Its what the market bears? Clearly you havent noticed the sad state of the worlds economy.
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Apple's New Corporate Controller Luca Maestri Receives Stock Rights Worth $15 Million
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Its what the market bears? Clearly you havent noticed the sad state of the worlds economy.
If you make a good living then just enjoy your life and forget about the top executives because there is nothing you can do about it. I always laughed so hard when I saw pictures of the March on Wall Street folks blogging with Apple products. They were out buying this stuff and putting cash into the people's pockets they didn't want to have the cash. You would have thought they would have found the smallest little start-up PC company and used their products. Funny stuff.
I can't really say anything because I have given plenty of my money to this corporation and they use that profit to pay their employees. Apple has mega bucks so I would expect their execs to make good money.
Dude i read your whole post and agree on everything! God writing.
It always gets me mad when people think that this top executives are somewhat super-super-smart and beyond us. That is simple not true. Like Donald Trump....without his father money and connections, he would simply have no start-up possibility. And even with all that he went bankrupt 4 times.
Poof. That is exactly what stock options are... a gamble on the future. Here if Maestri is part of the team that helps Apple stock improve he'll get much more than $15. But if Apple continues to decline he'll get much less, even nothing if price of the stock falls below the option price once it can be exercised.
Hooray. Another fat cat gets stock worth $15 MILLION for sitting on his lazy arse while 90% of everyone else in the country makes $7 an hour working theirs off. That is a newsworthy RUMOR?
People making $7.25 an hour don't have the pressures or responsibilities of a top exec at a publicly held Fortune 100 company. Anyone making $7.25 is flipping burgers or ringing up Slurpees. Even FedEx package unloaders make a heck of a lot more than minimum wage. Also see above... Mr Maestri isn't guaranteed $15m. He'll have to work for it.
Hide? You imply Apple does illegal accounting, but I know of no such active charge by the IRS or SEC. You may not like how Apple organizes itself to pay the least taxes possible, but, it appears eveything they do is legit under U.S. and the various states tax codes, as well as the non-U.S. countries it operates in.
You very obviously have absolutely no idea of what life at the bottom of the food chain is like. And at the same time you overrate the value of corporate executives and what they call work.
How much do you think the work of Kim Jong-Un is worth? After all, he runs an entire country. (And it shouldn't matter that he inherited it.)
Sorry to bust your glorious fantasy. First job I ever had was as "maintenance" at Toys R Us in high school. This included cleaning the bathrooms 3x daily -- glamorous I know, and mowing the lawn at the side of the store. Also, lets see, cart retrieval from the parking lot, cleaning up spilled baby food, and all other sorts of pleasantries. I did it with a smile and for $3.35 an hour less FICA, of course, and no benefits, not even an employee discount.
Eventually they put me on the sales floor. Kind of a promotion, but not really. I worked there until college. It was hard work yes, but having now been on both sides, being an exec is a lot more pressure and actually requires brain power, something my early min wages jobs did not. I have absolute respect for people doing all the grunt work, but it's fetches a lower wage for a reason. Otherwise, heck, we could all be starting pitchers for the Red Sox or Yankees making millions even though we can barely get the ball over the plate.
Also Kim Jong-Un? If this thread was a challenge for best non-sequitur or generalization you'd win. But otherwise, not so much. BTW I did not know N. Korea was a publicly traded company. Here I thought it was a Junta.
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i agree that money corrupts most people, and big breaks happen to people who have incredible odds and luck... that's life.
what i'm puzzled by is why you're so irate about it. each of us has his or her own lot in life... and if you're not in a "good" situation, you still just have to deal with it and move on.
Apple, a private organization chose to pay that salary, and Apple is not beholden to you in any way. The reality is that Apple is paying that guy what the market will bear. If Apple didn't give him that package, some other company would have done so.
As for those severance packages, that's on company boards for granting them and shareholders for not putting their feet down. And as for banks, I'm all for letting them fail, or at least making sure they can't engage in that behavior in the future.
