CEOs, Workers, and the Costs of Excess

In “The Overpaid CEO” Susan Homberg and Mark Schmitt bring to attention how CEO pay in America is ridiculous in numbers as opposed to other parts of the world. Looking back, in the nineteen hundreds CEO pay was relativity average. As businesses and companies began to expand there was a demand for higher pay. Between 1978-2012 CEO pay increased by 875%! Many rules and regulations were put in to place to limit the pay of a CEO, such as the Securities Exchange Act that I will explain later on, regardless CEO pay kept getting higher and higher as many loopholes were found. Bonuses pay a large part in the salaries of CEOS’, as an effect CEOS’ tend to partake in risky behavior in order to score those big paychecks.

CEO compensation has been a heated debate for many years recently, and it can be argued

Executive Compensation. I’m in agreement with Thomas Piketty that the one cause of rising inequality in the United States “the rise of supersalaries” for top executives (Piketty & Goldhammer, 2014, p. 298). The average American estimates CEO to worker pay ratio at about 30-to-1, which is more than 4 times what they believe to be ideal. The career review site Glassdoor reported from 2014 data that the average pay ratio of CEO to median worker was 204-to-1 and that at the top of the list, four CEOs earn more than 1,000 times the salary of their median worker with the very top pay ratio of 1,951-to-1. In some cases a CEO makes in one-hour what it takes the average employee six-months to earn. In comparison, the Washington Post reported for the

carefully planned out and considered, the total closure or failure of the organization could be at hand in the near future. In our modern age, employers know that salary is not the only factor that should be considered and that salary alone will not lead to better or more highly profitable workers alone. This is why compensation planning is important and why pay should have some connection between performance and compensation. This is why the human resources department should consider many monetary and non-monetary factors when considering how to properly compensate and motivate employees (Dessler, 2013).

7. Option compensation will continue to be a critical component of compensation for executives as it simplistically aligns the executives’ pay to shareholder value in its simplest sense. I don’t believe that options compensation is the primary driver of behavior when things shift from the legal to the illegal. As with most senior executives in industry, ego is a huge driver in individual behavior. Compensation is important, but the recognition of your performance is sometimes even more important. We have created a performance driven culture without the necessary control framework for people to operate within. One minute you are doing a great job, the next you have crossed an imaginary line. The frameworks don’t do enough to quantify behavior as legal and illegal leaving inconsistent rules for organizations to operate within. How does Enron compare to the subprime mortgage debacle, or to Steve Jobs backdating options. There remains too much room for interpretation.

Executive pay – excessive pay for top executives is one problem that will not go away. It is a response to public concern about pay rises that are unrelated to effort, plus a number of high-profile cases of failed executives getting pay-offs of up to US $100 million and others having stock options backdated to give them a share of earlier capital gains. This at least tells shareholders exactly what their top executives are earning.

Over the past twenty years, America has seen a substantial amount of change and development amongst many technological industries. Old ideas have been revolutionized. Technology has been continuously upgraded time and time again. Americans slowly have to do less and less because new inventions are constantly increasing their abilities to do more for us. Cars are getting faster, phones are getting smarter and before we know it, 2-dementional televisions will be a thing of the past. Despite everything that is growing around us there are still few things that have stayed the same; for example, the average American income for 99

Stock options are another main concern and are based upon the performance of a company. A lot of companies are in a low return and low compensation which then caused bad business and it’s about 400 times that amount. I believe the government is trying to tighten down on excessive executive compensation with implementing salary caps. Executives are unrealistic with common life and way of living therefore; they do not take any consideration with the underdogs of the company or the world. The economy does have hope but it’s a long way from being stabilized once again.

In Peter Eavis’ article “Executive Pay: The Invasion of Supersalaries” the conflict of CEOs and top executives outrageous pay grade is discussed. Even though the “compensation machine” of Corporate America is running smoothly, there are multiple negative and dark undertones. In fact, many people believe that these shocking salaries are the roots of inequality within America. Currently, some CEOs are being compensated millions and millions of dollars as their normal annual salary. Even though the current executive compensation system focuses on performance and can “theoretically constrain pay,” there is nothing stopping the companies from giving their CEOs more. According to the Equilar 100 C.E.O Pay Study, “the median compensation of a

The economy of the United States is by far the largest and most powerful economy in the entire world. The average family income is roughly $40,000 a year and our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is well over 10 trillion dollars. The next closest country is Japan with 4 trillion dollars of total GDP.(Johnson & Wales: Economics) The United States has so many large corporations it takes someone to run each one and it also take a lot of money to pay someone to be in charge of each one.

It was reasonable for a CEO’s compensation to increase as the company expanded and became a larger entity, and the newly-granted shares and increasing stock options further aligned the CEO’s personal interests with those of the company and shareholders. In this sense, the second compensation package was also well-structured and not excessive. Seeing Sunbeam’s revenue rising and stock price climbing steeply upwards, Sunbeam’s shareholders and directors were fully convinced by Dunlap’s leadership, so they might perceive the increase in compensation amount necessary to retain and better motivate Dunlap to enhance the company’s value. Nonetheless, they neglected the fact that the increased portion of the equity-based compensation also further motivated the CEO’s dangerous behaviors pertaining to improper earnings management.

This report explores the issue of the pay that top executives make, and the reasons why they do. It also suggests improvements that can be made to make the system better. High Pay Seems Small When Compared To Company Profits Many companies pull in profits that are extremely high. When an employee of such a companies salary is compared to the amount of profit that the company earns, it starts to seem reasonable. It only makes sense that if the employee is directly responsible for the success of their company, then they deserve to get their payback. It seems ironic, but many salaries even look small once compared with a companies profits. Top Executives Are Under A Lot Of Pressure Being the CEO of a

Given the effect a CEO can have on a company's success, we can understand why their compensation packages

Our reading this week shows that one important motivating factor for an employer has to be aware of is the financial/economic interests of their employees. Today many observers and employees are concerned about the gap between CEO salaries and average employee pay. Is it ethical for CEOs to be paid so much more than other employees? Does this practice use a valid reward distribution system? Should companies be considering ways to reduce the gap to improve the overall moral of their employees? Do you think CEO and upper management salaries are subject to ethical consideration?

Executives and those responsible for misdeeds should have been subject to significant clawbacks of compensation. If the reason they misbehaved and took inappropriate risks was to raise compensation, losing that compensation would be an appropriate punishment.