Top Paid CEOs (2011)

[thegreekdog]

My wife works in the remuneration area or HR, and she assures me that almost every CEO (and especially those in the US) will be on a very high proportion of at risk or incentive based pay - similar to what you would see in comission based sales jobs.

Thats how ole Mr Simon topped the charts, obviously SPG had a very good year and his remuneration reflects that.

While I agree with TGD that the law or government shouldnt get involved; CEO pay packages are a good example of market failure.

The natural incentive is to elevate your CEO pay packages such that you attract the highest quality candidate, this results in what is a price war, with the biggest losers not being the competitors in the wars but the lackys lower down the food chain who surrport the CEOs.

Through a combination of elitism, old boys clubs, neopotism and many other wonderful components of high end corporate behaviour this price war has been sustained until such a point that CEOs get staggeringly high salaries. (this is the market failure, not the initial incentive or resulting price war)

I don't think CEO prices are necessarily market failure. The market and the economy are able to bear these high salaries. Do people complain? Yes. Do they do anything other than complain? No.

Is the fault really on the people though? I am not so sure, it seems like an easy out.


--Andy

I guess the question is what are the potential courses of action to have CEO salaries reduced:

Option 1: Corporations lower the salaries for no reason.
Option 2: Corporations lower the salaries due to pressure from the general public (through verbal pressure, protests, boycotts, etc.)
Option 3: Corporations lower the salaries because of the passage of laws, regulations, and the like by government.

Are there others? Are we relying on Option 1?

[GabonX]

It's a shame that none of you plebes understand business.

[thegreekdog]

It's a shame that none of you plebes understand business.

I honestly don't give a f*ck. CEOs that make $60 million? I will boycott their respective business. Yeah, I'm a tax attorney. Don't care.

[GabonX]

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

[AndyDufresne]

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

I don't think TGD is being hateful or bitter.


--Andy

[thegreekdog]

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

My boycott won't do much (even if they hadn't yet made their $60 million).

Bitter and hateful? I'm most certainly not bitter and hateful towards any CEO. Good for them. Further, boycotting companies that pay their CEOs that much is not antithetical to focusing on my own opportunities. It's strange that you would mention them being linked. I suppose if I was a roustabout or random college student majoring in art history, spending time writing diatribes about the evils of capitalism, spray painting "Down with Capitalism" on buildings, and protesting, your statement would make sense. Since I'm a highly educated, highly paid, highly intelligent professional, it doesn't. Maybe try again?

[Neoteny]

You must have met one of my exes. Sorry about that.

[GabonX]

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

I don't think TGD is being hateful or bitter.


--Andy

You probably agree with him too.

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

My boycott won't do much (even if they hadn't yet made their $60 million).

Bitter and hateful? I'm most certainly not bitter and hateful towards any CEO. Good for them. Further, boycotting companies that pay their CEOs that much is not antithetical to focusing on my own opportunities. It's strange that you would mention them being linked. I suppose if I was a roustabout or random college student majoring in art history, spending time writing diatribes about the evils of capitalism, spray painting "Down with Capitalism" on buildings, and protesting, your statement would make sense. Since I'm a highly educated, highly paid, highly intelligent professional, it doesn't. Maybe try again?

You seem bitter. Swearing and flaunting your own success in defense, while stirring up negativity towards people and their companies based on nothing except a number attached to their names... I just wonder what you might have been able to do had the energy you've expended here been directed towards something more personally productive.

Let me ask, in your opinion as a highly educated, highly paid, highly intelligent professional, how much can a person make before you feel obliged to boycott the company they work for? I mean it's easy enough to draw the line at $60 million. You'd only be boycotting Simon Property Group and CBS, but what about companies like Viacom or Motorola, both of which gave their CEO in excess of $40 million?

How much more than you is it appropriate for someone else to make?

If you can answer that question I feel sorry for you as I'm free of such self imposed limitations. People have a tendency to resent those who are more successful than themselves. Even people who consider themselves successful and are by any number of standards still seem to resent the success of others if it is disproportionate to their own.. Perhaps this is something people do innately.

[BigBallinStalin]

How many of these people are paid off of commissions? And should companies limit the amount top producers can earn?