While I agree that the majority of the 1% had a lucky break at some point, that's not the whole equation. It's one thing to get a break. It's another thing to successfully capitalize on that break. It takes at least a few brain cells to do that. In my book, a successful person having a lucky break or two doesn't mean that he/she didn't earn every bit of her success fair and square.
Hooray. Another fat cat gets stock worth $15 MILLION for sitting on his lazy arse while 90% of everyone else in the country makes $7 an hour working theirs off. That is a newsworthy RUMOR?
I feel sorry for the talented programmers or designers who do the hard yards making great quality software and products for Apple but probably get mediocre wages and have to get put into "lockdown" when managers who get paid many times their salary do a **** job.
It's a situation that is basically what is meant by "corporate culture" and it's endemic in all corporations and government. Technical professions, engineers and scientists in particular are the real heros but you get these business people and managers walk in and all they do is make unrealistic demands, often without even an understanding of the technology they're trying to manage, and even when they do a bad job they get a massive payout and walk straight into the next high paying managerial role.
It's fundamentally wrong. All these managers, lawyers, HR people, marketers and other related paper pushing business types need to understand that they exist solely to serve the creative talent, those with real ingenuity and foresight and the technical experts that are required to make anything happen.
If only pay structures were fair and reflected who makes the real contributions to Apple. But sadly no. The question is what do we do about it?
I don't care much about who gets paid or who doesn't, as much as I do about who has the most influence in the company, and if what kind of people they are:
Are they the crazy ones?
The misfits?
The rebels?
The troublemakers?
Do they see things differently?
Are they fond of rules?
And do they lack respect for the status quo?
Are they there to change things?
In other words, do they have Apple in their DNA?
I don't know much about this guy, but the first impression I get with this clean-shaven, sleek-suit donning businessman is nothing like Apple.
Are they the crazy ones?
The misfits?
The rebels?
The troublemakers?
Do they see things differently?
Are they fond of rules?
And do they lack respect for the status quo?
Are they there to change things?
In other words, do they have Apple in their DNA?
I don't know much about this guy, but the first impression I get with this clean-shaven, sleek-suit donning businessman is nothing like Apple.
To all the haters, I hope I can try to help a little by explaining how businesses and markets work. I am also going to go out on a limb and presume that many of the haters would like to see some sort of government intervention to curb this unfair system where execs are paid too much and lower level workers are paid too little. My apologies if this is an inaccurate presumption for some.
A business is entity of one or more individuals that provide a product or service, generally in exchange for payment and sometimes in an attempt to make a profit, as in Apple's case.
Sometimes, a business needs to hire an employee to support an operation of the business, in connection with providing said product/service and in connection with making a profit. In order to hire said employee, the employee and business enter into a mutually agreeable employment term that identifies items such as, duties the employee is to perform and compensation that the employee is to receive for performing those duties. Generally, the business (employer) looks to gain value from the employee that is greater than the cost of the employee. Thus, hiring an employee and providing that employee with $15m worth of stocks as compensation means that the business thinks that said employee can provide greater than $15m worth of value. The business could be wrong, and thus, the business would lose money in such a case.
However, this mistake would be the business's mistake to make, and intervention in the business's operation by an external entity (e.g., the government), would only cause problems. For example, if government prevented a business from paying an employee for $15m worth of value, then the $15m worth of work would not get done. Further, if the government forced a business to pay $10/hr for an employee worth only $8/hr, the business would not hire the $8/hr employee to begin with, or would cut costs somewhere else (e.g., in quality). Some fat cats wouldn't sacrifice quality and would take a haircut on their profits by paying $10/hr vs $8/hr, but the risk/reward of starting/running a business would diminish, causing many to close their doors and lay off workers.
With regard to crony capitalism where execs get paid even when they run their companies into the ground, imagine this scenario:
You are at a roulette table in Vegas and benevolent person tells you that you should risk your money on a 40-1 shot with only a 38-1 payout because if you win, then you get to keep your winnings, but, if you lose, the benevolent person will refund your losses and even give you a few extra bux for your trouble. If you were to risk your own money, you sure as heck wouldn't take that bet since mathematically, you're expected to lose more than you win. But since you can reap the rewards without bearing any risk, you go for it.
