Aveo = GM = Followers not leaders

[talnlnky]

Originally Posted by GeneW

I don't see any connection between CEO compensation and the performance of a company.

I have yet to see any studies that show CAUSALITY between CEO pay and a company's performance, as in if you go above twenty to one that the company suffers. Exxon-Mobil's CEO makes a huge amount of money and that firm, at least until recently, was doing fine.

I don't think that Toyota's CEO is paid hundreds of times more money than their janitorial staff. Most Japanese firms have far more modest CEO compensation than US firms.

However that ratio doesn't begin to show the differences from Toyota and, say, GM or Exxon-Mobil.

What does seem to matter is the ability of a company to respond to market demands and to satisfy consumer needs.

Toyota focuses on the market and consumer needs, from the CEO down to the lowliest worker. When gas prices went high this summer they were able to re-tool a line in THREE WEEKS to make smaller cars.

Could GM do this? Dunno.

One does wonder what GM focuses on. There are probably staff at GM, both hourly and salaried, who care very much about customers. I suspect, given how GM has been doing and the kind of stuff that they sell (I was a Chevy and Pontiac guy until my first Honda in 2000) that there is a lot more at work here than CEO compensation. Especially a toxic sense of complacency amongst management and workers.


Mentioning such ratios tend to inflame envy and anger, especially in workers who think "Management is stealing our money!". Such an entitlement mentality does not serve the customer or even the worker's long term interests.

This all being said, I wouldn't object to a CEO making 100 times more than the Janitor, but if I were a shareholder they damn well better be earning their keep.

I think most of here would agree that the CEO of GM isn't earning their money.

Gene

So.... america is all about capitalism... and in a capitalistic society... Those CEO's and high ranking officers in those american car company's...

1: Should not be in their current position because they have not proven that they can run a company with performance on par with the rest of the auto market.

2: should be paid much less than they are, because the salaries they earn are for high quality, highly effective CEO's and officers.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by talnlnky

So.... america is all about capitalism... and in a capitalistic society... Those CEO's and high ranking officers in those american car company's...

1: Should not be in their current position because they have not proven that they can run a company with performance on par with the rest of the auto market.

2: should be paid much less than they are, because the salaries they earn are for high quality, highly effective CEO's and officers.

Okay, fine, I agree.

Here's my question in reply - whose business is it if the CEO of GM makes 100 or a 1,000 times more than the contract janitors who clean the offices each day? Don't the shareholders of GM, the real owners, have that say?

If you're gonna say that it's about capitalism you cannot dictate salaries, especially the Government.

Besides, America isn't about capitalism. The recent Bank Bail Out is proof of that. We're about Lawyer Capitalism, as Buckminster Fuller put it so well. By that he meant that Corporations entrench themselves into a market and then use the power of Law to keep competitors down or out.

If GM could have stopped Toyota in its tracks like they did Preston Tucker there would be no Yaris. Instead Toyota keeps on knocking them out of the park - except for the oil sludge issue in some motors - and GM is now in second place and fading. The real capitalism, flawed as it is, is in the International Market. For now.

Gene