Pity The Poor CEO.

       I was just looking at a chart that shows the ratio of worker pay to CEO pay in America. In 1982 the ratio was $1: 42, in 1992 it jumped to $1: 201, 2002 it was 1:281 and in 2012 it was 1:354. $354 for every $1 an unskilled worker made in the same company. Can you imagine that? Suppose you were an unskilled worker and you made $10 per hour. So in a forty hour week you make $400. But the CEO of that company makes $14,160 per week.
       $14,160 per week? Who makes that kind of money? Well, probably not the CEO of a small ten employee company, but the larger corporations, that's the kind of wages they're paying their CEOs. Of course it's not all in weekly paychecks, no, most of it comes in the form of stock options and other tax benefit ways so as to reduce their tax exposure. That's why they don't pay nearly as high a percentage of their income in taxes as you or I. You may pay as high as 38% of your total income while they may pay maybe about 15% of theirs, or nothing at all.
       That's how we get income inequality. It's not bad enough they pay less than half in taxes that you pay, but they make 354 times as much as you. And that only comes to $636,320 per year for the CEO. But there are a bunch who are raking in multi-million dollars plus per year. I don't even want to guess what those ratios are.
       Now don't get me wrong, a CEO has a lot more pressure to get things right. Being a CEO can't be easy. And if they don't do a good job, they're likely to get fired and that means a golden parachute worth millions more. No, being a CEO of a major corporation is no picnic, no matter what you may think. But don't feel too bad for them, after all, they're making somewhat more than you. And they get to keep a much larger chunk of theirs.