CEOs generally are not paid on commission, per se.. though their income is theoretically tied to company gains. (not profits, gains).

The problem is that that for many companies, the actual production and service are almost the secondary market/goal. The product is irrelevant, its about making money off of stock sales or sale of assets, etc. Theoretically that should be tied to actual, traditional profits, but its too often not. This creates a whole range of ethical/paradigm shift type problems. Not caring about the product can mean selling things that are actually harmful... and a focus that plain ignores the harm, to ignoring impacts on workers (I have heard it said more than once that whoever invented the night shift never worked it... just as a mild example of what I mean), to a range of issues. Its the old case of the "absentee owner". An owner who is not literally on the ground, seeing what is happening AND understanding what is being done is far more likely to just "not notice" or truly not see problems. When the focus is money, they tend to hire people who's focus is money... and so forth. So, the CEO, the investors literally may not know that the reason the company is so profitable is that they have hired a bunch of underage workers to sew shirts (to name a rather well-known example). If its child labor, then all it takes is people finding out and then things do tend to change. However, if its something like hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking"), with harm that's just not known (no one is even really studying it, but we are all told basically to just trust the companies with our safety), the issue is much more complex.

The thing is that none of that "just happens". In teh 1900's the robber barons could have been excused because values were very different (it was OK to subject certain people to harsher conditions, etc.) and a lot of understanding about damage just was not there. (and note that they, too took their money to do "good works", a lot of real and true good.

These PACS are now intentionally reversing the education trends, the awareness of "other", of the environment, etc. By donating to the PACs instead of doing more direct work, these people are able to side-step in the same way they often sidestep harm caused by the companies they manage.

That's a very roundabout way to not answer either question...

Does anyone know? Does anyone have an opinion in regards to the second question?

1) It depends. ("commission" as in "profits-based bonus")? some do, some don't.

2) No. It depends. Being a CEO is a very difficult job, and very few people can do it properly for an extended amount of time. The job can offer money, but it can also offer other perks, so just limiting the payment doesn't really matter if substitutes can be provided. These companies are competing for these CEOs, so it might not make sense to offer less when you want higher quality. It just depends.

[BigBallinStalin]

My wife works in the remuneration area or HR, and she assures me that almost every CEO (and especially those in the US) will be on a very high proportion of at risk or incentive based pay - similar to what you would see in comission based sales jobs.

Thats how ole Mr Simon topped the charts, obviously SPG had a very good year and his remuneration reflects that.

While I agree with TGD that the law or government shouldnt get involved; CEO pay packages are a good example of market failure.

The natural incentive is to elevate your CEO pay packages such that you attract the highest quality candidate, this results in what is a price war, with the biggest losers not being the competitors in the wars but the lackys lower down the food chain who surrport the CEOs.

Through a combination of elitism, old boys clubs, neopotism and many other wonderful components of high end corporate behaviour this price war has been sustained until such a point that CEOs get staggeringly high salaries. (this is the market failure, not the initial incentive or resulting price war)

Wow, so they all bid up their own prices? It's amazing that no one undercuts the prices... (i.e. your story isn't true). It's a competitive environment, and it's not just reliant on the supply of CEOs and their co-conspirators.


How do you factor in government regulation over the trading of stocks with over-glutted CEO and executive boards?

What's funny is that people point to market failure, but overlook routes by the market which have been closed by the government.

[patrickaa317]

Isn't it great to sit on an internet forum complaining about how much money people are making that dedicate every minute of their lives to a company. Perhaps if people all applied themselves to their jobs like they do to these forums, they could also be making millions.

Would anyone that is complaining about how much these CEOs make be able and willing to do just as good of a job as the person that holds the job? And would you be willing to do it for $150k a year?

[PLAYER57832]

.

Also, what percentage of the total take for these various PACs does the donation represent... and are multiple groups really just funnels for other, more hidden groups.

A small percentage of each PAC's total take. They are not hidden groups as far as I can tell. If you look at an individual PACs contributions and donations they generally correspond to political candidates.

I think if you do some of your own research you'll find what you're looking for.

Happened to hear this yesterday.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/01/154160392 ... look-alike

It explains much better than I did.

[Woodruff]

Well, now, I've got some advice for you, little buddy.

thegreekdog is Gilligan?

