Fleet Farm sold

[Bowsnbucks]

I said I was done commenting, but what Whip just said is the exact point John Bogle has been saying for years ( to the huge dismay of many executives and financial heavyweights in the financial " services " industry. ) He preaches fiduciary responsibility toward investors, which is counter to the interests of executives, hand-picked boards of directors, and mutual fund managers. He often quotes the Biblical passage - " you cannot serve 2 masters ..... " to point out that fund managers and boards of directors are SUPPOSED to be looking out for the investors, but the actions they ACTUALLY take are in THEIR OWN best interests. When the CEO's push for board members of their choosing to sit on corporate boards of directors, those folks are picked for a reason - to rubber stamp whatever the CEO wants. That's why so many economists and others like Bogle in the financial industry have been railing for independent boards of directors so they aren't bowing and buckling under to the executives of a company. I said in an earlier post that there's " back-scratching all around the boardroom. " Whip said the same thing above - " nothing like everyone writing each other's pay increases on the backs of stockholders ...... " He's EXACTLY RIGHT !! Those huge pay & retirement packages come from OUR returns from our 401-k's, pensions, 403-B plans, Keogh's, mutual funds. Bogle says they ( executives ) take the cream off the top. YEP.

Carve this in stone: Many executives, bankers, boards of directors, mutual fund companies & their managers HATE it when Bogle trumpets the truth about how investors are being ripped off. And he's an INSIDER !!!! They consider him a turncoat !!!

Whip said pay should be based on performance. But an INVESTOR-FOCUSED board of directors ( with no strings or ties to any of the executives ) should vote the pay packages of the executives. If that truly happened, we investors would get a higher return on money we invested, and not have the lion's share of yearly profit go to the executives. The execs can still be paid very comfortably, but not at the obscene rates they've been paid and that are still accelerating. They surely won't be poor - make no mistake. But when the CEO of Exxon / Mobil retired a few years ago, he got $400 million IN CASH plus use of the company jet and a full medical / dental / optic package for him & his family for life. Plus he got a pile of stock options he could exercise at a GUARANTEED value - he couldn't lose money on those options. Do the shares YOU buy in your 401-K have a guaranteed value when you cash them in ????? Grab your Tums antacid - the answer is NO. So even if the company they run goes down the toilet under their " leadership " - they cash in those options at the GUARANTEED price. How do you spell ROBBERY ?????

 

[Reagan]

If you don't like the way a company is run, don't invest in it.

An altruistic company that rewards the little guy and has a board that works for free sounds like a better choice for you.


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[strawhead]

As Steve Bartylla would say, please take this a grain of salt. Couldn't resist. We have all made choices in our lives, and right or wrong, we have to live with them. I love this quote from a make believe movie. May or may not pertain to anything. If you've never heard it, I hope it makes you smile. Life is to short, ENJOY YOUR CHOICES.
" There are no sides. There's no Sunnis and Shiites. There's no Democrats and Republicans. There's only HAVES and HAVE-NOTS."

 

[wiscwhip]

"Socialism is great till you run out of other peoples money".

and has a board that works for free sounds like a better choice for you.

BTW, for the record, I am about as fiscally conservative as a person can be, so Dem candidates don't really "work" for me, as fiscal conservation is not in their rhetoric. GOP guys are almost as bad, because their "fiscal conservancy" only goes as far as filling their own pockets(or the pockets of their cronies), then "conservative" is no longer a part of their vocabulary. That is part of the issue.

If you all like giving your money away to undeserving people, why do you all complain so much about handouts to the minority freeloaders. Some of these CEO's have run companies into the ground and still cash in. I find it takes a special kind of stupid for anyone to think a CEO who runs his company into the ground and then gets a nice fat severance package for the "service" is "just the way our system works" and accepts that it happened without consequence. Every single person in the world should be pissed off about that.

I didn't see anywhere in this thread where anyone said anything about socialism or "free" anything until you both ^^^ brought it up. NO ONE has said these guys shouldn't be fairly compensated for their services, where the hell did you get that from anyway? You can't just keep pulling statements like that out of your a$$ and it all of a sudden becomes reality, it doesn't work that way. Please point out where anyone said that?

Is their anyone on here who thinks CEO's and Board personnel should provide their services for free? .....................Didn't think so.

