Decadent Salaries

Can someone please tell me how you can justify giving a CEO of a company multiple millions of dollars annually while laying off the workers of said company? I don't get it.

This was a story in the newspaper today regarding a not for profit hospital and the fact they were laying off nurses, but the CEO still received his multimillion dollar salary for that year. I read the article twice because I couldn't get over the fact that author of the article wrote it with such nonchalance.

If the CEO left the employ of that hospital I think it would run very well, but if all the nurses left the hospital would have to close their tents (and to be honest, some of the rooms in that hospital are not much better than tents....in fact some of the newer tents I've seen rival some good hotel rooms I've seen lately, so maybe the hospital should look into the cost cutting venture of buying the newer tents.....lol).

The article got me thinking, (a dangerous thing these days...I'm getting older and far more cynical than ever) what if all the upper management of these companies were to make a pledge together that they would not skim off the top of these companies? I know, it wouldn't happen until Hell froze over, but let's just speculate. I wonder how the companies would fair? Some people will think, if the execs aren't given their perks and wages they've come to expect they will work less. That's a joke, I don't think they work all that much now. I understand the need for supervision, but not for 7 layers of supervisors. All of them make far more than the ones they're supervising. Ok I'll accept that they should get more because they're shouldering more responsibility, but is that really true? Take for example a chemist in a pharmaceutical company.

That chemist has to be precise in his/her measurements for safety of all concerned with that drug. The responsibility for him is huge. If he puts the wrong chemicals together a life could be lost or changed drastically forever. Doesn't it seem that he should be paid more than someone who doesn't have that responsibility on them like the upper management.


I know there has to be management, I get it. But I don't think it needs to be paid into the stratosphere.

I have a friend who makes tons of money. His bonus's are more than twice my annual income. He has a job that makes money for a company and he's compensated by percentage of the money he brings into the company. He's been lucky, (and honestly it is luck for some to be in the positions of great wealth, not much else) and he' s made a nice niche for himself. I don't begrudge him at all, but I wonder if it's justified he makes all this money while some of the administrative assistants he works with are losing their jobs because the companies profit margins weren't as great as they had been in the past?

There is a great disparity of wealth in this country and I think it's going to be the downfall of us all. Where I live is pretty insulated from the poor and starving, but I have eyes and ears, I can see things happening around me and I find it disturbing, to say the least. Life isn't fair, ok, I get it, but for some it's more unfair than for others. I know some folks could pull themselves up by the boot straps and change their lot in life, but sometimes when you're constantly being beaten down, it's kind of hard to find those boot straps...I think they need some help, for a time....