re: Nice opinion piece on income inequality from CNN

What is the ground speed of a fully loaded sparrow?

huh?

What is it?

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So this author adds little to no value just like those CEOs and executives he despises

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Are our executives just magically more talented in the last 20 years than they were the 20 before that? Are they now a superior race to executives in Japan, for example?

If not, how to explain the astronomical increase in CEO pay over the past couple of decades? The growth rate has been much faster than worker pay, and the multiples of CEO to worker pay have exploded as well.

So, what--are we creating a super race of executives now?

the problem with your post is that you use "we" a lot...are you the one paying these CEO's?

If not then maybe you shouldn't be concerned with what other people do with their money.

If the root of this is that you yourself aren't paid enough, then you may need to reevaluate your own talents/intelligence/drive. This is still America, you can start you own business and pay yourself and your employees whatever you want.

I think you don't get it and that's why I can't answer your question. Society doesn't own the companies, the stockholders do. "We" don't pay CEO's, the people that own the companies do.

Have the CEO's gotten better? I don't know, I'm not in the business of hiring them. If I owned a company and I had a CEO that was just as good willing to work for half of the price, why would I hire the more expensive one? Maybe CEO's haven't gotten better, maybe as the economy expands, the pool of talented executive has not grown at an equal rate, thus driving up the price for the good ones.

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Board members are typically elected by the stockholders. Either way, what do you care what the owners of a company want to pay their CEO?

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The outlook for my generation (Generation X) has been generally shittier than it was the one before me.

The outlook for the subsequent generation looks even more grim. Stagnant wages, uneven/under employment, etc. Sure, some people will start businesses and do well, but for most employment comes in the form of a job.

So yeah it's a bit irritating that in the face of a decline in the American standard of living, in a dimming of the American dream, what's grown out of that is a super race of wealthy elite who hold all the cards. I said before, it isn't the money--it's the power. You know who elects (read: funds and buys) congress, right? The people who are supposed to represent everyone?

THIS is the context of why I "care." Power is consolidated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. The results speak for themselves.

I have been extremely fortunate. I was an only child in a middle class family, and my parents pretty well paid for my undergrad, and I made my my way through grad school via assistantship. I have been 100% employed since college--going on about 18 years now at two different jobs, with an I/T type salary--managed to put a little away, fund some college for my own kids, have a little fun, buy a big TV, put a nice roof over my head etc.

It's not about what I want and don't have.

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CEO's make a great target due to the ability to attach a face to the many problems within this country - but what they make is a drop in the bucket compared to what is lost due to a lack of accountability within government, wasteful spending on earmarks and overpayment into a many times less than competitive government contracting process, spending money on unnecessary wars, etc.

CEO's make a great distraction from the fact that our elected officials quit working for us and started working for the corporations a long time ago.

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I'm not going to argue that. But the lack of accountability goes DIRECTLY to the corruption in the system, a system now bought and paid for by the people with the money to make things the way they want them.

Hence, the issue with the further concentration of wealth. When you have 400 families with more money than all the rest of the families, it stands to reason they are calling the shots.

That is an aristocracy.

An out of control government is another issue entirely, upon which we'd likely largely agree.

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corporations exist to make money.

Government exists to serve the best interest of society.

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Yes, yes.

Do you think this government exists to serve the best interests of society? And what role do you think corporations and wealthy elite take in steering governance? That is, steering government in the ways of labor laws, regulation (or lack thereof), economic policy, etc?

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It sounds like you expect corporations to change to fill in the gap left by corrupt politicians.

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No, you're projecting. I would like to see corporations and big money get out of politics--but good luck with that. I'd like to see term limits. But I'd also like to find a leprechaun tomorrow.

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If government starts regulating what everyone makes, then that will just make a corrupt government even more powerful.

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I never said I wanted to government to regulate pay--you're still projecting. I was simply making an observation on the state and direction of things--you take from that that I must favor larger government intervention? You know nothing, Jon Snow.

I don't know what the answers are, but I do think things are worse today than they were 20 years ago, and during that time, the rich got richer, the middle class was stagnant at best, and the poor got poorer.

Maybe you think that the people of today aren't of the caliber they were 20 or 40 years ago, or that we are inherently superior beings (or, at least the elite are) to our predecessors or our contemporaries in other modern developed countries.

I think people are people and always have been. Things are different now because the system stinks of corruption.

Broad strokes, to be sure.

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If not, how to explain the astronomical increase in CEO pay over the past couple of decades? The growth rate has been much faster than worker pay, and the multiples of CEO to worker pay have exploded as well.

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Has CEO pay at non-publicly traded companies risen as fast?