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>>>Okay, I don't know a lot of CEOs but over the years I've known more than a couple ( my college classmates tended to be more disciplined and less inclined to seek sin and adventure in far away places with strange sounding names <g> ) The ones I've know have been real grinds. Harvard or Stanford MBAs, maybe a law degree on top of that and then 30 years of very very hard work with very long hours doing things I would mostly find so boring I would have started embezzling or put a gun my mouth about year three. One of them right now does about 8 million a year in salary and bonuses ( major banking corp ) but I've travelled more than he has and have more free time in a week than he's had since college. Being a CEO is not that good a deal. ( being the art student son of a CEO isn't so bad )
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>>If they were more like you or I, then like you and I, they would not be CEOs. Because they are driven by money and power, they are CEOs. About those long hours, as I said before, what kind of personality does it take to pretty much abandon your family in pursuit of money and power?
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>I grant you there are some pretty valid generalizations one can make about anyone who does what it takes to climb the corporate ladder. I think there are some who are just doing what comes naturally. The bank CEO I mentioned was a fraternity brother a year ahead of me. My sophomore year we sat next to each other in Microeconomics 211. I was an econ major at the time with dreams of going to Harvard Business School and getting very rich. One day the prof was drawing supply/demand curves on the board and my eyes were glazing over and I looked over at Dave and thought I could see a stain forming on his pants. I left class that day and changed my major to history ( where I enjoyed similar epiphanies for years ) And in the time it took me to type that he made more money than I made last year. <g>

Yep. They are just doing what comes naturally. Thing is, the fact that it is natural for them is what worries me the most.

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>>>The ones who really are in it for the competitive rush ( I know one of those ) aren't interested in crushing little guys. It only counts if the scalp you hang on your wall is at least as valuable as your own. When Ted Turner pleasures himself with visions of smiting his enemies, with the other hand he's not holding up a picture of the feisty crusading editor of the Paducah Fishrap Intelligencer and Shoppers Ads - he's lookin' at Rupert Murdoch.
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>>The big fish eats the slightly smaller fish who eats the slightly smaller fish who eats... In the end, you are left with one fish.
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>Yes, but what's your point? People who choose to play competitive games are subject to elimination tournaments. There are lots of ways to make a living or a life that allow a bit more personal freedom. But we make choices. ( and remember, you're preaching to the choir on this one - aside from my early adventures sort of working for the government in an admittedly strange and loosely supervised capacity I haven't ever had an "employer" )

My point is that having just one fish is not a good thing for the rest of us who have to work for that fish or starve, and who have to buy that fish's roe for far more than it's worth.

>>< ...snipping was definately required... >
>
>>>
>>>For the captains of industry good citizens and stable society means a stable business climate - no messy barricades in the street, no anarchists throwing bombs into the carriage, no Bolsheviks. Oh, and to some the idea that the workers can read the Bible on their day off gives them a warm fuzzy feeling. ( 1850, remember )
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>>If that's true, then why did those same captains of industry hire thugs and gunmen to break up union meetings etc? Didn't they bring a lot of the chaos on themselves? It was their own practices that led to workers revolutions. Sure they wanted good citizens and a stable society, but the problem was in how they defined those things. Their definitions were very different than those of the average working guy.
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>Bolsheviks ! <s> But remember the social history of the whole thing. You can't ascribe 21st century views of social equality to decisions made in the 19th century. And it wasn't the bosses that were promoting universal education, it was the universal educators that were making the argument to the powers that be in order to gain support/funding for public schools. The bosses were primarily interested in the no barricades in the street part - they hadn't really thought through what a literate workforce implied once people started publishing The Daily Worker

Ok, now I'm confused. Weren't you arguing that the captains of industry were promoting public education because it would be better for industy? Now you seem to be saying that in fact, it was not the bosses who were promoting universal education.

Now, I fully admit that this is a tactic that I sometimes use myself, but at least I'm smart enough to do it only orally, never in print. ;)

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>>< ...snipping was even more required here... >
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>>True, but Kenneth Lay, it seems was hardly an isolated case, just the most sensational one. There is also the question of how many got away with it and have yet to be found out.
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>Absolutely. Just don't think it is the norm. There are a lot of CEOs.
>
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>>>>These people don't get there very often by being Mr. Nice Guy. I realise I sound like I'm generalising, but that's only because I am. I know that not every individual at the top of a corporation is an amoral jerk, but I honestly do believe that the ones who are overwhelmingly outnumber those who are not. I was a middle manager at a previous firm, and I thank my stars I never had to fire anyone. I got to the point where I just had to get out of there before that could happen. What must it take to call some father or mother in and tell them they've been let go, knowing it's being done so that the upper managers can cut costs in order to increase their own bonuses.
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>>>But they most often don't get their by being abrasive boat-rockers, either. As one friend discribed it "It's sh*t sandwich. If you want all that bread ... well, you gotta eat the whole thing"
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>>And you feel that is not a sign of a sociopathic personality?
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>
>Sociopathic - no. Coprophagic - yeah <s>
>

Well, as I've said for years to anyone who would listen, "If you're going to be effectively coprophagous, it's probably in everyone's best interest if you also become a sociopath".

>
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>>Sure people get fired for a variety of reasons, but far too often they are laid off 'as cost cutting measures', which again, too often, means the guy at the top sees his bonus shrinking.
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>>>Tenured professors and federal workers are about as good an argument as you can find that job security is not always a good thing for an institution.
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>>Incompetent people should be let go, but nobody should be let go in order to increase the incomes at the top of the heap.
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>Granted.
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>>>>When CEOs and their ilk stop getting obscene bonuses on top of salaries that make no sense on any level I can imagine compared with the salaries they pay their lower staff, maybe then I'll start thinking that they're not so greedy after all. I mean, these people get huge bonuses even with poor results. The guys down below get laid off. And before you ask, no, I'm not a victim, but I've known a few.
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>>>But the money the top execs get is not coming out of your pocket. If you are a stockholder, fine, make the argument. But the only way they get to pass this on is through prices and that effects demand. As to their workers, wages are not set by dividing up some pool of money so if the CEO gets it they don't. If the CEO didn't get it it would be reinvested ( arguable more valuable than CEO compensation ) or would go to the shareholders. But the internal workings of the corp are OOP - there are only some methods and properties that have external relevance. How it is done internally shouldn't matter to the outside.
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>>What Dragan said.
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>Sorry, I must have inadvertently snipped your oil company observations and those are the ones with which I definitely agree. Collusion in restraint of trade, price fixing ... not a doubt in my mind there is something bad going on there so if you are organizing a mob with torches and pitchforks for this one I'm there ... or at least watching on TV and muttering "go, man, go" ( I ain't marchin' anymore <s> )

Unfortunately, if we do go with torches and pitchforks, it'll be us who end up in the slam. Those guys will just go one monopolising the market. Not that it mightn't be fun anyway...