While I harp on Hillary for her idiotic ideas, and boy, are there a lot of them, I have given a blind eye to Barack Obama for one reason or another.
Well now, I can devote a little more time towards him.
I've shown in the past my distaste for his hypocritical nature in dealing with Constitutional rights, and now I want to show his socialist/communist leanings.
8 months ago, Barack Obama asked Senator Christopher Dodd to hold hearings on executive pay.
Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Obama is sponsoring a bill that would give shareholders an advisory vote on a chief executive’s pay package. Obama introduced his bill last month, after the House passed by a wide margin a similar bill pushed by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the Financial Services Committee.
Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Carl Levin of Michigan have signed on as co-sponsors to the bill, Obama said in the letter. The growth in CEO pay is rightfully frustrating shareholders and employees alike, especially given the lackluster performance of many of the companies paying these high salaries, according to the letter.
Now, I'm going to ask you something. If you're a highly skilled worker, regardless of what you do, and a politician comes in and says: "You're making too much money", you'd either be pissed at him/her or laugh in their face right?
This is effectively what Obama has done here. Here is the text of the letter that Obama sent to Senator Dodd:
Dear Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby:
As you may know, in April, I introduced the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act of 2007 (S. 1181), which is the companion to a bill that passed the House of Representatives by a 269-134 vote.
Since introduction, Senators Harkin, Durbin, Brown, Kerry, and Levin have joined as cosponsors. The legislation was referred to your committee, and I am writing to respectfully request that you hold a hearing on the issue of executive compensation packages, and specifically, the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act.
S. 1181 would require a nonbinding shareholder vote on executive compensation packages. I believe public discussion and debate over executive compensation packages would force corporate boards to think twice before signing over millions of dollars to CEOs. Certainly, many CEOs are ably steering their firms and deserve their paychecks. But the rate at which executive pay has grown, as compared to stagnating wages among American workers, is rightfully frustrating shareholders and employees alike, especially given the lackluster performance of many of the companies paying these high salaries.
In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker. Put another way, a CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in a year. In 2005, the average CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company received a 16% increase in CEO pay over 2004.
S.1181 neither caps nor limits CEO pay but merely requires that firms discuss and debate pay packages for CEOs on a case-by-case basis with their shareholders. If a board of directors disagrees with the nonbinding vote of shareholders, the board can still go forward with the pay package. But at the very least, shareholders would have had the opportunity to voice their opinions about whether the pay package is appropriate.
Thank you for your consideration and for your leadership in this area. I look forward to working with you on this and other legislation important to America’s economy.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator
The legislation passed the House by a wide margin in April.
What Mr. Obama doesn't understand is that the Board of Directors, at least in my company, decides on executive compensation. It's the Board of Director's who are the "Congress" of a company. And they can be replaced just like any member of Congress. The shareholders are the ones who vote on Board members, so they can vote a member out if it warrants it.
And yet, Mr. Obama has his own problem with "ethics":
But here's my ultimate point: Who's Barack to decide what's "adequate compensation"? My reader, George, says it best:
Obama’s recent comments at a rally concerning CEO pay. He’s pandering to the lower middle class by somehow suggesting that they should get to keep their jobs and CEO pay should be reduced or restricted in order to allow them to do it. It’s called supply and demand people! CEOs are paid as much as they are because they make much bigger differences in the companies that they work for! If another company offered them more money, they would go work there, simple as that.
The idea of restricting CEO pay is so disturbing to me as a Republican businessman. It feels more like communism.
And he's right. A typical CEO's decisions can make or break a company. They can directly effect the lives of hundreds, or even thousands of employees. So why shouldn't their pay be greater? Why should politicians be involved in a business decision at all in this regard?
Barack Obama doesn't come to IBM and say "All Software Engineers should not make more than $40k per year", so why should he offer to put into effect, rules for something that is already being done? He's pandering to the "working man", and making it look like he's taking on the "fat cats" in order to capture votes.
Shareholders of any publicly traded company are the ultimate "boss" and they are the ones who from the CEO on down to little guys 
My reader George also points out the example of Exxon CEO's Lee Raymond's $400 million dollar retirement package.
Sound excessive doesn't it? However, let's take a look at what that means.
In the 12 years that Lee Raymond was at Exxon, the stock went from $14.30 per share to $69.10, a 483.2% increase. Divide that amongst the 12 years he was there, and you're talking about a roughly 40.25% YEARLY increase in stock price for 12 years. Find me any CEO that does that and does it on such a regular basis, and I'll show you a CEO that everyone is happy with.
Oh wait, I FOUND such a CEO. Steve Jobs of Apple Computers.
Steve Jobs rejoined Apple Computers in 1996 when it's stock was hovering around $6 a share. Yesterday's price was $133 per share, with a peak of almost $200 a share earlier this year. That boils down to an almost 184% PER YEAR increase in shareholder wealth. Yet, no one complains about Steve Jobs. In one 5 year period, Steve Jobs made $650 million dollars.
Not a peep was heard from anyone. Why? Because it's fashionable to be getting on the anti-oil company bandwagon. Say the same thing about Steve Jobs, and you'll hear things like "He steered us out from a dismal spiral and made us successful". Well if he did that, then there's nothing wrong with oil companies doing the same things with their executives.
Otherwise, it's called hypocrisy.
Travis
2 comments:
So who's next after overpaid CEOs? Atheletes? Rock stars? Hollywood movie stars? Wait a minute, I think he's on to something here. Let's cap those contracts and salaries and give the money to those who provide actual value to Americans like Teachers and Firefighters and Police, et al. Let's start with the most useless bunch of all, politicans, and go from there.
I wonder if the cop would let me off with a warning if he's making $150k a year?? :) One can only hope.
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