff (one of the people who predicted exactly what would happen before the recession hit) talking to the OWS protestors. He explains this well. We want things to be cheap but we want to be compensated well to make them. Those things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive if a company is to profit.
This is just my take. I think your side tends to oversimplify and my side sees things too black and white. I think there are good parts to the OWS argument, but it's overshadowed by a lack of understanding. If they got it, they'd be protesting Congress, not Wall St.