Now, imagine that the roulette player is a big national bank and the benevolent person is the government. Imagine that each bet on the roulette table is a risky loan given to a homebuyer who cannot afford to buy his house. Why would the government back such risky bets? Simple...it wins votes when governments abuse their powers to meddle in the free market and promise people cheap/free stuff (i.e., cheap loans to get people buying houses). Now what happens when demand for houses goes up as a result of all these risky loans encouraged by the government? We get a nice, big, juicy bubble that breaks as soon as people default on their loans, sending values of everyone's homes down the drain.
So your wonderful government that claimed to want to "help the poor" by encouraging banks to give out risky loans has done a wonderful job of hurting the poor and working class, while the rich execs who issued these risky loans get a nice fat payday by reaping the rewards of those risky loans that actually made money.
So next time you disdain some exec for making too much, think of the alternative...more government to meddle in the free markets which always ends up hurting the poor the most...If you feel you deserve more money, take a risk, get out of your cube, and do something about it...before the government taxes the "rich" even more (i.e., the risk-takers who risk everything to start businesses from scratch), thereby reducing your incentive to take a risk, and increasing your incentive to sit back and collect welfare off those who work.
A business is entity of one or more individuals that provide a product or service, generally in exchange for payment and sometimes in an attempt to make a profit, as in Apple's case.
Sometimes, a business needs to hire an employee to support an operation of the business, in connection with providing said product/service and in connection with making a profit. In order to hire said employee, the employee and business enter into a mutually agreeable employment term that identifies items such as, duties the employee is to perform and compensation that the employee is to receive for performing those duties. Generally, the business (employer) looks to gain value from the employee that is greater than the cost of the employee. Thus, hiring an employee and providing that employee with $15m worth of stocks as compensation means that the business thinks that said employee can provide greater than $15m worth of value. The business could be wrong, and thus, the business would lose money in such a case.
However, this mistake would be the business's mistake to make, and intervention in the business's operation by an external entity (e.g., the government), would only cause problems. For example, if government prevented a business from paying an employee for $15m worth of value, then the $15m worth of work would not get done. Further, if the government forced a business to pay $10/hr for an employee worth only $8/hr, the business would not hire the $8/hr employee to begin with, or would cut costs somewhere else (e.g., in quality). Some fat cats wouldn't sacrifice quality and would take a haircut on their profits by paying $10/hr vs $8/hr, but the risk/reward of starting/running a business would diminish, causing many to close their doors and lay off workers.
With regard to crony capitalism where execs get paid even when they run their companies into the ground, imagine this scenario:
You are at a roulette table in Vegas and benevolent person tells you that you should risk your money on a 40-1 shot with only a 38-1 payout because if you win, then you get to keep your winnings, but, if you lose, the benevolent person will refund your losses and even give you a few extra bux for your trouble. If you were to risk your own money, you sure as heck wouldn't take that bet since mathematically, you're expected to lose more than you win. But since you can reap the rewards without bearing any risk, you go for it.
Now, imagine that the roulette player is a big national bank and the benevolent person is the government. Imagine that each bet on the roulette table is a risky loan given to a homebuyer who cannot afford to buy his house. Why would the government back such risky bets? Simple...it wins votes when governments abuse their powers to meddle in the free market and promise people cheap/free stuff (i.e., cheap loans to get people buying houses). Now what happens when demand for houses goes up as a result of all these risky loans encouraged by the government? We get a nice, big, juicy bubble that breaks as soon as people default on their loans, sending values of everyone's homes down the drain.
So your wonderful government that claimed to want to "help the poor" by encouraging banks to give out risky loans has done a wonderful job of hurting the poor and working class, while the rich execs who issued these risky loans get a nice fat payday by reaping the rewards of those risky loans that actually made money.
