So the local University is having to make massive staff cuts - you know what some "CEOs" are doing?

[Indenturedebtor]

In a few of the departments the Professor department heads (none of whom are rich) are offering to take pay cuts so that they don't have to cut their staff. These Professors have worked for decades contributing to human knowledge, furthering all of mankind, teaching our young people and not making very much money for all of their years of hard work and exceptional ability.

So their departments are shrinking and good hardworking people are getting laid off because Bush and his "Tax Cuts for the Rich" constituency don't think that Science and Education are worthwile pursuits for this country. So what do these depraved liberals do? They cut their own pay to keep their workers from possibly ending up on the street.

What do CEO's do when they're allowed to screw up the entire global economy? They piss and moan that they won't be able to take enough money with them on the way out. They're not worried about their employees, this country, all the people that might starve because of their incompetence, all of the people who have died for their greed already as they've worked towards a more and more inequitable and dysfunctional society these many years.

No more Reagonomics, no more bullshit, no more greedy sacks of crap making fools of us all. Bailout or not we need to take this fucking 50 million dollar a year parasite class down 49 million notches. They kill with their greed.

[remember2000forever]

1. Remember when Teaching was considered a "Noble Career"?

It still is! But unfortunately it doesn't pay the bills anymore. What a back-wards economic rewards system that we have!

[slampoet]

21. I don't remember any evidence of teaching being a Noble career and i am nearly 40.

I have heard a lot of lip service though.

[bean fidhleir]

22. You're not old enough - "noble" doesn't mean "makes a lot of money"

It means "above mundane ambition", and even "self-sacrificing". Noble people are compensated by the respect of those smart enough to see what's really going on.

[slampoet]

23. I am old enough to read a dictionary. I also have taught. Stop being a jerk.

This is how i got treated when i was teaching. That is why i have joined the 5 others in my family as "ex-teachers."

[Quantess]

26. Touche!

Good response to a condescending comment.

[HamdenRice]

2. Didn't you know professors are capitalist pigs because they have TIAA CREF

retirement accounts?

:sarcasm:

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. rofl

Yup...just checked mine this morning. Needless to say, I'm in favor of destroying the factory economy of Ohio because I set 10% a paycheck to my TIAA-CREF (with 8% matching from the institution). Eeeeeeeeee-vulllllll investor class!!!!

;-)

[Generic Other]

6. HAHAHAHA

that are tanking just like everyone else's.

[Coventina]

24. Beat me to it. n/t

[The 12th Guru]

3. CEOs get paid, so do Actors, Athletes, Authors, Musicians, Models, lawyers, etc.

CEOs are the final strategic decision makers for companies earnintg 10s or 100s of billions with as many as 4 or 5 100k employees operating on 6 continents at possible 1000s of offices and facilities.

These people get contracts for multiple years and if a board of directors wants to fire them, they have to still pay them, its not like they fire them and say he or she is a nice person lets give them 100 million dollars.

If they fired the person in the way Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis just did his head coach where he decided to not honor the remainder of his contract.

The company kicks out the CEO and says we owe you this much pay because we signed this deal with you but nawwhhh, we don't feel like honoring that contract.

Now to replace that person, they have no chance at getting the best candidates. Why would they want that job, the responsibility of developing the long term strategy, the stress of knowing that if you make a mistake, the company could start heading towards bankruptcy and 150,000 employees might lose their jobs, their stock options they bought over the years become worthless, etc.

The companies that give out these large payouts are generating large revenues and possibly large profits, 50-300+ billion in revenue and many of them billions in profits, and you can't just look at a single year, a company could of made 100 billion in profits over previous years.

Should all actors whose movies have flopped return their 20 million fee?

Companies have flops for CEOs, and keeping them around and paying them the rest of their contract, say 50 million, vs. paying them to leave an replacing them with someone who performs better makes all the sense in the world.

Mike Hampton got bought out of his baseball contract for what 50 or 100 million, should the team just have him keep pitching and losing.

Sometimes its better to cut your losses than let the person sink the ship.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Here's The Rub...

Mike Hampton wasn't a CEO...he was a worker...an "investment" who produced returns to the company that warranted, in the eyes of the CEO (the owner), the GM and others, worthy of that money. When that value diminished, they sold off that asset...ate the loss and got whatever else they could. Thus using this analogy, the banks and CEOs should be the ones who eat the losses.

