Showing posts with label executive pay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label executive pay. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Sunday Reading
Ted Cruz Says Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama Could Be Impeached NextEffects of gerrymandering felt in Wisconsin as governor, GOP clash over Covid restrictionsElizabeth Warren Smacks Wall Street ‘Casino’-Goers Amid GameStop KerfuffleElizabeth Warren’s Face Says It All When She’s Challenged On Wealth TaxThe GameStop Game and Financial Transactions Taxes
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Overcompensating?
Johnson Controls reported record sales for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011. Sales rose 9% in 2011. Earnings rose 19%.
As of September 29, 2010 Johnson Controls stock price was $25.94. One year later, September 29, 2011, the price was $27.40. This was a 5.6 percent increase.
As of December 9, 2010 Johnson Controls stock price was $37.93. One year later, December 9, 2011 the value was down to $31.95. A 15.8 percent decline.
The highest stock price for Johnson Controls, over the past 10 years, was October 22, 2007 at $42.74. Recently, July 11, 2011, the stock price reached $40.85. Considering the current value ($31.95), Johnson stock has seen a 21.8 percent decline since July 2011.
[On March 2, 2009 the stock was down to $9.13, the lowest since September 18, 2000 when it was $7.98.]
Steve Roell, Johnson Controls CEO, saw his total compensation increase from $17.56 million to $22.34 million for 2011. A 27.2 percent increase.
I'll let you decide whether this is a fair compensation. Or, whether "we're broke" and the rich "job creators" are unable to pay a small percentage more in taxes.
As of September 29, 2010 Johnson Controls stock price was $25.94. One year later, September 29, 2011, the price was $27.40. This was a 5.6 percent increase.
As of December 9, 2010 Johnson Controls stock price was $37.93. One year later, December 9, 2011 the value was down to $31.95. A 15.8 percent decline.
The highest stock price for Johnson Controls, over the past 10 years, was October 22, 2007 at $42.74. Recently, July 11, 2011, the stock price reached $40.85. Considering the current value ($31.95), Johnson stock has seen a 21.8 percent decline since July 2011.
[On March 2, 2009 the stock was down to $9.13, the lowest since September 18, 2000 when it was $7.98.]
Steve Roell, Johnson Controls CEO, saw his total compensation increase from $17.56 million to $22.34 million for 2011. A 27.2 percent increase.
I'll let you decide whether this is a fair compensation. Or, whether "we're broke" and the rich "job creators" are unable to pay a small percentage more in taxes.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Journal Sentinel Likes Walker's Package
More astute pronouncements from the Journal Sentinel editorial board, Compensation package works for Wisconsin. They want to assure readers, "The Walker administration's compensation plan takes a reasonable approach to pay and overtime."
"It reduces the chance for overtime abuses, give managers the tools they need to reward the best employees and saves taxpayers money."I'd like to see what percentage of the budget "overtime abuses" actually account for. Overtime pay is part of a contractual negotiation reflecting the total compensation of an employee; if we looked at overtime recipients years of service and hours worked, what do those numbers say? It's easy to throw out a big number and get taxpayers riled. A job of the media is to put things within a larger context and give a true representation. This is merely sensationalism without context...scapegoating.
The editorial conveniently glosses over the pay for political appointees issue. That can be handled at a later date; it's not a big deal. Nothing to see (or talk about) here, move along. Even though they then, later in the article, while discussing merit pay, note that, "There is legitimate concern that merit pay could turn into rewards for political or personal favorites, but thats seems unlikely." Yes, Scott Walker has only tried to reward every crony he knows in his first few months in office. But such favoritism seems unlikely? The articles says, "As the plan is explained on the state's website, the work of an employee would need to meet certain standards." Oh, "certain standards." That clears things up. Now I feel better.
They then repeat well-worn woe for the long-suffering private sector, "Such increased costs for benefits and cuts in pay have been routine in the private industry for several years." Um, where the hell has this editorial board been? Public workers in Wisconsin have seen increased health care costs over the past few years, they've also been furloughed and laid off. This is on top the recent wage freezes, lay offs, and increased pension and health care cost mandates. And, this punish-the-public-workers sentiment completely ignores recent studies showing that a public sector worker's total compensation is LESS that similarly educated and experienced private sector worker. The Journal wants public sector workers, whom already earn less, to be the ones to sacrifice more, while also pumping more lies into the debate - that public workers haven't yet sacrificed and that they earn more.
