Any unhappy billionaires out there that want to trade bank accounts?

After $60,000 a year, money does not bring human beings any additional happiness.  Now, I'm no communist or socialist, but could we please at least pass a law capping CEO pay at $1,000,000 a year or something?  No one needs multiple millions per year, and it would be really nice if the janitors could make $25 per hour instead of the measly $7 per hour.  Not to mention that our lovely providers would benefit from all the extra clientele.

Let's suppose we did cap all pay at 1,000,000 year. If that were the case, just who would buy all the luxury yachts, planes, multi million dollar houses etc etc etc?

Well, I suppose that luxury items would become more affordable, but they would still be purchased by the ones making a million per year, not those making 60,000.  And remember, it could be worse.  I could be pushing for putting the cap at $60,000.  But I understand the need for competition, and of course the CEO should make more than the janitor.  It should just be a more reasonable percentage, and the janitor should be able to take his kids to Disneyland, or hire Fancy8888, too.

$60K a year is a joke.  And $1 million a year ain't that much.  I know from experience.  No, money cannot but happiness, but not enough money can sure as shit make you unhappy.
Sorry you have to live on only $7 an hour.

Or saving his money and creating his own janitorial business, hiring more janitors in the process and making a real contribution to this country?

From a young age, I always knew being rich wasn't the end all be all. People who grow up with everything take it for granted and won't ever be grateful the way I am when I acquire something. Not to mention never knowing who your real friends are.

CEOs are making millions a year and receiving multi million dollar bonuses that aren't taxed because of some loophole?  At least tax the damn bonuses!

Just not at the same rate as "ordinary income".  

I started with nothing and worked my ass of for every fucking dime I have. I risked everything to start my first business, and I mean everything. I sold my blood plasma to even eat that first year so my business could grow. After my first business was stable I started a second, then a third and so on. I sacrificed and took risks for my income a way no janitor does. Do I not deserve the spoils MY EFFORTS rewarded me with?

Not all CEOs are also the entrepreneurs of the companies they run, and many entrepreneurs were not poor to begin with.  Your story is relatively rare these days.  If everyone had the ability and resources to get rich than very few people would become rich.  The disparity between the poor and rich exists because most of those who become rich already had more advantages than your average citizen along with having come from wealthy families already.  

My pay is 100% determined by the profitability of my businesses. It is how heads of companies should be paid in my opinion.

Performance starts at the top, as does non-performance. So should pay. Golden parachutes gotta go.

I sure as hell liked mine!

I'da never thunk I would agree w/Gambler! - he's been wrong on every issue to-date! 🙂 He and I debate politics and taxes ad infiinitum and agree on NOTHING , ZERO (0).

Successful I became the fewer friends and friendly relatives I had.  A lot of them I foun out were just the so-called hangers on. Now, has am still successful and very happy with just some acquaintances.

I agree with most of what you say. But should corporate officers that make one bad decision after another continue to be rewarded with huge salleries and bonuses, and the rest of us  ( you included ) have to help bail out the pension funds they bankrupt.  

Most people on this thread that is. How the heck did they come up with so much money for paying escorts yet demonstrated such a lack of understanding how the corporate world works.  

I started my own business and when I do service accounts I average $25 an hour. I make more for repair work, but thats only when it happens and is often 5 hours or less when it does happen. How on earth does a guy emptying garbage cans and mopping floors make as much as me who started his own business? When I was an entry level aerospace machinist, I made $14.65 an hour with a shift premium if I worked 2nd or 3rd shift. Why on earth should someone at McDonalds make $15 an hour for taking orders, when I was a machinist is making $15.00 and machining parts for fighter jets holding tolerances a fraction of the thickness of a human hair? I started cleaning out sump pumps and grease traps for $10 an hour and worked my way up to a machine when I proved I was a good employee. When I started my business, I rode along with a guy for no pay just to learn the ropes. I did that for two months. I had two customers and the company brought in $179 a month. Now after 7 years, I bring in an average of $7k a month gross. No one just gave me $25 an hour on service cleanings. I risked a lot and worked my way up one account at a time for almost 10 years to get there.  

With all the time boozing, gambling, fucking, traveling to Latin America, more fucking, drinking, hours and hours posting to TER, sleeping, fucking, dating, drinking .... I think that leaves about 10 hours per year for real work. Take your annual earnings, divide by 10 and that might make you the highest paid CEO, by the hour.

and most particularly the laws of supply and demand. Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire because she delivers products that people want and nobody else can deliver. The janitor makes what he does because almost anyone can do his job.  

Put it this way---if I don't perform where I'm employed my a$$ is out the door---should be the same standard for the execs/owners as well. Most of the time it isn't!!

I am an owner, not an exec. My pay is 100% tied to profitability an exec is not.

Nothing is keeping the janitor from learning new skills.  The problem is that there is more demand for janitors than there is for CEOs, computer scientists, and other "high skill" positions.  No one should live in poverty because there is more demand for "low skills."  No, I have not caught a case of "the stupids."  I have educated myself myself on the subject well enough to know that unrestrained Capitalism is just as bad as Communism.

Actually, Jake, I make $16 an hour as a cook II, and I'm trying to get promoted to cook I, and eventually, sous chef.  My rent is $500 per month, and will stay in that range as long as I'm willing to have roommates.  It's the cigarettes and alimony that really fuck me over.  Still, I stand by my insistence on caps on salaries.  You can call me a commie all you want, but if the U.S. had 3 Trillionaires and 30% unemployment, would you really be OK with unrestrained capitalism?  Somehow I doubt it.

