On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 08:29:44 +0100, Jan Nielsen
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 21:44:34 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

I shore wish I could unnerstand you!! I get the gist (financial PV'ing,
no?), but the details sound pretty intriguing, if you could spell them out.
Along w/ how they effing get away with it.
---------------------------
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
snip


Primary method [other than actual robbery] is by setting their
own wages.

I recently read somewhere that here in Europe a corporation managers salary is
typical around 10 to 20 times larger than the average guy on the floor - in US
it's more like 400 times larger. Do you have any numbers, George?
=========================
let the flames begin [data please]

There are many sources of data comparing executive and worker
compensation. Unfortunately, most of these are on/from the left
and thus are suspect [at least to me].

John C. Bogel founded and ran one of the largest mutual funds in
the United States [Vanguard Mutual Fund Group] before his
retirement, and his right-wing/fundy credentials appear
impeccable.

Mr. Bogel has written an entire book on how "management" has
hijacked most of the American corporations they have been hired
to operate and are diverting even more than 100% of the corporate
income to themselves. This is possible because they are not only
preempting the earnings but are also raiding their employees'
pension and 401k fund assets. This book is very current being
release in 2005.

For complete details see
Bogel, John C., "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" Yale
University Press, New Haven ISBN 0-300-10990-3 25$US at local
book stores, also from Amazon at a discount.

In response to your specific question (from page 17 in the
hardcover edition) for the S&P 500 corporations:
1980 CEO pay 42X the average [not median] worker's pay in their
organization
2000 CEO pay 531X the average worker's pay in their organization
2004 CEO pay 280X the average worker's pay in their organization

Note that the decrease from 2000 to 2004 was a drop in CEO pay
*REPORTED* in SEC filings not their W2 numbers. The IRS had
begun to disallow "excessive" CEO/executive compensation as a
business expense in this period. Several methods are being
successfully used to evade both the reporting requirements and
the cap. These include "grossing up" which means the corporation
pays the income and other taxes on the CEO/executive
compensation, and increasingly on taxable benefits/perks such as
private use of corporate jets, country club memberships, etc.
Thus, in [too] many cases we are comparing oranges and pumpkins.
While these may be both orange and more or less round, that is as
far as the similarity goes. Given that the reported worker pay
is their gross W2 wages before all deductions and the
CEO/executive pay is the net after all deductions (apparently
including medical and retirement) it is likely that there was no
reduction but a continuing increase.

Ignoring the question of fairness, most (c. 95%) of this money
was the shareholders' that should have been reinvested in new
products, facilities, etc, or [shudder] distributed as dividends.

I find it insulting that while management more and more attempts
to foist off "job enrichment" as compensation for increased
(unpaid) overtime and insurance deductions, they are unwilling to
enrich their own jobs and forego their clearly excessive raises
and bonuses. It is one thing to steal my money, it is another to
p**s on my leg and then assume you can convince me it is raining.

As King Louie the last and the Tsar discovered, reality always
wins in the end. I just hope to be out of the way of this
particular train wreck.

Uncle George