"The Diminishing Few..."

"In 1980, the average CEO made forty-two times what an average hourly worker took home.  By 2005, the ratio was 262 to 1.*  Conservative outlets like the Wall Street Journal editorial page try to justify outlandish salaries and stock options as necessary to attract top talent, and suggest the economy actually performs better when America's corporate leaders are fat and happy.  But the explosion in CEO pay has had little to do with improved performance.  In fact, some of the country's most highly compensated CEOs over the past decade have presided over huge drops in earnings, losses in shareholder value, massive layoffs, and the underfunding of their workers' pension funds."
~ Published in 2006, Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope.  Crown Publishers/Random House.  In his 2013 Inaugural Speech, the U.S. President referred to "the diminishing few."

~ * CBC Peter Mansbridge answers the question how this happened. The National, Monday, January 21.


"What accounts for the change in CEO pay is not any market imperative.  It's cultural.  At a time when average workers are experiencing little or no income growth, many of America's CEOs have lost any sense of shame about grabbing whatever their pliant, handpicked corporate boards will allow.  Americans understand the damage such an ethic of greed has on our collective lives; in a recent survey, they ranked corruption in government and business, and greed and materialism, as two of the three most important moral challenges facing the nation ("raising kids with the right values" ranked first)."  p.62 The Audacity of Hope. 2006.  Barack Obama.