And, since it's an editorial board standard, they commend the private sector, yet again, "As many in the private sector understand, merit pay hikes can be useful tool for increasing efficiency and productivity, and the overtime changes are especially warranted." Geez, one would think with this omnipotent and sensible private sector we would have eradicated poverty and unemployment by now.
Making sure no public worker is paid at a higher rate for overtime work is very important to the editorial board. This abuse must be stopped. Again, no numbers are given to support such apoplexy. And, even more perplexing, I never see the board pontificating about excessive executive pay, the millions made by CEOs whom have lost their company money or presided over a decline in their stock's price, the tax avoidance schemes of the well-to-do, or any of these abuses of the system. Always punishing the peasants, but never questioning the kings.
"It reduces the chance for overtime abuses, give managers the tools they need to reward the best employees and saves taxpayers money."I'd like to see what percentage of the budget "overtime abuses" actually account for. Overtime pay is part of a contractual negotiation reflecting the total compensation of an employee; if we looked at overtime recipients years of service and hours worked, what do those numbers say? It's easy to throw out a big number and get taxpayers riled. A job of the media is to put things within a larger context and give a true representation. This is merely sensationalism without context...scapegoating.
The editorial conveniently glosses over the pay for political appointees issue. That can be handled at a later date; it's not a big deal. Nothing to see (or talk about) here, move along. Even though they then, later in the article, while discussing merit pay, note that, "There is legitimate concern that merit pay could turn into rewards for political or personal favorites, but thats seems unlikely." Yes, Scott Walker has only tried to reward every crony he knows in his first few months in office. But such favoritism seems unlikely? The articles says, "As the plan is explained on the state's website, the work of an employee would need to meet certain standards." Oh, "certain standards." That clears things up. Now I feel better.
They then repeat well-worn woe for the long-suffering private sector, "Such increased costs for benefits and cuts in pay have been routine in the private industry for several years." Um, where the hell has this editorial board been? Public workers in Wisconsin have seen increased health care costs over the past few years, they've also been furloughed and laid off. This is on top the recent wage freezes, lay offs, and increased pension and health care cost mandates. And, this punish-the-public-workers sentiment completely ignores recent studies showing that a public sector worker's total compensation is LESS that similarly educated and experienced private sector worker. The Journal wants public sector workers, whom already earn less, to be the ones to sacrifice more, while also pumping more lies into the debate - that public workers haven't yet sacrificed and that they earn more.
And, since it's an editorial board standard, they commend the private sector, yet again, "As many in the private sector understand, merit pay hikes can be useful tool for increasing efficiency and productivity, and the overtime changes are especially warranted." Geez, one would think with this omnipotent and sensible private sector we would have eradicated poverty and unemployment by now.
Making sure no public worker is paid at a higher rate for overtime work is very important to the editorial board. This abuse must be stopped. Again, no numbers are given to support such apoplexy. And, even more perplexing, I never see the board pontificating about excessive executive pay, the millions made by CEOs whom have lost their company money or presided over a decline in their stock's price, the tax avoidance schemes of the well-to-do, or any of these abuses of the system. Always punishing the peasants, but never questioning the kings.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The Creation Conundrum
At one turn, the Republicans are extolling small business as the engine of job creation. (Remember hearing this oft-repeated line during the 2008 and 2010 elections?) Small here obviously implies these "job creators" are not part of the top 1 percent. These are everyday people, playing by the rules, working hard, and trying to build a business of their own.
At the next turn, the Republicans are claiming we can't tax the top 1 percent because they are job creators. The richest amongst us are rich due to deserved rewards for their risk, innovation, and efficient allocation of capital. These are very special people with keen insights and understanding (that layperson can't process) and therefore deserve their rewards.
Hmmm, if that's the case - if all (big or small) are job creators - where are all the jobs? If small business owners and the rich are all job creators, why are so many people unemployed?
Do the Republicans have a platform? Any kind of belief system anymore? Or have they become the party of intellectual somersaults, continually rolling into whatever position best riles the rabble?
At the next turn, the Republicans are claiming we can't tax the top 1 percent because they are job creators. The richest amongst us are rich due to deserved rewards for their risk, innovation, and efficient allocation of capital. These are very special people with keen insights and understanding (that layperson can't process) and therefore deserve their rewards.
Hmmm, if that's the case - if all (big or small) are job creators - where are all the jobs? If small business owners and the rich are all job creators, why are so many people unemployed?
Do the Republicans have a platform? Any kind of belief system anymore? Or have they become the party of intellectual somersaults, continually rolling into whatever position best riles the rabble?