I was thinking more like the professor.

[Woodruff]

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

I don't think TGD is being hateful or bitter.


--Andy

You probably agree with him too.

You can only boycott them after they made the $60 million, so I don't think your boycott will do much. Instead of being bitter and hateful towards those who are more successful, why not focus on your own opportunity?

My boycott won't do much (even if they hadn't yet made their $60 million).

Bitter and hateful? I'm most certainly not bitter and hateful towards any CEO. Good for them. Further, boycotting companies that pay their CEOs that much is not antithetical to focusing on my own opportunities. It's strange that you would mention them being linked. I suppose if I was a roustabout or random college student majoring in art history, spending time writing diatribes about the evils of capitalism, spray painting "Down with Capitalism" on buildings, and protesting, your statement would make sense. Since I'm a highly educated, highly paid, highly intelligent professional, it doesn't. Maybe try again?

You seem bitter. Swearing and flaunting your own success in defense, while stirring up negativity towards people and their companies based on nothing except a number attached to their names... I just wonder what you might have been able to do had the energy you've expended here been directed towards something more personally productive.

Is there a reason you're trolling like this?

[Woodruff]

Isn't it great to sit on an internet forum complaining about how much money people are making that dedicate every minute of their lives to a company. Perhaps if people all applied themselves to their jobs like they do to these forums, they could also be making millions.

As someone who HAS ACTUALLY dedicated almost every minute of their lives to their job for extended periods of time (up to six months at a couple of turns), I find your suggestion that CEOs routinely do this to be almost laughable.

[Fruitcake]

The CEOs mentioned are those who have either shown their net revenue, or those who, through corporate governance, have had it shown for them.

What would be of more interest is the very thing one can never find out. How much is earned by those we don't know about. I am certain in my mind there are many who earn more than the top earner on the original list.

The numbers look 'soft' to me. Jamie Dimon took home more than the quoted figure by some margin. However, much of this difference is made up of stock options he cashed which netted him almost as much again as the figure quoted.

I'm not convinced that the source of Huffington, PA and Standards on the Floor is really the right mix for reality.

[patrickaa317]

Isn't it great to sit on an internet forum complaining about how much money people are making that dedicate every minute of their lives to a company. Perhaps if people all applied themselves to their jobs like they do to these forums, they could also be making millions.

As someone who HAS ACTUALLY dedicated almost every minute of their lives to their job for extended periods of time (up to six months at a couple of turns), I find your suggestion that CEOs routinely do this to be almost laughable.

If you are that dedicated and the company you work for isn't promoting you and showing you the money, perhaps it is time for you to go job hunting and find a company that is. Unless you were forced to sign a contract where you can't leave for a couple years, then your fate is in your own hands.

You personally couldn't pay me enough to be a CEO. I like being able to put my family first then work second, how many CEO's are able to put their families first?

[Woodruff]

Isn't it great to sit on an internet forum complaining about how much money people are making that dedicate every minute of their lives to a company. Perhaps if people all applied themselves to their jobs like they do to these forums, they could also be making millions.

As someone who HAS ACTUALLY dedicated almost every minute of their lives to their job for extended periods of time (up to six months at a couple of turns), I find your suggestion that CEOs routinely do this to be almost laughable.

If you are that dedicated and the company you work for isn't promoting you and showing you the money, perhaps it is time for you to go job hunting and find a company that is. Unless you were forced to sign a contract where you can't leave for a couple years, then your fate is in your own hands.

NOBODY who works for a company "dedicates every minute of their lives to the company", even for reasonably short periods of time. It just doesn't exist.

But the military is an interesting institution. Of course, I wasn't forced to sign a contract...I actually greatly enjoyed my military service, and I'm very proud of it. And the military did promote me...reasonably often, even. Of course, being promoted as an enlisted member isn't exactly "being shown the money", but anyone who joins the military for the money is an idiot anyway.

You personally couldn't pay me enough to be a CEO. I like being able to put my family first then work second, how many CEO's are able to put their families first?

The entire military is laughing at this.

[patrickaa317]

Isn't it great to sit on an internet forum complaining about how much money people are making that dedicate every minute of their lives to a company. Perhaps if people all applied themselves to their jobs like they do to these forums, they could also be making millions.