The CEO is more like the GM...paid on the overall performance of the team/company, rather than being one asset in that operation. That said, a contract is and must be honored. We have enough people who try to walk away from obligations in this country...and the CEOs are contracted employees...hired by the stockholders/owner. In the end, its their fault/responsibility if they dish out these big compensation packages (much of it in stock options) and do you fault a CEO, even if the company fails, to say, stick to the deal?

The ultimate problem are the compensation boards and the "inbreeding" where CEOs of one company sit on the compensation board of another...you scratch my back, I'll scrach yours. This has been a long-term problem on "The Street"...moreso now in the age of consolidation where fewer people sit on these boards. Then there's also the tooo cozy relationship between Wall Street, K Street and the government...specifically the GOOP party. The lack of any oversight...to the point of complicity all invited abuses. Now wasn't it special that the former Goldman-Sachs CEO was working with the current one to ensure that company wouldn't collapse?

Unravel the corporate welfare system and we're on the way to starting to fix the fundamentals of this economy.

[The 12th Guru]

7. Should they violate legal contracts

Boards of Directors hire CEOs to perform, same way as Mike Mussina gets signed to perform.

I don't agree with paying for failure, CEOs who do very well sometimes get a 100 million dollar bonus after a good year, and if they started firms and are owners, like Ellison or Dell they have made 10s of billions in compensation.

I think Corporations who have decades of profits, and billions in cash reserves can afford to buyout the remaining years on the contract the CEO signed to run their company.

Companys need to give bigger upfront bonsuses and dump the the parachutes on the other end for PR reasons only IMO.

CEOs are considered to be the best at what they do and the numbers seem outrageous to you but when it comes to Musicians, Athletes, Actors, Authors people don't complain.

The Harry Potter writer is a billionaire. So she wrote some childrens stories, does she deserve to be paid a billion dollars while a guy who has 150k employees who rely on the money they earn to support their families and company he or she runs sells 100 billion dollars worth of products while make 10 or 20 billion in profits, do they not deserve to make as much as an actor or athlete at the top of their game, 10 or 20 million base salary. They probably have spent 20 or 30 years working and learning about their industries and developing leadership skills to get the chance to run a company like that.

[Indenturedebtor]

9. I don't think that anyone deserves to make that... unless you tax it at 90%

Except maybe teachers, firefighters, etc. People who are at the top of their game doing something besides selling useless crap or throwing a ball around.

They can make whatever they want as soon as everyone has healthcare, a home, and food. After that who gives a shit? Before that they owe humanity.

Money is nothing more than an agreed upon instrument of valuation. I think that you have to be insane or not really considering things if you'd truly say that a CEO's work is worth 400 times what their clerks do. And no one should be allowed to have SO much when hardworking people can't eat... especially because alot of those hardworking people can't eat BECAUSE of the efforts of these snakes in suits.

Money is in fact a finite resource. When someone has too much it is because they've taken that "barely enough" from someone else.

[Coventina]

25. My personal feeling is that anything over 1 million a year should be

taxed at 100%.

Who needs to make more than $1,000,000 a year?

Nobody, that's who.

[KharmaTrain]

10. Paying For Failure...

I don't think any corporation pays anyone for failure. In fact, if its a publicly traded corporation, this is illegal...a major violation of the fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. Now paying for stupidity is another thing...or crony capitalism...which I think we both agree is where the problem resides.

Again, using J.K. Rowling...she was an employee of the publishing companies...and she didn't start making billions with her first book...she had to prove her value before...and much of her earnings came from royalties...a "pay for play" similar to a golfer...and the more she earned for the company, the more they rewarded her for subsequent works. That's how capitalism should work.

Inversely we can look at a Carly Fiorina...who turned Hewlitt-Packard into a second-rate company through her mismangement...and was "rewarded" with her 42 million dollar golden parachute. Now that was, and still remains, the fault of the stockholders and a system of stupidity that rewards the "CEO Cult" that has developed in this country. Banks and Investment Houses that deal in billions on a daily basis, the thought of high salaries are all relative...$100 million when you're dealing in billions doesn't seem like a lot. But it's the rewards of a crony caplitalistic system that cranked out those billions in what now appears to be fraudulent or very misleading ways. Now THOSE are the crimes and problems we, as taxypayers, are being asked to cleaned up...if its found that the CEO and their board members were complicit in the fraud that led to this failure, we're looking at serious proseuction. But it's not compensation that brings this on, but criminality.

The old sports adage is no player every was forced to take the money...and if an owner (or stockholder) felt that money was worth the gamble, it's their risk. One can also say, there's been plenty of "socialism" in the sports world...from the reserve clause to the massive financing of stadiums and special tax breaks given franchises.

Cheers...