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Heads I Win, Tails I Win.
"Business" men get paid regardless of how they perform.
Run a bank into the ground and you're rewarded with millions, and offered millions to keep "running" the bank.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
We're Broke?
"The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009," reports Pradnya Joshi.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Public Versus Private? Or, Workers Versus Plutocrats
Corporate Profits are at historic levels. Yet, many corporations pay an effective tax rate of zero.
Although profits are up, workers are not sharing in the bounty of their productivity. Unemployment still remains near double digits.
Executives are pulling in ludicrous pay, especially when compared to everyday workers.
Public sector workers total compensation as a share of state expenditures has declined over time. Workers, whether public or private, have been sacrificing. As their stagnating compensation clearly shows.
Public workers are highly educated. Nearly 60%, versus 30% for the private sector.
And, when actually compared for education and experience, public workers earn less. By bashing public workers, we are allowing the private sector to push down wages for all workers.
Productivity - output per unit of input - has climbed steadily. Workers are doing more. But they are not being rewarded. Compensation in the private and public sector has stagnated.
In every educational-attainment category, Wisconsin public workers earn less than their private sector counterparts.
The "it's the government and public workers fault" diversion we've witnessed over the past few years has been an elaborate mirage perpetrated by the creditors and financiers who've absconded so much of our nation's wealth over the past few decades. This is a classic from the conservative playbook - keeping Democrats fighting amongst themselves (public v private worker), while also delivering blows to the foundation of democratic policies and politics (unions). What do you know, everyone forgets that the uber rich are robbing us all blind. And now we're getting policies that are destroying our government and its institutions that help the majority of citizens. Instead, we're giving corporate tax breaks, downsizing regulatory agencies, privatizing our public educational system, and selling off public goods and services.
For those who still haven't heard, supply-side economics is a failure. Tax breaks do not pay for themselves. Raising taxes on the rich by 2% will not trigger Armageddon. The tax-cutting frenzy (specifically for the wealthy) over the past 40 years is the reason for our deficits and crumbling infrastructure. We don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem.
If we're looking for ways to fund the programs we all appreciate and the infrastructure we all depend on regularly, maybe we should be going where the money is - the CEOs and their corporations.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Compensation Conundrum
Rene Booker received a payout of $52,000 "for a mere 4 1/2 weeks of work," squawks the Journal Sentinel. As usual, devoid of any context or perspective. Because a 26-year veteran of public service took advantage of a negotiated perk (which should be considered deferred compensation), the Journal feels all public employee compensation elements (sick leave, vacation, etc.) should be restricted.
Booker's payment amounts to an $1,558 average bonus, per year, for 26 years of service. A paltry sum compared to private sector golden parachutes and their ludicrously lavish retirement packages. And, many of these same private sector companies, guilty of such profligate spending on compensation, are companies on the public dole in one fashion or another - receiving tax credits, subsidies, loan-interest loans, and other gifts and giveaways from taxpayers.
The Journal claims these proposals (further cuts to public worker compensation) would bring public worker policies "into line with what is common practice on the private sector."
Which private sector workers do they want the public sector workers' compensation packages to be more like? The CEOs? Upper management? Or should college educated public workers (60% have a college degree; only 30% of private sector workers have a college degree) compensation packages be more like burger-flippers? Roughly half of Wisconsin teachers have a masters degree or better? Should they be compensated along the lines of a window washer? Do those whom call for the public sector to be more like the private sector realize part of the private sector is still unionized? (Sadly, only approximately 7 percent.)
When compared for education and experience, public sector workers already earn less than their private sector counterparts. The overcompensated public employee is a MYTH! Let me repeat that - the overcompensated public employee is a MYTH!
What we are witnessing is a willing-accomplice media rewrite history on behalf of financiers and creditors, at the expense of the American middle class and in opposition to the American Dream.
Friday, April 22, 2011
A Failed System
CEOs "earn" [my quotes] 343 times more than typical workers.
Why again can't we impose higher taxes on the outrageously wealthy?
As Chrystia Freeland writes, Capitalism is failing the middle class.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The One Percent Solution
"In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years...The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies was $9.6 million last year. That was a 12 percent increase over 2009." writes Daniel Costello. When was the last time a public or private sector everyday worker saw a 12 percent yearly raise? The national average wage in the U.S. in 2009 was approximately $41,000. Median weekly earnings were $747. The average U.S. worker makes .004 percent of what the typical executive makes.
