Comment on Top 20 CEO pay in the S&P 500 is disgusting

Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• Stubborn9867@lemmy.jnks.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Why should the shareholders interest even be prioritized. What about customers? Or employees? Or the business itself?

  This priority on short term profits for stock price is toxic to functional capitalism.

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  • Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    OK some priority is reasonable, the company needs to make some money to pay for investments.

    But I absolutely agree, why are we rewarding companies that are practically doing con jobs on their customers?

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    • krey@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      emitting stock is only one of many ways to make money for investments. it’s not required.

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      • Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Why would you buy stock, if they can’t make money for investments?

        Issuing new stock is mostly for startups and major changes in the business. Not for the normal progression of a company.

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  • Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I agree more than I disagree actually, but the nuance I’d add is that I think share price should be much less of a focus than company profitability and dividends, as the whole point of owning stock is in owning the excess profits. Trading firms have made the markets into a casino while low Fed rates have made actual profitability more of a side quest for most publicly traded companies. Look at Rivian, nearly worth a trillion dollars before they even had full production? Ludicrous speculation at the cost of everything is the main course for most traders.

    Aside from discussing the urgent need for market reforms to make sure companies trade more closely to their fundamental value, I spend more of my time worrying about customers and workers as well. We have a nation addicted to literal slavery through the 13th amendment, it’s a disgrace. Putting more people in prison is literally in the interest of certain for-profit prison company shareholders. It’s sick.

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  • drolex@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Saint Milton Friedman (bless him) said that the only societal responsibility of a CEO is to increase the wealth of the company’s shareholders.

    You wouldn’t want the CEOs to disobey the sanctifies word of Mimil? The shareholders could go broke, and then how would the wealth treacle down? Did you think of this? No, you only think about not starving, you egoistical prole.

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  • Seudo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Why should a car owners commute be prioritized… what about disabled? Or downtroden? Or the dealership itself?

    This priority on personal vehicals for daily use is toxic to functional transport.

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    • Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This priority on personal vehicals for daily use is toxic to functional transport

      Unironically yes. Check out Strong Towns.

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• Shadywack@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  What shareholders want isn’t what the customers want, what shareholders want isn’t what personnel want, what shareholders want isn’t what the public wants either.

  The shareholders want to fuck the customer, they want to fuck the employees, and they want to fuck the business itself. Fuck the shareholders. They didn’t make the business successful, they didn’t have the vision that created the value in the first place, they’re leeches that ruin the business for short sighted goals.

  Fuck the shareholders, and fuck the executives.

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  • krey@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    there are different kinds of shareholders. some may even be the customers or employees themselves. for example, since a few months i’m watching the stock price of the manufacturer of my favorite laundry detergent for a dip, because no way this stays down it’s just too good and they also pay dividends. i’m gonna buy 2 shares if it dips a bit more, but it’s too expensive right now.

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    • Shadywack@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I realize that many people’s retirements are tied up in stocks as well. That doesn’t make us “shareholders”. Without voting rights or a say, we’re not really vested in the same manner executives are. When our 401k’s go off to a fund manager that makes the decisions for us, we’re not really “in the game” as it were. Ideally a company’s stock price should be tied to the health of the company, instead what we have are artificial prices inflated by mechanisms such as stock buybacks or the stock price is speculative.

      Either way, it’s a shit show for us (you know, regular people) and only great for the 1%'ers. I think tying up retirements like we have been is a mistake, look at the many examples of people who lost their retirement assets due to MCI Worldcom, Enron, and Madoff.

      It’s a joke.

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      • krey@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        i don’t have many stocks, but i had the chance to vote 2 times this year, but i didn’t go, because i only go when they have free food 😅

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• Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  No, they should be paid wages like everybody else, and also hired and fired like everybody else. The idea that a CEO is some kind of special superstar with talents nobody else have is ridiculous. The current situation is a scheme to help keep the 1% in the 1%.

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  • Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m happy to talk about what should be the case in a perfect world, but what I was talking about here is what sometimes is the case and less bad than usual.

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• hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Don’t they get massive RSUs on top of the obscene salary?

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  • Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yes, but RSUs aren’t actually stocks, and I don’t think of them as a very effective way of unifying the interests of an RSU holder with the shareholder per se.

    Restricted Stock Units, also called RSUs, are not stock. When RSUs are granted, no share certificates are issued. The executive actually owns nothing. RSUs are not restricted stock. There are no shares then issued that are subject to forfeiture. Again, no stock is issued, restricted or otherwise. Nor are RSUs options. There is no strike price. No company commitment to sell the executive shares once they vest. So, what are RSUs? RSUs are restricted stock units that represent a company’s promise to issue to you shares of the company’s stock or to pay you the cash value of that company stock, at some date in the future. The company enters a contract with you that if the conditions of the contract are met, you will then get stock or the cash equivalent. Thus, one RSU equals the right to receive one share of the company’s common stock at a later time, or the right to receive the cash value of one share of the company’s common stock at a later time. The number of RSUs you are granted tells you how many shares of stock (or the number of shares of stock used to determine your cash payment) you will receive when they are “settled.”

    Source: ceoworld.biz/…/advantage-rsus-ceo-compensation-pa…

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