UCGal–again I think you have hit this squarely on the head. Those who take the position that the middle class are “overpaid” in some way need to take a long, hard look at upper management. No where else in the economic structure of capitalism is failure so handsomely rewarded. Your company is a great case study among many. For example, airlines a decade ago clawed back benefits from pilots and mechanics (not people I’d want to over work and under pay and still travel by air!), layoffs, etc. but then pay enormous salaries and bonuses (really?!!) to their CEOs.
If a CEO is considered the leader of an enterprise, why is he/she rewarded for not being able to balance a budget and meet performance expectations? If a business unit fails, it is eliminated. Why not apply the “off with the head” approach at the top? Commenters claim that CEOs can’t control their setbacks–unpredictability of the markets, supply chain, yadda yadda. Well, Joe Schmoe welder couldn’t either and his job was eliminated or outsourced… Another response is that the board could fire the CEO. Really? All those retired, ex-CEOs would really eat one of their own? A drastic example, I know, but I think you guys get the point. Failure in capitalism is not supposed to be rewarded–it’s a disincentive to the maximization of profit.
Ultimately who is going to be left to do the work? Oh yeah, CEO profitability went up after those companies outsourced all the skilled labor to Sri Lanka or Mumbai. Yay for the third world. Hopefully they are reaping some benefit from all this.
Wallstreet has done the same thing recently. Too big to fail became too big not to get paid using TARP funds…
So, instead of acting reasonably, the approach has consistently been to squeeze the middle until they bleed out financially.
My solution: give a presidential medal to the first 10 of the highest compensated CEOs who voluntarily cut their salaries and bonuses by half or more in order to retain middle level workers or fund those workers’ pensions. (Say on pay might help, too.) But greed knows no bounds in that league and this would never happen. Even with government incentives or tax credits…