As someone who HAS ACTUALLY dedicated almost every minute of their lives to their job for extended periods of time (up to six months at a couple of turns), I find your suggestion that CEOs routinely do this to be almost laughable.

If you are that dedicated and the company you work for isn't promoting you and showing you the money, perhaps it is time for you to go job hunting and find a company that is. Unless you were forced to sign a contract where you can't leave for a couple years, then your fate is in your own hands.

The military is an interesting institution. Of course, I wasn't forced to sign a contract...I actually greatly enjoyed my military service, and I'm very proud of it. And the military did promote me...reasonably often, even. Of course, being promoted as an enlisted member isn't exactly "being shown the money", but anyone who joins the military for the money is an idiot anyway.

You personally couldn't pay me enough to be a CEO. I like being able to put my family first then work second, how many CEO's are able to put their families first?

The entire military is laughing at this.

First off, thank you for your service. Second off, the entire military always puts country first as opposed to business or family which takes great courage and admiration. Though as you said, I would be willing to bet, the vast majority of people that join the service do not do it for the money as they definitely do not get paid what they are worth or deserve.

I am confused though on your joining the military and the fight to defend the many freedoms this country offers but yet seems to want to restrict how much an individual can make under the system that is in place.

[Army of GOD]

packtrickaa, I'm interestd as to how you know how much a CEO works, what they do, etc.

[Lootifer]

Wow, so they all bid up their own prices? It's amazing that no one undercuts the prices... (i.e. your story isn't true). It's a competitive environment, and it's not just reliant on the supply of CEOs and their co-conspirators.


How do you factor in government regulation over the trading of stocks with over-glutted CEO and executive boards?

What's funny is that people point to market failure, but overlook routes by the market which have been closed by the government.

Yeh undercutting happens all the time... Thats why you see so much diversity in the CEO market... Mhmm, uh huh....

Dont get me wrong, things seem to be on the improve and the old institutions of old boys clubs and nepotism are breaking down. But still a long way from perfect competition (not that youll ever get there ofc, but you know...)

[Woodruff]

First off, thank you for your service. Second off, the entire military always puts country first as opposed to business or family which takes great courage and admiration. Though as you said, I would be willing to bet, the vast majority of people that join the service do not do it for the money as they definitely do not get paid what they are worth or deserve.
I am confused though on your joining the military and the fight to defend the many freedoms this country offers but yet seems to want to restrict how much an individual can make under the system that is in place.

First of all, freedom doesn't ever mean "complete freedom" because if it did, there would be possibly AN individual who actually had freedom...limits are always necessary, but those limits should be enacted only when seriously necessary and not by whim (what typically comes to mind for me are corporate regulations regarding safety and such, though there are many other examples). Even our specifically-delineated Constitutional "freedoms" such as speech have common sense restrictions put onto them. I consider personal, individual freedom to be the absolute and single most pressing issue of our nation at this point in time.

I will say that I do believe that many businesses who are hiring CEOs are doing so very shortsightedly and providing far too many guarantees within their pay/benefits (the old "golden parachute" reference), but that is just my opinion of the situation and not what I think should be an enacted restriction. I am actually considerably confused by your confusion...and how you drew the conclusion that I am in favor of limiting CEO pay in this manner. Care to explain where I may have misled you to that thought in this thread?

[patrickaa317]

packtrickaa, I'm interestd as to how you know how much a CEO works, what they do, etc.

Because I have been in the business world for quite a few years....

[patrickaa317]

I am actually considerably confused by your confusion...and how you drew the conclusion that I am in favor of limiting CEO pay in this manner. Care to explain where I may have misled you to that thought in this thread?

I guess I'm not sure, I guess I may have jumped to an incorrect conclusion. Just an incorrect read on my part if you aren't in favor of limitations on pay.

[Woodruff]

I am actually considerably confused by your confusion...and how you drew the conclusion that I am in favor of limiting CEO pay in this manner. Care to explain where I may have misled you to that thought in this thread?

I guess I'm not sure, I guess I may have jumped to an incorrect conclusion. Just an incorrect read on my part if you aren't in favor of limitations on pay.

Fair enough, it happens to all of us. Sometimes, it's hard to get across your meaning without the ability to use facial expression and such.