Bonus the Belly up

So it is your position that those employees should make less money?

I thought you were for companies paying their employees more. Man, LB, it is hard to keep up with your positions.

 

Bonuses, and other compensatory additions may or may not be tied to a company's bottom line or cash reserves/capitalization. If a salesman or unit leader meets the contractural critera for her bonus, why should she be penalized if someone else mismanaged funds that affected the balance sheet? Not her fault.

No one has yet to make a Constitutional argument as to why govt should be able to override an employee's contract with a company promising wages. Some on the left around here would scream murder if we replaced the executive with a union worker getting production bonuses, yet the same principle applies.

 

Thanks. I work hard at it ... Saves me from crying every day.

What's huge and who gets to decide that? And what if the bonus is based on individual performance, not company (as Tom said).

Don't know ... but who do we want deciding that? Do you want the government to determine that you make too much for being a pastor? Or too little? I don't.

I have no ability in this forum to fix anything. If I could, I would start with the views of some people. Have to ask one of the mods of this forum.

 

This is why the bailout will be an unmitigated disaster...

With government money comes government control.

Get ready for onerous Federal meddling.

Corporations stupid enough to overpay people should be allowed to fail. Others will come along, and learn from the stupidity of the first. It's worked that way for decades, until our experiment in socialism.

Speaking of the Constitution...there is no Constitutional guarantee to business success.

 

Yes, advice from a "corporation" that is over $10 trillion in debt and adding probably $2 trillion to that this year. Excellent recipe for corporate success you have there.

 

I don't think you should get to decide that. If you want to decide that, the buy stock in teh company and make your voice heard.

Your financial solutions as seen in this forum are not attractive in the least. You don't seem to have much of a background in finance or in running companies.

 

Already been tried. Albania and East Germany didn't fare too well.

 

Glad you at least feel that way. However...

• My fear (and it's founded upon government's behavior) is that government will eventually stick its nose, uninvited, into private enterprise and run things.
• At some point, it will not be up to companies as to whether or not they are bailed out. The camel's done nosed up under the tent.

 

Why are they using the wrong metric? Do you not understand how companies work? Maybe a sales dept is functioning just fine, so the sales mgr, VP of sales, whatever, earns a contracutural bonus. However, the finance dept., comptroller, whomever, is running a slipshod operation which is imparing a company's books. So why penalize the person who did their job just because (perhaps) someone else in the company didn't do theirs? Your theory is without basis. And your assertion that the people who got the bonuses had the power to give it to themselves to start with is also baseless.

Again the logic breaks down. Contracts are contracts. If I work for you, and you promise me X if I do Y, then why shouldn't I get X when I do Y? The govt has no business keeping businesses afloat anyway. So why should the govt decide salaries of private employees? What we now see in the financial sector is the salaries/wages of line employees are being capped, not just "those at the top" While there may eventually be extraordinary circumstances, we cannot use a hatred for the private sector, business, "rich", or whatever left-wing claptrap we choose to use today to justify a govt that permeates private enterprise.

 

If your wife owns stock in a 401k plan , you should know that her shares entitle her to dividends by nature of the stock ownership and that these dividends and profit divisions are set not by executives but by the board of directors.

So your wife is one of these wealthy Wall Street players we keep hearing about? :laugh: Me too.

 

The only problem is that nobody except union members have a contract. The company can change anything with an edict. My company just declared that management employees will not get a raise this year. Union members will however. That's what's wrong with unions. They think that they are owed pay increases irregardless of how the company performs.

Companies can even change pension or healthcare agreements after someone has retired. Doesn't seem fair does it? That doesn't matter.

 

I object because it won't work. Raising taxes generally lowers revenue. Plus it prevents that money from going into the economy where it creates jobs and therefore additional taxes.

CEOs care more about the stock than you do because a great amount of their wealth is tied to stock.

Or unless you want to fulfill promises you made to people. There are all kinds of reasons to give out bonuses. I am not defending any of them. Simply pointing out that it isn't your job to determine who gets them and how big they should be.