[Indenturedebtor]

8. I agree with you but I don't think it's that complicated. No one "deserves" to make 400 times what

their lowest paid employee makes. No one deserves a gulfstream jet, 10 houses, a helicopter, 40 cars, etc when there are so many who go hungry. Anyone who thinks that they personally deserve that who DIDN'T personally cure cancer actually deserves to be tarred, feathered, and ridden out on a rail... PENNILESS.

[KharmaTrain]

12. It's Not What They Deserve As It Is What Others Feel Its Worth...

I agree that there is no "privilidge" here...and that the obscene golden parachutes are a major concern if we, the taxpayers, are required to bail out these companies, and in essence, become stockholders. We then should demand a new set of compensation standards as a condition of our "investment". We live in an era of robber barons, but, remember, that money was paid to these people by others who did feel they deserved it. Now some were "cross-polinated" on multiple compensation boards that kept salaries artificially high as well...but also there must have been plenty of money flowing for these salaries to seem "resonable". Now that "reasonable" needs to be readjusted.

I've long felt the hardest workers in this society are the least appreciated and compensated. I've worked on many levels...up through ownership of my own company...and each level has its own responsibilities and values...and in a free market, it should be compensatory to the person's value to the company. However, with the lack of competition and restrictions of a true free market, we've seen a squeeze on the middle class...especially those who aren't involved with the direct making or handling of money.

Cheers...

[Indenturedebtor]

14. I understand your sentiment - that hard work and success should be rewarded

And I agree. But we're all in this together. As a society: until every person has a home, a job, food, and healthcare then no one should have more than they need.

Bailout aside they can be paid whatever astronomical sum they can come up with... AFTER there aren't people dying in the streets.

[raccoon]

11. Is this a private or state-supported university? Would you tell us which one?

PM me if you want.

[Indenturedebtor]

13. State... one of the biggest in the country

Been losing government funding over the last 8 years... grants and direct funding as well.

We've got plenty of money to bomb brown people but not enough to study things like genetics or astronomy, or hell even history! What stupid priorities we have.

[McCamy Taylor]

15. Fort Worth disbanded the Public Health Department.

[Indenturedebtor]

20. Who needs public health? Wall street? WE need that, but health? Meh

Go eat some cake you proles.

[Malikshah]

16. Is it this university? That's pretty drastic-- here in Florida we've been through

more massive cuts, monetarily, but they haven't gone that route yet. Of course no raise whatsoever in three years, with costs of everything rising... we're worse off. Cannot complain (too much) as it's a job and many are hurting much worse.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/blogs/onhiring/690


September 30, 2008
Tennessee Regents Approve Voluntary Buyout Plan for U. of Memphis

The Tennessee Board of Regents has approved a voluntary buyout plan for 115 positions at the University of Memphis that officials say will save the institution $1.5-million, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

The plan, which the regents unanimously approved on Friday, is part of the university’s efforts to offset nearly $7-million in budget cuts. It calls for eliminating 40 faculty positions, 50 staff positions, and 25 administrator positions, the newspaper reported.

[Indenturedebtor]

19. Ouch, I'm sorry to hear of your troubles :(

No we're here in Arizona. I'm sure it's a nationwide thing though.

[W_HAMILTON]

17. Yep.

It's ridiculous. The "higher-ups" are worthless. I have one at my place of business, he makes probably 4x what the average worker makes, yet he is cutting all of our hours (to below the benefits threshold, so many of us face losing our benefits), while his useless ass sits in his back office providing nothing beneficial to the company. He's not offering to take a paycut, even though the service we provide would be completely unchanged if he weren't there. His salary is just a huge albatross to our payroll, and because of it, everyone gets their hours cut when we are having financial difficulties.

It's pathetic, and really despicable. These assholes care about nothing but the numbers, and they'll be damn sure to juggle the numbers in any way possible, except for when it affects them directly (ie, their enormous salaries, or as you mentioned, the crazy amounts they get when they leave the company in shambles).

But since they are in a position of power, they are able to make bullshit decisions, and force the little guy to bear the brunt of their poor decisions. If you are making 4x the amount of someone else, and you're only job is to promote the business and ensure it grows...when the company falters, why is the little guy to blame? That should be YOUR fucking fault.

PS - the asshole at my job just won some "manager of the quarter" award. Bullshit. I can guaran-damn-tee you it wasn't voted on by the workers he oversees, probably just some other useless fat cats at other properties.

[Indenturedebtor]

18. Yep that's been the story since they bought our government and killed our unions

We need to get both back or this will just continue until they kill us all.