That said, I have provided a completely viable solution to the problem, but I have yet to see any replies with legitimate reasons why these CEO's should continue to cash in on these huge paydays when their performance is lacking or non-existent, when the everyday employee's wage increases and job security are completely tied to the way they perform in the workplace. Please, enlighten me as to why some employees(and make no mistake, CEO's are employees just as well as a floor sweeper) can get by with underperforming their duties and get fully compensated and even vote themselves a raise, when the little guys would be fired for the same reasons. Oh yeah, I know, it is because those "important people" have "da edjumacashuns", right?

 

[wiscwhip]

The point is, there is a HUGE difference in talking about "overpaid mba types" receiving fair compensation and those same folks working for "free". Those are 2 completely opposite ends of the spectrum and NO ONE has mentioned "FREE" other than the "defenders" of the current system. How noble.:rolleyes: You may be OK with people being overpaid for crappy performance on your dime(makes sense with you living in SoCal, most folks out their have been getting overcompensated for years), most are not. Pretty hypocritical though when the same folks that are defending these overpaid CEO's are the ones that will turn around and complain that teachers unions and the like are bad because worthless teachers are protected and subsequently overcompensated.:rolleyes: It is also very hypocritical when you mention "job/wage guarantees" in relation to all of this. You're fine with the CEO's and Boards providing those "safeguards" for themselves, but regular workers are a$$holes and "socialists" for wanting the same safeguards for themselves. :rolleyes: Where the hell do you think the regular workers get that idea from? The difference is, I complain about both the "overcompensated grunt" and the "overcompensated Management". I do not condemn one for their actions while exonerating and glorifying the actions of the other. You mentioned in one of your above posts that I should "show you a country with a better system", why? Why the hell can't we just have "a better system", why does it have to be somewhere else? Again, I have provided suggestions for a legitimate and viable solution to the issue of "upper management overcompensation", can ANYONE provide me with legitimate reasons why it should not be changed and the current system is the cat's meow?

Want a little inside secret to why your health insurance premiums are going exponentially higher each year(and no, it is not JUST because ObamaCare is a train wreck, dumpster fire, and catastrophic disaster), how do you feel about this little tidbit...this was happening already back in 2005, way before the days of Obumble and it has gotten worse not better...the Chief Executive of UnitedHealth gets a bonus of $1.6 billion on top of an already insane salary. There is something dreadfully wrong there and the idea of justification of such compensation packages is a travesty that affects us all down to the bottom line.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

That's because, Whip, the truly narrow-minded have the view that if you aren't a CEO or company owner or other top-level executive .......... you are lazy, stupid, undereducated and a freeloader. They take the stance that if you aren't a 1% -er, then it's because you're an inner-city, lazy freeloader who is a communist if you don't agree with them. I even read a syndicated column from a woman conservative who said she couldn't help the fact that you're not wealthy if you didn't go to the " right school " or couldn't afford it. Her words. Kinda says it all - If you don't have the money to go to a top-flight business school, well ........ you just have to scrape by with what falls off the " trickle-down " table. Be satisfied with your " lower station " in life. ( in other words - if your Mommy & Daddy aren't rich enough to pay for your 5 - star business school, tough darts. And by the way, we're trying to eliminate the low-interest loans and grants for college for the freeloaders of our society as well. )

I have relatives and very close friends that USED to think that way until their jobs were eliminated ........ several times, at several businesses ........ by that corporate ideology. They are all college educated, hard-working, dedicated individuals. They sing a different tune now. ** One guy said his boss said " why should I pay you ( an engineer ) $60K when I can hire it done in India for $2K per year ??? ** And they'll work 20 hrs. a day to get it done. " That's a quote. This from the same crowd that blames society's ills on " not enough time spent by parents with their children to teach them right from wrong. " Not enough good parenting these days " they say. If people have to work more and more hours, how can you be in 2 places at once ?? Maybe hire a 5-star nanny like the upper-crust does ?? Great way to be close to your kids and really teach and enjoy them ! (?)

Maybe the stockholders of this country should apply that same thinking ( see underlined sentence above ) to the executives of the companies WE OWN as stockholders. We'll pay you $5 mil / year and take the $400 million you used to get and divide it up among us owners. That's why the top executives want to keep picking their own boards of directors - they don't want the " lower class shareholders " to have a say in their compensation packages. And they fight any such proposal tooth and nail.

