Michael Wolff

Michael Wolff

Posted: October 22, 2009 11:50 AM

A Grossly Disproportionate Paycheck Is Still Okay

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One of the big changes that took place in America over the last 25 years was that people at the top came to be paid so much more than the average person in their companies. It was an exponential increase. Where not long ago the top guy made 20 or 30 or 40 times more than the average salary in his company, his pay packages skyrocketed to as much as 1,000 times the average. The relationship between the average and the extreme became impossible to explain.

Most people went to work and financed their lives with their salaries, without accruing significant savings (if they accumulated any assets it tended to be because their house increased in value). They often accrued less, in fact, because pension plans became less generous.

They went to work side-by-side with an ever-growing group of people who were rewarded with unimaginable riches. Generational wealth. These people who were neither founders, nor creators, nor inventors, people who were not unique in any way, people who took no risks at all, became the super rich.

This disparity colored American cultural life and this illogic became a tenant of American business life.

The financial crisis that came to a head a year ago seemed to offer an opportunity to reestablish a logic to compensation, and, hence, a more sober business sensibility, and even a new equilibrium in American life.

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LOL. Those with the gold, rule.

    Reply    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:57 PM on 10/22/2009

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