It’s true many of the top Seattle CEO salaries are up in 2011. I find it amazing every time I hear someone complain about how bad their company is doing (as an employee) or why as a company they had to take a pay cut. Internally I wonder if they really know what is happening and if they really know how companies operate. Salaries are considered an expense so a 1 million dollar company that pays it CEO $950,000 then shares $40,000 for staff salaries and finally reports a $10,000 profit at the end of the year – doesn’t look or sound to profitable. In reality the business (the CEO) are doing quite well. Many hard working Americans are in this position. If they have the courage to ask for a raise (they usually don’t know how much the top CEO’s are making anyway) they will be told “we simply don’t have the revenue” or “the company isn’t doing good enough for a raise”. Unfortunately, those statements are true on paper.
This maybe hard to hear for many but the rich always win. Do you want to not get screwed over in life? Then make money and lots of it. The more you make the less you pay in taxes, the more free items you get, and simply an entirely better quality of life.
It’s very true we as humans are products of our environments. We are (or not in some households) raised on a type of religion and work ethic. You are most likely a Republican or a Democrat because you were raised in that environment or around more of a certain type. Many lower and middle class employees are programmed from early on to work their tails off making someone else rich 9-5 every single day. The lower and middle class get pay day loans at 40% interests. They are the largest consumers when it comes to cigarettes. The rich politicians only keep cigarettes around because the tobacco lobby puts extra money in their hands and gets them elected. Our system is setup this way and I’m not saying it is right – I am just saying what it is.
Lets take a look at some of the top Seattle CEO salaries many of which got big raises for poor company financial performance (on paper).
Intermec (Everett Washington). They make bar code devices and scanners. They lost money and their stock went down last year. The CEO got a 69% raise to 3.5 million.
Motricity (Bellevue Washington). The CEO (Ryan Wuerch) got a 300% raise.
Omeros (Seattle Washington). The President/CEO (Gregory Demopulos) also got a 300% raise.
Finally Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s compensation for 2010 was 45% higher than in 2009. He is one of the Seattle’s highest paid CEO at $21.7 million+.
I just cant understand why anyone NEEDS or can even spend $21 million or so a year. Seems like greed to me. Not just CEO’s but if you compare what some people do(work or danger) to earn their salary is just mind boggling. i e. Supt of Schools almost $300,000, UW president almost $800,000 but the guy that was caught doing a little hanky panky and was running the prison system was earning $147,000 a year His job was important, stressful, useful but compare his salary to the UW president and try to figure it out.