Ask your wives if they'd like to have more money to retire on, or if they'd rather the CEO's got it all.

Keep your socialist, communist, freeloader labels for those they truly fit. If hard work and sweat is what makes one wealthy, the money pyramid would look like a 0 laying sideways.

Edit: I feel the same exact way, Whip. Compensate well all who work hard and bring benefit to the company - enhance it's image - therefore it's customer base. Not just at the top.

 

[wiscwhip]

None of those ^^^ guys take my money if don't choose to send it their direction. Crooked CEO's take my money with their bloated compensations packages and I can not do anything about it. Insurance company CEO takes a fat cut, my premiums go up, I didn't choose that. Corporate CEO takes a fat bonus, my mutual funds are potentially worth less and the price of the product goes up, again I didn't choose that. I pay $100 for Packer tickets, my choice. See how that works....totally different, not to mention unrelated, scenarios, but nice try....next....

BTW, I don't give a tinker's damn what political affiliation a CEO has, that does not explain or justify their position as to whether or not they are being overcompensated, and I don't think anyone else here that is getting ripped-off by them cares either. A crook is a crook.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

And to Whip's point - in a slightly different way - when the executives' compensation packages come off the top of the year's return, they don't take it all from one column of the ledger ( Rep., Dem., Green, Ind., Libertarian ). It comes across all parts of the political spectrum, taking investors returns from ALL but the ones getting the Fort Knox packages.

Shall we keep supporting the plans of the ones who pull the rope on our financial guillotine ?? Hey ...... it's ALL of our retirements' security. The losses aren't delineated according to politics.

 

[John-W-WI]

So many thoughts related to all of the good points made in this discussion (there are many correct points on both sides of this argument in my opinion).

Unfortunately I don't think we will solve it here and just continue to disagree, so I'll save my breath.

Great to live in a country we can disagree publicly!

Go outside tomorrow before the cold air arrives!

:)

-John

 

[Tree Spud]

I sense someone is a near a breaking point, I hope they get the help they need ... disconnect from the internet, take a walk, chop some wood & carry some water, go spend some time with family and friends, and realize life is not fair.

When you are this distressed, help is available ... in every battle, learn to live to fight another day ...

 

[Reagan]

My comments about working for free were more sarcasm than anything.

The only way to accomplish limited CEO pay is for the government to control their wages. I will take CEO making millions before I would accept a bureaucrat determining what a person should be paid.

That goes for both ends of the wage scales. I'm against the minimum wage too.

If you don't like the way a company paid its people don't buy their product or invest in their stocks. But any outsider whether it is John Q Public or Uncle Sam has no right to control their wage.

BTW
I'm not a company owner, a CEO or a millionaire big shot. I'm the son of a coal miner who went to college, paid off my debt and worked my way up in the corporate world. I know my work ethic and value to my employer is why I make more each year. I don't need to tear down those above me to better my own situation.


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[Bill]

My comments about working for free were more sarcasm than anything.

The only way to accomplish limited CEO pay is for the government to control their wages. I will take CEO making millions before I would accept a bureaucrat determining what a person should be paid.

That goes for both ends of the wage scales. I'm against the minimum wage too.

If you don't like the way a company paid its people don't buy their product or invest in their stocks. But any outsider whether it is John Q Public or Uncle Sam has no right to control their wage.

BTW
I'm not a company owner, a CEO or a millionaire big shot. I'm the son of a coal miner who went to college, paid off my debt and worked my way up in the corporate world. I know my work ethic and value to my employer is why I make more each year. I don't need to tear down those above me to better my own situation.


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Perfect!

The gov. Can't fix anything, only we the buyers (people) can.

Hate me if you want but I just paid $120 for an aluminum frying pan made in the USA.

That's expensive but I'll give it to my grandson. Or I could give him a jap video game.

 

[wiscwhip]

When the paper company I worked for went into bankruptcy protection in 09,we took a 10% pay cut and had to pay for our benefit package.If that saved the company,fine, but when the top executives gave them selves million dollar bonuses and bragged that they wiped out 6 billion dollars of debt,I got pissed. How many small businesses got wiped out by them,got paid pennies on the dollar.

None, those managers deserved every penny.......................and it was the workers faults the companies went under because they were all greedy little socialists.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Good to see you're coming around , Whip !!! :D :p:p:p