Sent: May 08, 2008 |
Sir, Quite frankly I am growing tired of hearing how CEO pay and incentives is to blame for all issues within the corporate business world. This is unfortunately turning into a witch hunt for a much larger cause to the issues within the corporate world. It would seem that as the CEO of any major organization you should clearly be afforded additional benefits and compensation that the average worker is not entitled to. When everything goes wrong the average worker is never blamed for a single failure unless it involved some type of criminal activity. Instead it is the senior member of that organization. Unfairly or not when the business fails to meet the "expectecation" of some Wall Street flunky who could never make it in the corporate world and instead evaluates companies based on what they think; this casues stocks to plummet and has pushed large sums of money into hedge funds/commodities. Get a couple of nervous members of this group who has somehow grown to the elite status within the financial markets and suddenly the failures are magnified ten fold. I believe these so called Wall Street experts are only one of the major issues that face this nation as a whole. This group has glorified itself with claims of outperforming everyone else in the market over the last XXX number of years and therefore qualify themselves as experts. How about if we investigate these folks to see what their motivation has been for a number of years in driving the markets. Then let us investigate why commodities and hedge funds continue to deteriorate our economy at an alarming rate. Why not ask ourselves how did one commodity manager earn over $3 billion in a single year? From any list seen this would significantly outperform any CEO. Once we are complete asking ourselves these simple questions which would only lead to more complex questions and answers how about if we ask ourselves whether or not a CEO is deserving of this type of compensation in comparison to say professional athletes. The quote from a recent article is that the average CEO earns roughly $11.7 million; how does this compare to some ridiculous professional athlete who earn in the millions for showing up to practice, hitting a ball, throwing a pass, or striking a golf ball on the links. So we think the compensation for a CEO who earns this type of money is somehow ridiculous yet we encourage our kids to go and pursue a professional sport in the hope that they will make millions. Does society encourage our youth to get the best education, move up through the corporate world to achieve the success of leading organizations that employ hundreds and in many cases thousands of people? If a professional athlete is allowed to make in the millions then quite frankly the responsibility of being a CEO is at a minimum three standard deviations away from the average and they should therefore be paid as such. How about stopping the witch hunt. How about we focus on some issues that will ensure that this nation is economically healthy for many years to come. The average worker in America is generally well paid or the amount of responsibility they assume and accept, the education they have personally achieved, and the work that they produce. If a CEO makes 50 times the average worker then I say in almost all cases they are deserving of such compensation for the job that they are asked to do. Anytime the average worker wishes to assume anywhere near the amount of stress, time away from their family, responsibility, job performance, or personal sacrifice then perhaps they too will rise to the top of the corporate world and make more than the average worker. Remember it is an average for a reason; if I recall my statistics class correctly that means there are just about 50% above and below the mean but perhaps those who write ridiculous articles chastising in many cases the very best fail to recall this basic principle; these people clearly deserve to be at the very top of the organizational pay chart and it should be significant enough that someone would be willing to sacrifice almost everything they have while they assume that job. Doug Keeler |