1)Very few people can manage multi-billion dollar international corporations. Jobs of incredible importance attract high salaries, same as famous athletes or movie stars. When a lot of money hinges on something, people spend a lot to ensure that it's in good hands. A "humble worker" has less unique skills, and is paid less. How is this not fair, is the real question? The opposite would be bizarre. Or are you suggesting that a CEO making 100 times as much is okay, but 260 times is somehow beyond the pale?
2) It's "fair" because that's what people decide to pay the CEOs with their own money, either the owner of the company or shareholders, collectively. It wouldn't be "fair" to tell these people that they can't.
Who are "the people"? The employees? A regulatory authority? Or other managers, who benefits from doing each other a favour? Before the end of communism, a CEO received about 20 times more than a "humble" worker. My common sense says: That is right. This guy works really hard, is probably smart, got some connections and good instincts. He bears much responsibility and has to take part in strange rites, beginning in college, ending in own office with a mean little putsch and a heart attack (if unlucky). So I get my 1000 Euro and he takes 24000. Okay. But 300 times more wage than a hard working man or woman is far too much, it`s obscene. President Obama has plans to set up a regularity and a fitting department, which has the order to control the international markets. There is noy way, that this is ever gonna happen. What is the real difference between the manager of a small company and the CEO of a global player? Thing like advanced skills, good advice, background, capital and pure luck. It`s a small circle. but it`s not as small, as they want us to believe. It´s weak feudalism. You justify this enormous sums, by comparing managers with sport stars and movie stars. This is exactly the neo-liberal Zeitgeist and it makes not much sense. It`s not a real sport, neither a real show-biz. It`s about money and jobs and (the lack of) responsibility.
For Reagan .- you should know what he has done better than me. Supporting of dictatorships, a big increase of the military expenditure, wasted money for an utopic satellite-based defending-system. He established the "Trickle Down-Theory" - and look how it works!
He tripled the national debt. Thatcher did also cut the social systems, but lowered the tax rates for high-incomes, companies and the industry. She marginalized the power of the state and the unions. The stats of her first legislatur periode were horrible - oil saved her ass. Gerhard Schröder ****ed the german social system in a similar bad way. So, a great stock of low-profiled, low-incomes has established. Wages for "simple" workers are sinking constantly. Temporary employment and insecure conditions are almost common. It´s the big time of the small wages now. Many people actually are not capable of earning their own living, even while they have got full-time jobs! That`s obscene. 300 times more than this people is wrong.
Oh, it absolutely has an image problem right now. But it has it because people talk about economics without bothering to understand it, and throw out all sorts of shaky claims and non-sequiturs. Capitalism will always have this problem because people have short memories, little desire to understand these issues, and it's easy to villify people making a lot of money. Populism will always be able to take a bite out of capitalism, even while we're in the midst of enjoying its fruits.
It`s will always be the same procedure an the same result: Neo- liberals are pushing the economy for a short periode of time, straining the middle class and the poor, making the riches richer. People are told to make sacrifies. At the same time banks and hedgefonds are playing Casino Royal with trusted money. There is safetyplan for companies and banks, cause they are "too big to fail", but there is no plan for normal citizens. If all the money I have spared my whole life, was wasted by a Greenspan-fan in a hip buisness suit, I wouldn`t be happy at all. Managers receiving millions of dollar pay-off for...what? For losing billions of dollars? For the heavy weight of the crown? For building up destructable bubbles once in a while? For ruining companies, which survived decades and centuries in just a few years? Almost a quarter of the world capital was burned in 2009, whole stated almost got bankrupt. You can`t constantly grow for a long time period without taking the money from somewhere. Means: From someone.So you can doubt the accuracy of the charts - but without control, capitalism is like a force of nature. Everyone is vulnerable now. Detroit is a good example. What about the GM-managers? Are they taking responsibility or did someone in charge took them out of the team, for ****ing things up? You don`t have to be a hippie to vaguely remember a time when things were different., when the world was not of Gordon Gekko`s fantasies. Maybe someone in charge should try to control parts of it. Obama has the power and I think he is on a good way. Health insurance for everyone is common in most western europe countries, it works and it`s no socialism! It`s not about losing control, it`s about solidarity. I`m not even talkin about radical ideas, like the tobin-tax. But what`s wrong with limitations of manager-wages? Or health-insurance for everyone? Or electronic health care reports (in every country)? The status quo will betray the social peace in the near future. On a long scale, it`s a bigger threat than terrorism ever was. Obama is no messiah, but his administration is able to change certain things.
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