CEO's still doing ok

[Airbrake]

The Old boys are still doing well!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2 ... o-pay.html


By the time you read this, the typical CEO of a major Canadian company will already have earned more this year than you will for all of 2013.

That's the conclusion of a report from left-leaning think-tank the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives this week.

The report, with the cheeky title "Overcompensating," found the average salary among Canada's 100 highest paid chief executive officers was $7.7 million in 2011.

Average compensation for Canada's 50 richest CEOs is more than 235 times the salary of the average Canadian salaried worker, a ratio that has expanded rapidly in recent years. In 1995, the group notes, that ratio sat at 85-1.

"By 1:18 p.m. on Jan. 2, the first official working day of the year," the group said in a press release, "Canada’s top 100 CEOs will have already pocketed $45,448. It takes the average Canadian an entire year of full-time work to earn that."

Although he has since been given a generous package to relinquish control of the company, Frank Stronach was Canada's highest-paid CEO in 2011, taking in almost $41 million in compensation to head up the auto-parts conglomerate Magna, which he founded.

No. 2 on the list was a little less well known — Michael Pearson of generic drug manufacturer Valeant. He pocketed more than $36 million, the CCPA says.

[YYZSaabGuy]

As has been noted previously on AvCanada, running a major corporation is really a walk in the park.
I'm surprised more Canadians don't have a go at it, given the apparently excellent compensation on offer.

[Mostly Harmless]

Just remember your brain washing:

They deserve it because they are the best.
You deserve less and need to work harder because you can be replaced.

Mmmmm.... nothing like the smell of a freshly washed brain. Mountain fresh.

[CpnCrunch]

Perhaps we should scrap capitalism...see how well it's worked for Cuba and North Korea.

I just had a look at Magna's financials. They've earned a billion dollars profit in each of the last 2 years, so I'm not sure how 41 million is 'overcompensated'.

All this whining about overpaid CEOs...if you want more money just get off your lazy ass and earn it. There's lots of well paying jobs out there if you're prepared to work hard. (And no, I don't actually earn a lot of money myself).

[ahramin]

So why is it that in 17 years CEOs have managed to increase their own compensation over two and a half times more than the people working for them? Is it because they have gotten that much better at managing companies? Or is it because they have gotten that much better at increasing their own paycheques regardless of performance?

[Edo]

Although he has since been given a generous package to relinquish control of the company, Frank Stronach was Canada's highest-paid CEO in 2011, taking in almost $41 million in compensation to head up the auto-parts conglomerate Magna, which he founded.
.

as CapnCrunch says, Magna made a Billion last year...Stronach founded it dude can pay himself what he wants.

Now when you just hold the reigns of something like Air Canada AND get that kind of pay....well thats another agrument

[Panama Jack]

I think all humans are created equal, and we in Canada are not like the Americans. Therefore, we should all earn minimum wage, regardless of education, profession, race, creed or sexual orientation, and live the dream of credit card debt and life-sentence mortgages. And thankfully, we have socialised medicine to prolong our quality of life.

[Mostly Harmless]

Perhaps we should scrap capitalism...see how well it's worked for Cuba and North Korea.

I just had a look at Magna's financials. They've earned a billion dollars profit in each of the last 2 years, so I'm not sure how 41 million is 'overcompensated'.

All this whining about overpaid CEOs...if you want more money just get off your lazy ass and earn it. There's lots of well paying jobs out there if you're prepared to work hard. (And no, I don't actually earn a lot of money myself).

Wow, there's an incredibly limited intelligence answer. Certain people are abusing the system at the expense of the rest of society and so we should all become communists. By the power of transitive properties, there have been plane crashes therefore we should cease all aviation (*Aviation content). Computers have failed, so we should scrap them all. Power has failed occasionally, lets turn off the electrical grid. People have made mistakes... lets wipe them all out. I can see how flawless the first part of your logic is... the second part of "your just lazy" is equally flawless... considering there is something on average of 40% less leisure time for current employees than there was 40 years ago. Employers have you attached to computers and cell phones in your private time and the lines between being at work and not at work are blurred to the point no one can see them anymore. So, people work longer, harder, and employers view them as 24/7 available... they make less money and you are calling them lazy.

Pull your head out of where ever it is you keep it, dry the brain out a little, and try thinking for a change. You will see that people do work hard, not all effort is rewarded and the system does need some fixing so that it doesn't break entirely under the stress of abuse.

Oh, and it won't be capitalism much longer because it is evolving... changing... if you look carefully, it is starting to look a lot like Feudalism.

[YYZSaabGuy]

So why is it that in 17 years CEOs have managed to increase their own compensation over two and a half times more than the people working for them? Is it because they have gotten that much better at managing companies? Or is it because they have gotten that much better at increasing their own paycheques regardless of performance?

Commenting on aggregate performance is not that helpful. There are lots of individual CEOs out there who are worth more than they are being paid; others are buffoons and overpaid by any reasonable measure.

I guess I don't understand the constant pillorying of "greedy CEOs" on this site, although I'm inclined to think mostly it's sheer jealousy. I'll say it again: most pilots I've met are reasonably intelligent people. If they truly think the grass is greener, then they should quit flying for a living, go earn an MBA, a CA designation, or a law degree, and then work their way into a CEO position so that they, too, can be egregiously overpaid. According to some people on here, it can't be any more difficult than SPIFR, right?

