American Royalty - The Ruling Class

Did you get a 23% raise this year?  Better yet, do you and everyone in your family even have jobs?

While many are seriously struggling to stay above water, turns out that not everyone is sharing in that misery.


Executive Pay Skyrockets 23 Percent In 2010, Top 299 CEOs Get $3.4 Billion.

Wow, and you thought winning the Lottery was a big deal.  That is just peanuts to a $3.4 Billion Dollar payout.  Can the rest of us sign up for that lottery?
 
CEOs at 299 U.S. companies earned a staggering $3.4 billion combined in executive compensation in 2010, a new study by the nation’s largest labor union found.

Nearly 190 of those chief executives got a pay raise compared to their 2009 levels, the AFL-CIO noted in a report presented to reporters on Tuesday. The total amount of compensation represented a 23 percent increase from the prior year. In all, the sum of the salaries earned by those 299 CEOs equalled the combined average earnings of more than 100,000 workers in their respective companies.

So it takes 100,000 of us schmukes/peasants/laborers so that one guy (yes usually a male), can buy a new G6.

Among those CEOs highlighted in the AFL-CIO’s presentation were Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman (who was awarded salary, stock and other benefits totaling $84.5 million during just nine months of 2010), Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Irani (who was paid more than $76 million in compensation) and Abercrombie and Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries (who earned more than $36 million). According to the AFL-CIO report, the average pay of the 299 CEOs would cover the salaries of more than 700 minimum-wage workers.


I guess it is hard to live on just $36 million a year.  We should pity poor Michael Jesffries; the other boys in the sand box are surely making fun of him.

But on a more serious note, if you are a shareholder, as many many Americans are, then you are paying his salary.  He works, supposedly/arguably, for you.  I don't recall that last year or so far this year as a great year for dividends by companies to its owners/shareholders.