[via Institute for Policy Studies]
The U.S. tax code is riddled with loopholes that allow top corporate and financial leaders to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Ordinary taxpayers wind up picking up the bill – to the tune of more than $20 billion per year. All five executive-friendly tax loopholes highlighted in the report are the targets of Congressional reforms. However, these efforts have stalled in the face of fierce opposition from corporate lobby groups. The report also finds that S&P 500 CEOs averaged $10.5 million in pay in 2007, 344 times the pay of typical American workers. Compensation levels for private investment fund managers soared even further. The top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged $588 million each, more than 19,000 times as much as typical U.S. workers earned.
The report fails to mention the key fact, however, that the reason CEOs are paid so much more than the rest of us, and at our expense, is because they are so much better than us in every way that matters, pretty much Gods, actually. We really should be grateful just to sniff their gold-plated poop occasionally. And, believe me, we are.
1 comment:
Unfortunately, acquiring executive positions at Fortune 500 companies depends a lot more on networking skills (graduating into the alumni network of an ivy league school, making the right friends in the corporate hierarchy) then is should in pure market terms. At least, that's not how Rational Actors *should* behave, but nobody ever accused human beings of being Rational Actors... except Rand, I guess.
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