So next time you disdain some exec for making too much, think of the alternative...more government to meddle in the free markets which always ends up hurting the poor the most...If you feel you deserve more money, take a risk, get out of your cube, and do something about it...before the government taxes the "rich" even more (i.e., the risk-takers who risk everything to start businesses from scratch), thereby reducing your incentive to take a risk, and increasing your incentive to sit back and collect welfare off those who work.
Please explain what the hell $15 MILLION in "work" is. I mean actual day to day functions. What "work' is being done that merits 15 MILLION? Don't point to 15 million in profits being generated somewhere because that's beside the point. The reason sports players get paid so much is that their employers (the team owner(s)) are getting paid ungodly amounts of money by people coming to see those sports teams, television deals, merchandise, etc. So those "employees" want their fair share of that money because they are the ones making that team successful, etc. and so they deserve a fair share of the profits. In corporations, the top executives get paid massive sums, but everyone else has to make do with a tiny fraction and the people doing the most work are usually the ones that are the least paid because they are considered less skilled. Thus, physical labor means nothing and brain power supposedly means everything, even though those of us that qualify as geniuses on the IQ scale know full well that being intelligent isn't the whole story either. You have to have DRIVE and a WILL to screw anyone and everyone in your path to get ahead. That's how lawyers succeed. That's how politicians succeed (and they usually serve someone else with even deeper pockets and a will to crush anyone that gets in their way). It's survival of the fittest and if that's you belief (i.e. nature takes care of things with evolution), well I can't argue with it. I happen to believe we have souls and that we are capable of being better than just animals, though.
Feel free to disagree on that point because I can't argue with someone that believes they're just a genetic animal and they do what they do best. I'd have no compulsions about sending a terrorist to his death that believed that. I'd have more compassion if they were brain-washed and did it because they really believed they were doing what a higher power wanted (i.e. wanting to do what they believe God wants, but twisted into doing something by evil men). Even so, morality isn't hard to comprehend. You treat others as you'd have them treat you if the situation was reversed. If you'd want them to crush you, fire you and let your family starve to death so the stock holders can make an extra $1 a share, so be it. But I don't believe for a second that anyone that had their situation reversed would think like that. And so long as humanity answers solely to profit and solely to the richest and most powerful people's whims, we'll always be at a step not much different from animals. Forget ideas like Star Trek. Our society can NEVER get there if it continues down the path of spiritual death that it's on now.
But even if you accept that sports player analogy is more fair, the sports players are still massively overpaid just by a sheer extravagance factor. Some people have more money than could reasonably spend in multiple lifetimes in this world and as goofy as it sounds, the Spiderman analogy of with great power comes great responsibility still fits. I don't say people who have worked hard don't deserve to live well, but I am of the belief that our fellow man is our spiritual brother and shouldn't have his faced rubbed in the mud just so the rich man can keep getting even richer when he doesn't need it. And that is what is ultimately wrong with society. It's the downfall of unregulated Capitalism. It's why Rome couldn't last forever and it's why we can't last forever either. Sooner or later the imbalance becomes so great that the dam bursts and the whole country collapses, rich and poor alike. The way the economic system works, you need money to make money and when the money is all in the hands of the tiny few, there is no more money driving the system in an economy based on spending. And yet these "genius" economic experts pretend they don't see it. When you have a strong middle class, the entire country stays strong. When you destroy the middle class so the top end can get insanely rich, you end up with a 3rd world country ripe for take over sooner or later. There needs to be a balance between work, labor and compassion and it is the latter that is missing in the modern day economics. There is little compassion, little patriotism and a LOT of worshiping the almighty dollar, which seems to get less mighty all the time as we keep sliding down the ladder of economic imbalance in case people haven't noticed yet.