[shimmydampner]

I don't think that it's the huge compensation that offends most people, as much as the rapidly growing disparity between the richest and most powerful, and all the rest of us working stiffs.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter though. The system is terribly corrupt and morally bankrupt, the economy is in the toilet as a result, and there's not a damn thing the average person can do about it. So we might as well all just keep plugging away, looking out for number one, trying to live a comfortable life, and hope that things don't get too much worse before we kick off.

[Colonel Sanders]

I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Anyone that thinks that a CEO makes big bucks
for a short work week doing easy stuff, should
just become one.

Is there some law preventing certain people
from becoming CEOs in Canada?

[CpnCrunch]

What that story doesn't mention is that the average compensation for the top 100 CEOs has dropped from $8.4 million in 2010 to $7.7m in 2011. There's no evidence that anyone is 'abusing the system'.

And it doesn't automatically follow that screwing your employees is a good way to make a profit. Look at Westjet vs AC.

CEO compensation should be determined by how well the company is performing. It's ultimately up to the shareholders to make sure the CEO isn't being paid too much. We don't need any new laws.

[CamAero]

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery...

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessing."

- Winston Churchill

[YYZSaabGuy]

I don't think that it's the huge compensation that offends most people, as much as the rapidly growing disparity between the richest and most powerful, and all the rest of us working stiffs.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter though. The system is terribly corrupt and morally bankrupt, the economy is in the toilet as a result, and there's not a damn thing the average person can do about it. So we might as well all just keep plugging away, looking out for number one, trying to live a comfortable life, and hope that things don't get too much worse before we kick off.

Shimmy, I'll agree with part of what you say: it's the disparity that sets people on edge, more than the absolute level of the compensation. So what's the "correct" range? Should the "average" CEO salary be capped at 5X the average employee salary? 10X? 17.25X? How on earth do you quantify the cap? And who enforces it? Do we set up a Federal Office of Salary Caps to provide yet more regulatory oversight, given how well that's worked in the past, and given that additional regulation, as we all know, is hugely productive and definitely helps with job creation?

That said, I'm not sure how you conclude that "the system is terribly corrupt and morally bankrupt". Compensation for Named Executive Officers of publicly-listed companies is approved by their respective Boards of Directors and described, in mind-numbing detail, in their annual public filings, so the circle of corrupt co-conspirators gets mighty big, mighty quickly. And what on earth is moral, or amoral for that matter, about compensation, except of course when the "amoral" tag is used to describe what the other guys gets paid? I have yet to be overpaid for any job I've ever held, and I'm guessing that most AvCanadians likely feel the same way about their own compensation.

[Shiny Side Up]

I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

The fuss is generally because...

it doesn't automatically follow that screwing your employees is a good way to make a profit.

While true is not the best or good way to make a profit, it is often the quickest way and thus often favoured.

Anyone that thinks that a CEO makes big bucks
for a short work week doing easy stuff, should
just become one.

This isn't what makes people upset though. Everyone does ant to be a CEO and live the dream. What makes people upset is the idea that CEOs are engaging in immoral and illegal things to make those big bucks. Give your head a shake if you really think he's just working extra hard for that money.

Is there some law preventing certain people
from becoming CEOs in Canada?

I would suspect that there is somehow, but I don't want to get into a discussion on class struggle here.

We don't need any new laws.

We do, but not where most people think. What we need is for the working populace to be better educated so that they know when they are getting f@cked over, so the CEOs who are doing a bad job aren't running away with the bank. For an aviation example, we could talk about how if the pilot labour force were better educated we wouldn't be having discussions about bonds (a direct example of the man trying to increase profit at the expense of the worker) here on a regular basis.

[5x5]

I guess I don't understand the constant pillorying of "greedy CEOs" on this site,

And I don't understand why you think this is something unique to this site? Executive Pay Still Climbing

[bmc]

What makes people upset is the idea that CEOs are engaging in immoral and illegal things to make those big bucks. Give your head a shake if you really think he's just working extra hard for that money.

Let me guess. You're a union boy, right?

[Colonel Sanders]

I must be slow, because I still don't understand the problem.

Let's say there's a CEO that you don't like. Perhaps you could:

1) not own shares in that company (if it is publicly traded)
2) not purchase any goods or services from that company
3) not be employed by that company.

If anyone bothered to take my advice - but they never do,
because I am so monumentally stupid - all the bad CEO's
would quickly be out of a job, because their companies
would either go under, or they would be replaced by the
board of directors who have realized what a liability their
CEO had become.

Is there some law that forces people here to own shares,
purchase goods, or be employed by companies with bad
CEO's? Please enlighten me as to what regulatory burden
you are struggling under, which is unjustly forcing you to
do any or all of the above.

[bmc]

It is a common Canadian complaint that it is morally wrong for someone to make a lot of money. Furthermore, in Canada, if you own your own business and do well, you must give most of of your profit to your staff, regardless of the compensation they receive. If someone is successful, it is only because they cheated and stomped on their employees.

And Canadians come by it honestly. Canada is a socialist country where everyone is equal.

[Colonel Sanders]

Sure, ok, but I don't buy into the rhetoric that all CEO's
are evil. I once worked for John Chambers, who was the
CEO of cisco. Even though many people here might not
like him merely because he was the CEO of a successful
company, I considered it an honour to work for such an
intelligent, and more importantly principled man.