Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, customer focus, continual improvement, six sigma.
June 22, 2006
More on Obscene CEO Pay

graph of excessive CEO pay

Study site: CEO-worker pay imbalance grows includes the graph above.

Unfortunately this reverse robin hood (steal from the workers, stock holder, customers…) and give to the CEO tale continues. Hopefully someday soon we can at least turn the momentum in the right direction (stopping these incredibly excessive “pay” packages). Even then it will take quite a deal of reducing these ridiculous “pay” packages to reach some sense of decency. CNN article based on the report: CEO Paycheck: $42,000 a day by Jeanne Sahadi:

Put another way, the average worker — who earned $41,861 in 2005 — made about $400 less last year than what the average large-company CEO made in one day. That assumes 260 days of pay (52 weeks x 5 days a week).

The CEO-to-worker pay differential in 2005 was the second highest on record. The highest was 2000, when the average CEO earned 300 times what the average worker made.

In 2002, the differential fell to 143 as the bear market took its toll on stock-related compensation. Nevertheless, between 2000 and 2005, median CEO pay rose 84 percent to $6.05 million on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to EPI.

Missing link: CEO pay and results

Home Depot CEO stifles debate about pay

Excessive Executive Pay – link to a study with even more obscene data than that in the graph above. CEO Pay: Obscene from Apr 2005

12 Responses to “More on Obscene CEO Pay”

  1. Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Engineers in the Workplace Says:

    [...] So funding research that hires scientists and engineers, and provides many benefits to the economy, can make a great deal of sense. The belief in this is why so many countries are focusing on improving their science and engineering capabilities. Regulating salary levels though doesn’t seem like a reasonable option to me. Hopefully companies like Google that value engineers above all else will be copied as the marketplace realizes the market has systemically been under-valuing creative knowledge workers like engineers and overpaying others. [...]

  2. Compensation at Whole Foods Says:

    This is the kind of data you would expect if people are the organization’s most important resource. If instead senior management thinks the company exists to fund their lavish lifestyle and…

  3. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Jim Press, Toyota N. American President, Moves to Chrysler Says:

    I would imagine he is getting a huge amount of money. And I would guess it will encourage those that think you have to massively overpay executives or lose them to that that will overpay them. I don’t think it is wise to pay huge sums to executives. If that means you lose some, fine, continue to manage your system well and things will still work out fine for you…

  4. James Says:

    I think this is to be expected under the New Economy Model whereby whoever creates the massive values or perceived to be able to create massive values are given the big carrots. That is until they proved otherwise. :P

  5. curiouscat Says:

    I think the evidence is very strong that executives that line their pockets (see all the links above for plenty of evidence and supporting opinions and: Tilting at Ludicrous CEO PayNo Excessive Senior Executive Pay at ToyotaDrucker on CEOs paying themselves millions) at the expense of the other stakeholders do not create value. The situation bears most resemblance to exploitative dictators that provide massive payoffs to cronies to sustain their looting of the countries they oversee.

    People are free to believe in the worth of such looters if they wish. I just hope people that believe such things don’t vote on board of directors in companies I own stock in. I don’t want my investments spoiled by massively overpaying a few people at the expense of the owners, customers, workers and other stakeholders.

  6. CuriousCat: Creating Jobs Says:

    If you assume the lean company grows sales at the same rate as some poorly management company then it may well be that the lean company creates fewer jobs. However that is not a valid assumption…

  7. CuriousCat: Fairness Matters Says:

    “humans care a great deal about how they are being treated relative to others. In many ways, fairness seems to matter more than absolute measures of how well they are faring…”

  8. Warren Buffett Webcast on the Credit Crisis at Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog Says:

    [...] “I don’t like what is going on with executive compensation“ [...]

  9. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Exposing CEO Pay Excesses Says:

    Thankfully, more of the ludicrous pay packages details are being made public and shame will force some changes (those approving these pay packages have to justify such reckless spending). Of course, some feel no shame no matter how egregious the situation…

  10. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » CEOs Plundering Corporate Coffers Says:

    [...] I stole from this hellhole.” Unfortunately we still have far too few people that see the obscene behavior of CEOs and their brooks brother bureaucrats as unacceptable. The behavior of many of them has been similar [...]

  11. Curious Cat Management » Looting: Bankruptcy for Profit Says:

    People, that are not honorable, and are given huge incentives to risk the future of all the other stakeholders for immense personal gain will do so…

  12. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay Says:

    Even as they spout defenses for such unjustifiably pay packages they know the pay is not defensible and so try to confuse the issue with byzantine explanations. Lets look at the CEO pay versus total earnings for several companies…

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