Anyone ever watch the cartoon The Jetsons? Everybody has a life of leisure and ease. Work is pushing 7 buttons a day and that makes Mr. Spacely a slave driver according to George Jetson while he has a robot do all the housework. The problem with this or any other "positive" future is that it could never happen. Instead of making lives easier and more enjoyable, computers and automation have simply meant that a single person can do the work of many people now. If anything, people now work harder than ever for the money they make because all those people who used to do the same work have been replaced with one person doing multiple people's work and so they want that one job too. So if the person doing that job complains or does anything to cheese off his bosses, he's REPLACEABLE with all those people that lost their job. Thus, management has used technology as leverage against people to make their jobs even more miserable than in years past. Now you have to work on the airplane you fly on instead of just enjoying the flight. You have to work in the hotel room after the big meeting. You have to keep working and working and working so they don't replace you with someone else waiting to take your job who has nothing and wants what you have, which is a lot of money and no time to spend or enjoy it. Sadly, that is not the future I ever dreamed of.
You can't get people to agree that the "Jetsons" or "Star Trek" future looks better from a distance, but in reality those at the top will do anything to stay at the top and thus such a future is not possible in a cutthroat world of competition. When you compare yourself only to others in terms of creature comforts, income or even intelligence, you miss anything and everything that should register on a family level of the human race.
And here's the Truth, as I know it. If God is selfless love as most people say, then we missed the point of life in general. Maybe we're not here to compete against one another, but to work together to build a brighter and better future for EVERYONE. That cannot happen if we only look at our selfish egos and say I need to be BETTER, RICHER, and more POWERFUL than everyone else. Yes, it starts to sound like Socialism, but the reason Socialism is a bad word is because it simply cannot work with greedy, loveless, spiritually dead people running the world and educational institutions. That doesn't mean we can't take some baby steps in the right direction. But when people say they don't want their money to be used to support some worthless lazy turd on the bottom rung (and rightly so I might add), they also miss the unfortunate who are on that rung because of circumstances beyond their control and want off that rung and to do their part. But we are a society that incarcerates instead of rehabilitates (wasting money imprisoning people and paying for that imprisonment instead of trying to help them along the way, ensuring that they NEVER will contribute to society). We're a society see less intelligent humans (born that way and beyond their control) as trailer park trash and hillbillies and ghetto filth instead of fellow brothers and sisters we could help to have a better life. Yeah, I'm saying society is screwed up on all levels. If I'm angry, it's because I see the real human potential being wasted on having 5 mansions and a private yacht instead of making the world a place where you don't have to lock your doors or see beggars lining the streets on the way to work. It really is a waste. And when that person dies, the mansion and everything they worked for will fall into the hands of someone who DIDN'T have to work for it, didn't earn it and is probably spoiled rotten. Guess how they will use it? What will they teach their children in turn? So is it a small wonder that the top 1% view everyone else as trash and garbage and lazy and bodies to be used when power is handed to them with no wisdom and experience to go with it. People like Rockefeller might have been misguided, but at least they worked. Look at the generations that came afterward. They're the very people that are in the halls of government (because they had the money and influence to get there) and yet they cannot possibly relate in ANY way to the people they are supposed to be representing. The system becomes imbalanced even further and sooner or later even a house on a solid foundation can crumble when its pillars become too rotten to hold the weight.
John knew he was not a good fit at Apple after it was pointed out to him by his bosses, so he graciously only took $3 million for his 6 months there. Which were well deserved because of the hard work and study that took him to that position.
I didn't get a chance to read the entire message, but I think I understand that you have a general disdain for corporate cronyism and the notion that some ppl are compensated way too much while others too little. I get that, and I am in full agreement that cronyism is a horrible problem. In brief, I believe big government creates a market that encourages cronyism while devaluing those who do real work. I will explain below.
I believe one reason cronyism exists is as that there is a market that encourages cronyism as a result of influencing the highest levels of government via lobbying/money. My solution, therefore, is remove government's power to channel resources to one business and away from anothers (ie pick winners and losers). For example, the government taxes individuals and businesses only to waste that money bailing out banks, which it did to encourage banks to lend to risky lenders (in order to increase home ownership, a seemingly benevolent endeavor which backfired, rewarded the rich and reckless banks, and destroyed the equity of the middle and lower classes). Another big example of cronyism is influencing government to create policies that allowed several fortune 500 companies, including GE, to pay zero income taxes at the expense of small businesses that were stiffed with burdensome tax liabilities. Reduce government's power, and there is less the over-paid lobbyists can do to influence policy.
