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St. James Park Re-Sodded By Volunteers

Disclaimer: I haven't read these articles yet (but plan to). I know the writers do excellent work, and I also trust David Brooks to choose some insightful pieces. Hopefully these articles provide some food for thought on the 1% issue.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/opinion/brooks-the-sidney-awards-part-ii.html

"Many of the best public-policy essays of the year tackled the interconnected subjects of inequality, wage stagnation and the loss of economic dynamism. If anybody wants a deeper understanding of these issues, I’d recommend a diverse mélange of articles: “The Broken Contract†by George Packer in Foreign Affairs; “The Inequality That Matters†by Tyler Cowen in The American Interest; “The Rise of the New Global Elite†by Chrystia Freeland in The Atlantic; and “Beyond the Welfare State†in National Affairs by Yuval Levin.

Each essay has insights that complicate the familiar partisan story lines. Cowen, for example, notes that income inequality is on the way up while the inequality of personal well-being is on the way down. One hundred years ago, John D. Rockefeller lived a very different life than the average wage earner, who worked six days a week, never took vacations and had no access to the world’s culture. Today, both you and Bill Gates enjoy the Internet, important new pharmaceuticals and good cheap food."
 
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greenleaf said:
But these salaries are okay, right?

Top 20 CEO salaries in Canada, 2010

To add: what is happening at ORNGE is definitely unfortunate. Bad apple.
Click to expand...

There is a big difference between a PRIVATE CEO that built their own company and generates revenue from elective consumer purchases vs. a government bureaucrat that was appointed and is paid by mandatory taxes levied on indviduals.

The Gildan's and Magnas deserve every peny. The natural resources CEOs might need to have a look at considering they benefit from natural resources (which I would consider somewhat 'owned by the people') You can make an argument that you dont' have to do business with certain banks if you don't agree with their salary structure, but because they are so institutionalized, there maybe some controls levied by the government, but that's a slippery slope.

The '99%' percent can always boycot the 'big 5' banks and have some sort of boycott/agreement with Tier II/III financial institutions. The CEO's of the banks would quickly lose their jobs and their revenue sources.

My general rule of thumb is to review the sources of the CEO's income. If it's paid by individual tax payers, then definately there needs to be controls, but if it's the private market, then I don't think it's any of my business?

Does Chip Wilson of Lululemon deserve his pay? If not, don't buy 100 dollar yoga pants.

Yes there are 'grey' areas like major financial institutions but one can still divest and not do business with those banks.
People can't 'opt-out' of paying a portion of the health premium.
 
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js97 said:
There is a big difference between a PRIVATE CEO that built their own company and generates revenue from elective consumer purchases vs. a government bureaucrat that was appointed and is paid by mandatory taxes levied on indviduals.

The Gildan's and Magnas deserve every peny. The natural resources CEOs might need to have a look at considering they benefit from natural resources (which I would consider somewhat 'owned by the people') You can make an argument that you dont' have to do business with certain banks if you don't agree with their salary structure, but because they are so institutionalized, there maybe some controls levied by the government, but that's a slippery slope.

The '99%' percent can always boycot the 'big 5' banks and have some sort of boycott/agreement with Tier II/III financial institutions. The CEO's of the banks would quickly lose their jobs and their revenue sources.

My general rule of thumb is to review the sources of the CEO's income. If it's paid by individual tax payers, then definately there needs to be controls, but if it's the private market, then I don't think it's any of my business?

Does Chip Wilson of Lululemon deserve his pay? If not, don't buy 100 dollar yoga pants.

Yes there are 'grey' areas like major financial institutions but one can still divest and not do business with those banks.
People can't 'opt-out' of paying a portion of the health premium.
Click to expand...

An interesting perspective, certainly. I think it gives too much credence to the notion of consumer choice; it is not as easy as you say to organize a boycott and educate people about its reasons. Also, I think your perspective ignores the political power that accrues to those with money. Magna is a great example.

Yours seems to me to be a libertarian perspective. In general, I like a lot of what libertarians have to say (e.g. governments tend to be corrupt), but I think they are wilfully ignorant about what the rich would do to further their own interests in the absence of government.
 
js97 said:
There is a big difference between a PRIVATE CEO that built their own company and generates revenue from elective consumer purchases vs. a government bureaucrat that was appointed and is paid by mandatory taxes levied on indviduals.

