Fair or Unfair

[zandiago]

Good day boys & girls...So is it fair?? Is it fair for CEO's/executives to receive millions yearly while the mass of the employees of the companies at times doesn't get near what theses executives get. Some say its fair & they're just being rewarded for their work and school. Others say it's corporate greed. So what do you think?

[Narue]

Life isn't fair. Personally, I'm wondering why you chose CEOs to bash for making obscene amounts of money and not professional athletes or actors.

[ZZucker]

Life isn't fair. Personally, I'm wondering why you chose CEOs to bash for making obscene amounts of money and not professional athletes or actors.

You are so correct! I guess entertainment is more important than anything else.

[jwenting]

yes, it's fair. They put in more hours than most if not all of their people, they run the greater risk (financial and legal both) in case things go wrong, and their job is extremely stressful.

And as Narue said already: life ain't fair. If your boss makes more than you because he's the boss, so be it.
If you don't like it, become your own boss and see if you can do better (you almost certainly can't if you think things should be "fair").

[Lardmeister]

yes, it's fair. They put in more hours than most if not all of their people, they run the greater risk (financial and legal both) in case things go wrong, and their job is extremely stressful.

And as Narue said already: life ain't fair. If your boss makes more than you because he's the boss, so be it. If you don't like it, become your own boss and see if you can do better (you almost certainly can't if you think things should be "fair").

Sounds convincing to me! Besides, if you are young and work hard enough, you have an incentive to eventually replace the old boss.

[joshSCH]

Life isn't fair. Personally, I'm wondering why you chose CEOs to bash for making obscene amounts of money and not professional athletes or actors.

I agree. Life's a bi***. Get over it. And as Narue has said, athletes receive a much higher salary than most CEOs. And what for? Physical activity? Hell, most athletes get paid more than doctors.. more than congressmen.. more than the president! It doesn't make much sense. I'm all for taking half athletes' salaries and distributing it out to doctors(or engineers ;)) and other professionals who actually contribute to society.

[Ancient Dragon]

We live in a capatilistic (sort of anyway) society. CEOs should get whatever companies are willing to pay them, even if its millions of $$$ and lots of benefits.

[twomers]

You should really stop starting your threads with "Good day, boys and girls".

[cscgal]

So you believe that everyone who works at the company ... from the President, to VPs, to CEOs, to CFOs, to managers, to sales personnel, to tech support personnel, to code monkeys, to the janitors, should all be paid equally ... regardless of experience level, education, the stress level of the job, the amount of time they devote to the job, and how much money they make for the company?

[joshSCH]

That would be communism.. and that is not fair. You spend twice the time in college as someone else, have twice the experience, but get paid the same? Hmmm...

[zandiago]

You should really stop starting your threads with "Good day, boys and girls".

lol....thought people would appreciate being called young...but i guess some people are proud of their grey hairs...Seriously...I apologize to anyone who feels offended by my introduction...Will bear that in mind for future threads.

[cscgal]

I wasn't offended.

[briansmall]

... they run the greater risk (... legal ...) in case things go wrong, and their job is extremely stressful.

Apparently you haven't heard the meaning of the word "corporation". ???

Your justification is weak. How many more hours per week than mine justify a wage 1000 times mine? As for greater risk, well, for some, yes, but anyone making the type of bucks we're talking about probably has the risk covered in a number of ways.

Fair is (just) a human concept that has nothing to do with the natural mechanisms of existence.

My point is that there really is no such thing as "fair", there is only our desire for certain behavior in others.

The question of whether something is fair is not an issue that somehow existsout there, rather, it's a question of whether we wish we had more.

[cscgal]

Like everything in this world, it comes down to the law of supply and demand. If your skills are in demand, and there are few people capable of what you can do, you can charge more for your services.

It's not necessarily how many extra hours per week justify a wage 1000X yours, as you say. It's what everyone does during those working hours. If not very many people are business saavy enough or skilled enough or good enough negotiators or whatever the case may be to do what the CEO does, then he is all that much more valuable to the company.

Suppose there are negotiations for a corporate acquisition and some C-level executive is able to negotiate buying another company for $10 million dollars. Now suppose some random mid-level manager or lowly code monkey was put into their shoes for the day. Without inherent business saavy and with subpar negotiating skills, they can only talk the company down to a $20 million dollar acquisition. The C-level executive, because of their business and negotiating skills, saved the company $10 million dollars in a single day. They are worth that much to the company.

[Ancient Dragon]

Good day boys & girls...

Some (many) people use that greeting not to be offensive but to be humerous -- like the military drill sergeant who calls raw male recruitsladies. And people under the age of 21 years old are still technically children, or "boys and girls" -- which applies to at least half DaniWeb members.

[jwenting]

So you believe that everyone who works at the company ... from the President, to VPs, to CEOs, to CFOs, to managers, to sales personnel, to tech support personnel, to code monkeys, to the janitors, should all be paid equally ... regardless of experience level, education, the stress level of the job, the amount of time they devote to the job, and how much money they make for the company?

It's been tried in that small country they call the USSR...
In fact the situation was worse there, management got paid less there because physical labour was deemed more worthy and politically correct than management.

As a result they of course got only incompetent managers, and all the workers did whatever they could to prevent promotion so went out of their way to not do anything to get noticed (like actually doing anything).

[twomers]

I accept that, AD. Though, I think most of these users would prefer to be called teenagers/adolescent rather than boys and girls. Not certain what irked me about it, to be honest. Maybe I should post in the "what annoys you most" thread. Also the definition of an adult is different depending on where you're from. At 18 people are adults here, 21 in the States. Also, if over half of the users on the forums are guys does that mean that it's OK to call everyone male? ;)

[cscgal]

Most DaniWeb members are not kids or teenagers. The average age of a DaniWeb user is 32 and the median age is in the 30s, as well, although I don't remember the exact number offhand.

[briansmall]

Like everything in this world, it comes down to the law of supply and demand. If your skills are in demand, and there are few people capable of what you can do, you can charge more for your services.

You would be entirely right if supply and demand of human resources were the only reason that the ratio of wealth distribution is in place.

But human resources (managerial ability) are not the only issue at play. The notion of ownership of natural resources underlies the business paradigm in it' many forms. This ownership does not reflect a "fair distribution" of wealth, rather, it reflects a wholly different premise. Wealth in virtally all of its forms can be seen to derive from ownership of that which is extracted from the earth, air and sun.

In a fair world, the natural resources would be shared, equally, as needed. Then you'd see exactly how many people had these abilities you speak of. But when the resources are tightly controlled, only a few can percolate to the top.

Wealth is not shared according to ability or effort. Those who have it certainly often are intelligent and industrious. But so are many others who don't have it. Timing and placement are everything.

Well, almost everything. Fair is not much of the equation.

[Aia]

It is as futile to measure Life by the stick of fairness as it is to measure Light in liters.