As to your question as to what work this new Apple exec does to get paid his $15m, I am not sure why Apple has decided to pay this man that kind of money. However, I know that Apple is in the business of making money and not losing it, so I believe they hired the exec in an attempt to make money and not as an act of charity. I can think of some examples of how an employee can be worth $15m/year, however, just to answer your question of what work merits $15m. Maybe he's helping with business operation and/or product costs savings, investment decisions, or a combination of things where apple believes he contributes more than $15m of value. Maybe he has the knowledge and skill to save $100m in taxes for Apple (again, cut the government's power to and simplify the tax code and then those overpaid accountants whose sole purpose in life is to cut a company's tax bill would no longer exist).
You are preaching to the choir that there are a lot of overpaid zeros out there. I again think that government is often the cause of this (and not the solution as many think), as I mentioned how a powerful government leads to cronyism. Also, in a less subtle way, government specifically "creates" jobs by expanding government-run departments to dig ditches and fill them back up, both literally and figuratively. Sometimes, government creates vacancies just to have people sit in a cube with a phony job title while paying them $100k+/year, either directly or through a big contracting firm (I used to be one of them, I produced no value to justify $100k+ of taxpayer money). These jobs exist to win votes and to satisfy the contractors who make cut of that 100k/year to have me sit at my desk and do nothing, and who have the expensive lobbyists and money that have influenced government to create those jobs.
I think if we reduce the size of government, you'll have much less cronyism and more equitable pay for those who do real work, as the market for real work will be in more demand than the market for those who do fake work (i.e., lobbyists, tax accountants, chair warmers, etc.), who government has bid up the price for the fake workers.
I agree that lobbying is a major cause of corruption in government. The very people needed to outlaw lobbying are the very people that are getting the lobbying money so like self-voted raises, the fundamental system is broken.
The size of a government has little to do with whether it's well governed. Corruption through lobbying, unlimited fund advertising, etc. etc. has more to do with the real problem. Simply eliminating government and thus regulation leads Corporate and other business bad behavior (e.g. anything from unchecked bad lending as we saw with the housing bubble to industrial pollution and even monopolies which are bad for Capitalism economics in the long run). This is the case because most people are driven by lust and ego more than selflessness and brotherly love. History bares this out already.
For example, we had almost no regulation in the late 19th and early 20th Century and look where it got us. We had monopolies out the wazoo controlling entire markets with a few individuals richer than god while workers toiled for 16 hours a week, 6-7 days a week just trying to put food on the table. We had people like Rockefeller making life-changing business decisions (that put tends of thousands of people out of work) purely on a petty emotional rivalry with people like Vanderbilt and Tom Scott (who conspired with price-fixing to do the same to Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie then sought his own revenge while ignoring safety, hiring someone to do his dirty work busting unions which cost real lives through violence, etc.). And yet we practically worship these titans of business as gods themselves when they were in actuality egotistical selfish self-centered fools who learned nothing while they were here (and I believe we are here to learn). But THAT is what you get with "less government" rather than "better" government because in the end, most people simply will NOT do what is right when not forced to, but only what is best for themselves. Thus, I would say regulation and law is a necessary barrier to total free will or anarchy lest people be allowed to do too much harm to others as was done in the past and which many are trying to allow once again (history tends to repeat itself). If all people would do what is right for all rather than just for themselves, no laws would be needed in society. Sadly, this is not the case.
It is man's animal nature or EGO (that some call the "beast" or id) that drives his selfish decisions and untrustworthy demeanor. Personally, I believe one of our fundamental purposes here is to overcome that nature that we are joined to in these bodies and control it rather than it controlling us. That is the price of free will. You have to learn wisdom. It cannot simply be given.
Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion becomes man and cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion becomes man