The Gildan's and Magnas deserve every peny. The natural resources CEOs might need to have a look at considering they benefit from natural resources (which I would consider somewhat 'owned by the people') You can make an argument that you dont' have to do business with certain banks if you don't agree with their salary structure, but because they are so institutionalized, there maybe some controls levied by the government, but that's a slippery slope.

The '99%' percent can always boycot the 'big 5' banks and have some sort of boycott/agreement with Tier II/III financial institutions. The CEO's of the banks would quickly lose their jobs and their revenue sources.

My general rule of thumb is to review the sources of the CEO's income. If it's paid by individual tax payers, then definately there needs to be controls, but if it's the private market, then I don't think it's any of my business?

Does Chip Wilson of Lululemon deserve his pay? If not, don't buy 100 dollar yoga pants.

Yes there are 'grey' areas like major financial institutions but one can still divest and not do business with those banks.
People can't 'opt-out' of paying a portion of the health premium.
Click to expand...

None of these are private corporations. They're all publicly traded, and in many cases rig the executive compensation in their favour (e.g. Magna, or worse, the Shaw pillagers.) If you want to give credence to your compensation argument, cite Jimmy Pattison or anyone else that didn't tap the equity markets but skew the votes in his favour.

I'd also argue with your natural resources counterargument against those CEOs (not that they should be getting paid the sums they ladle into their own pockets), since any energy company has already paid its dues (the royalties) into the provincial coffers before it pays its staff. If we want more of that pie, we should adjust the royalties, not deride the company as a free-rider.
 
js97 said:
There is a big difference between a PRIVATE CEO that built their own company and generates revenue from elective consumer purchases vs. a government bureaucrat that was appointed and is paid by mandatory taxes levied on indviduals.

The Gildan's and Magnas deserve every peny. The natural resources CEOs might need to have a look at considering they benefit from natural resources (which I would consider somewhat 'owned by the people') You can make an argument that you dont' have to do business with certain banks if you don't agree with their salary structure, but because they are so institutionalized, there maybe some controls levied by the government, but that's a slippery slope.

The '99%' percent can always boycot the 'big 5' banks and have some sort of boycott/agreement with Tier II/III financial institutions. The CEO's of the banks would quickly lose their jobs and their revenue sources.

My general rule of thumb is to review the sources of the CEO's income. If it's paid by individual tax payers, then definately there needs to be controls, but if it's the private market, then I don't think it's any of my business?

Does Chip Wilson of Lululemon deserve his pay? If not, don't buy 100 dollar yoga pants.

Yes there are 'grey' areas like major financial institutions but one can still divest and not do business with those banks.
People can't 'opt-out' of paying a portion of the health premium.
Click to expand...

This is a theory I have seen before but I think where it falls down is in the ability of the publicly funded institutions to attract talent to run their "business". Running a hospital, for example, likely requires a similar skill set as running a large company. So if someone with talent can make, to pick a number, $1 million per year in the private sector applying their business management skills but the publicly owned institutions have some arbitrary cap on the amount of money they pay then the talent level they attract will be affected. Are we much farther ahead if we hire someone at, say, $250k to replace that million dollar talent and the operation of the hospital is ineffective and, perhaps, more expensive because of that?

Like it or not, publicly funded institutions are in the same market for talent as the private sector and capping wages/salaries/benfits at those institutions will affect their ability to attract talent.
 
Urban Shocker said:
The 1% should also pay the $661,000 bill to police this entirely peaceful event.
Click to expand...

I guess you and me can go outside tomorrow and destroy some public property as well, just to show how angry we are at the rich people, since anything done to protest against "social injustice" should be considered acceptable and the rich should always pick up the tab, as it is their fault to start with?

No matter how unfair we think things are, we still have the law. Anything we do, no matter how justified it is, must be bound by the law. When one break the law to do argue for justice, he still needs to be punished. Those occupiers' voice has been heard. great. Now, they ought to pay for the damaged they have caused. They have the right of free speech, but on the other hand, they also have the responsibility to abide by the law, don't they?
 
kkgg7 said:
Those occupiers' voice has been heard. great. Now, they ought to pay for the damaged they have caused. They have the right of free speech, but on the other hand, they also have the responsibility to abide by the law, don't they?
Click to expand...

The park's environs were crawling with police for six weeks - you couldn't move without tripping over little knots of cops lolling against their cars and cops on bicycles at intersections such as Church and King, to say nothing of the plainclothes officers - and taxpayers paid $661,000 to police this populist and peaceful event, so one assumes that there were plenty of opportunities for police to arrest people for the crimes you claim were committed.
 
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