Gretchen Morgenson revealed the large disparity between American CEOs compensation and their non-American counterparts. Statoil, a two-thirds Norwegian government-owned company has outperformed Exxon since 2001, when Statoil went public. Helge Lund, Statoil's CEO, made $1.8 million in 2010. Rex Tillerson, Exxon's CEO, received $21.7 million in 2010. The disparity is money that should be reinvested into the company or dispersed at dividends to shareholders. Maybe this is why some of our American companies are underperforming...too much money wrapped up in bloated executive pay, rather than bolstering the company.
The wealthiest Americans are plundering and pillaging the globe accumulating gratuitous amounts of money. As our infrastructure crumbles and the impoverished starve, the uber rich sharpen their skills at avoiding taxes and garnering more wealth.
"The top 1 percent has increased its share of total income to more than 20 percent today from about 10 percent in the 1960s," notes Nancy Folbre. The bottom 90 percent have been clobbered. The uber rich have crushed wages with the threat of outsourcing and have, thus, also been able to effectively redistribute the gains of their workers' labor into their own compensation. The company is more productive because the workers do more (productivity has been increasing), not because of decisions made by the CEO. Yet the CEO is claiming all the gains of the workers as his/her own.
We have heard the apologies and the revisions about the economic collapse. There is talk of onerous regulation. Republicans have continually whined about President Obama being mean to business.
Yet, those same banks that collapsed the world economy, as Jeff Madrick describes, "The six largest financial institutions in the U.S. now account for 55 percent of all banking assets." We're just continuing our march toward an even more extreme concentration of wealth. Republican laissez faire policies brought us a near-Depression. And, it seems, all we've learned is that spending must be cut and it's all the fault of public workers. Quite the switch-a-roo the Republicans have pulled here.
Tax the top 1 percent. This is nothing punitive. The 1-percent will still have more money than the other 99 percent. This is moral. It is only asking that they pay their fair share. The one percent solution - taxing the top 1 percent - is the most equitable, simple, effective way to solve any and all budget problems we face.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Unemployment versus Debt
Why do the Republicans continue to speak of a crisis of debt? Of fiscal challenges?
Rage Against The Machine - Wake Up (Live) by popefucker
Our ability to obtain cheap money is not a problem. Interest rates are lower than they ever been. If we need money, it's there. The idea of "debt" implies we've splurged and broke the bank. That's not the case. The U.S. is still a very safe and attractive currency as a pillar of value. Rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage are the lowest they been in over 50 years!
We've got money. We need to spend it. We need to invest.
Unemployment is at almost 9 percent! Nearly 10 percent of our American workforce is being idly used.
We've had the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Which was largely caused by Robber Barons, Wall Street, and CEOs. The same people that have up-ended the lives of people all over the world and crashed the economy, not just in America, are the same ones making profits hand-over-fist (AGAIN!) and, also, according to Republicans, must not be increasingly-taxed on some of their ill-gotten gains and asked to pay more?
Debt?
Spending?
Public workers?
Make these [Robber Barons, Wall Street, and CEOs] lazy, greedy bastards pay already!!!
Is this country asleep?
Rage Against The Machine - Wake Up (Live) by popefucker
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Contracting Inequality
The hypocrisy Republicans have towards contracts is astounding. Especially coming from the party that is so concerned with the constitution and law. [They're really not, but they like to say they are.] Michael Steele represented this warped view recently on Rachel Maddow. The typical line they use, paraphrasing, "Those [worker] contracts were negotiated in better times. We shouldn't have to honor those in bad times." Yet, in the next breath, when defending capitalism and the corporate world, Republicans have the nerve to say, "If we don't pay [CEOs] top dollar, we can't get good talent. Plus, they were promised such compensation, bonuses, etc. [contractually], so what can we do?"
Paying teachers, professors, health care workers, and other public workers low wages will have no effect on their performance, nor the type of worker attracted to the position. But with CEOs and executives just the opposite is true. At least that's what Republicans want us to believe. And, it's the $50,000 a-year worker that's causing our budget problems. It has nothing to do with low and non-existent corporate taxation and their CEOs making millions of dollars per year.
So - bargaining and contracts are good for the rich. But, if you're just a unionized worker, or a worker not high up enough on the ladder and your company is not entitled to a big bailout, you're on your own.
And, the Republicans continue to try and spread the lie that unionized workers make more than their private sector counterparts. This has been debunked recently in numerous studies.
To believe the Republicans on these issues is to agree with a completely delusional paradigm, falsified by reality.
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