Should Uncle Sam Be Helping CEOs Get Richer?

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Should Uncle Sam
Be Helping CEOs Get Richer?
America's overpaid corporate execs have plenty of people to thank for their good fortune. But America's taxpayers — the source of the subsidies that keep excessive CEO pay flowing — are still waiting for some small sign of gratitude.

August 26, 2008

By Sam Pizzigati

The just-released latest edition of the annual CEO pay report from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy tells two stories. The first will likely remind most Americans why they get so angry about CEO pay. The second will get them even angrier.

The first of these two stories doesn’t take long to tell. Last year, the new Executive Excess 2008 report notes, top CEOs in the United States continued to pocket outlandishly large paychecks, $10.5 million on average. That’s 344 times the pay of an average U.S. worker — and ten times the pay gap that existed 30 years ago.

The second story takes a bit more explaining: Our tax dollars are actually subsidizing this incredible excess. The federal government, through the tax code, is directly rewarding companies that overpay their top executives.

Executive Excess 2008 details five of these direct subsidies. Two involve rather arcane accounting conventions that corporations exploit to both cheat Uncle Sam at tax time and pump up their quarterly earnings. But the other three don’t require a CPA to decipher.

Many Americans, for instance, already have experience with the concept of “deferred pay” — through 401(k) plans. If you have a 401(k), you can have part of your income deferred from taxes. But you can only defer a limited amount — usually just $15,500 a year — and if the investments where you put that money go sour, you’re out of luck.

Top executives, by contrast, can have deferred pay plans with no limits whatsoever. They can defer millions every year — and they quite often get a guaranteed, above-market rate return on all the dollars they stuff in these no-limit stashes. Last January, Target CEO Robert Ulrich retired with over $140 million in his deferred pay account. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew2008/sept1a.html

[Hubert Flottz]

1. Only if the CEO's finance the people making up the laws as they

go along...I think that's how it's worked so far.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Here is how all this came to be...

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/gary_allen_rocker/index.html#metatop

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[marmar]

4. Hi......and I'm sure the "bye" will follow shortly.

:freak:

[daggahead]

5. That’s 344 times the pay of an average U.S. worker ...

In other words, the average worker would have to work 344 years to make what the average CEO makes in one year. Does that put it into perspective?

Bastards ...