See, GaG?  You're a commie too!

The poor may not pay income tax, but they still pay taxes...in the form of sales tax, liquor tax, cigarette tax, and sin taxes for cheap junk food (and the cheap junk food comes from products subsidized by the government).

I think people should be able to "earn" billions if they can. I am only against people making millions for doing a shitty job. It rewards "bad behavior" just like paying a hooker who shows up 20 years older, 40 pounds heavier AND with a bad fucking attitude.

There is a huge difference between a public company and a private company. Mylan and Heather Bresch are examples of how public companies and their CEO's should NOT be allowed to behave.

You are now in full blown moron territory.  

So yes, you ARE a fucking commie who is blaming others for your own inability to fuck a hooker more than once every several months.  

I wish people would stop spreading the fantasy that anyone could be rich with hard work, because it's simply not true.  Becoming wealthy usually requires a high level of intelligence, ruthlessness, great connections, luck or most often a combination of all four.

Believe it or not, Zen, people generally have to work hard for an entire career to become a senior executive who qualifies for such a contract.

I don't know that anybody can become rich with hard work, but probably most people could if they put their minds to it. There's a lot of ways to become rich. You can be a plumber or electrician, open your own shop and hire more guys, and become a multi-millionaire without having an MBA.  

Perhaps I'm a pessimist in this regard and wished you could become rich if you put your mind to it, unfortunately I just don't agree.  Many have been successful opening their own business but from what I've seen many also fail miserably.  I think it's usually rare to become rich with your own business anyways.  Most of the business owners I see could be considered middle to upper middle class but not wealthy.  I think the wealthiest men I've seen were day traders or worked in finance.

Hard to say.  Almost every successful business owner failed at least once, but got up and tried again.  Without getting into politics, look at Trump. In the 90's he lost $950'million dollars. He took some smart remarks. about losing that much money, but he came back even wealthier.

But the "execs" somehow manage the purge when the billion dollar loss comes and heads get chopped---the hard working rank and file grunts aren't so lucky!!

First of all, I hope you succeed.  That said, your nicotine addiction and failed marriage are not my problem. And your scenario that the alternative is 3 trillionaires and 30% unemployment is bogus.

That earned compensation has nothing to do with the amount of work you do or how hard you work the better. Earned compensation is divided by job tier and framework. The entry and support staff levels earn the lowest compensation, but often times their work is much more demanding and they get pay caps. Executives and managerial levels can out earn anyone else because they are given bigger incentives.

Ahhh come on really??  Trump is a terrible example in terms of your every day Joe starting a business.  Not everyone gets a million dollar loan from their parents to start up a business.  A man who invests his entire life savings into a business and it fails?  Completely devastating!  I doubt Trump has ever had to worry about not having a home to live in at that point.

But it can buy you a boat

I was just using Trump as a well-known example. Yes, he got a million from his dad. That's not unusual. Money brother's kids will each get a million when he dies. Trump took that million and parlayed it into billions (thousands of millions). When he was in the hole for $950 million, he was trading in billions in property.

It's only "completely devastating" if you let it be. Getting knocked down is part of life, it's what you do AFTER you get knocked down that shows your true character. I have been a LOT broker than the OP, but I have never been "poor" As Dick Gregory so aptly put it "broke is a temporary condition, poor is a state of mind" I've been broke numerous times, but I've NEVER been poor, even when I didn't have a roof over my head or had any idea where my next meal was coming from. I never "blamed the system" for my own poor choices.

However, when I meet people from Nigeria or Ethiopia who came here for a better life, and they're like "WTF, Minneapolis looks like the third world country where I came from," it gives me a good indication of how our nation and economy are really doing.

You are getting dumber with each and every post you make.

Obviously circumstances are different for everyone.  I will agree its never good to give up but know of a few who struggled to keep their business afloat after running into serious health issues.  Obviously nothing is a "one size fits all".  I commend you on rising from the ashes either way; you must be highly intelligent and a man of great ingenuity.

The whole thing about minimum wage is that it means "if we could pay you any less, we would" Anyone who has been in the labor pool for more than a year or two still making minimum wage should be looking inward for the reason they haven't acquired the skills to compete in the job market rather than looking to the government to force employers to pay more than they think a certain skill is worth.

No it wasn't designed to be a living wage but it hasn't been adjusted for inflation in quite some time.  We live in an age where you need a 4 year degree to be a $10/hr hotel clerk (at least in my neck of the woods) and good paying factory jobs are being outsourced.  There's only so many jobs that will pay a "living wage" and many people competing for them.  I think the only exception would be jobs in the engineering, mathematics, and science fields which typically have a disapproportionate number of foreign people because not enough Americans are qualified to fill those jobs.

Your point is kind of moot since I have no one working under me and I don't profit from someone else's labor.  I never said CEOs could spare some for everyone...I would have figured you would know I'm talking about the people employed by that company.  

I'm just shy of 30 myself. I was working at 13, under the table, at a factory. I was making well over minimum wage, and not paying taxes. I was rolling in cash, relatively speaking. They've adjusted the minimum wage a half dozen times since then. Call it child labor, exploitation or whatever, I call it one of the best things that could have happened to me.

I only agree about CEO pay to the point where the CEO makes millions while running the company into the ground. I personally believe that just like "owners" the pay of CEO's should be tied to profitability.  

The disparity started in the 90’s, where if investors made out then CEO’s were rewarded financially, which left not much for the wage earner (the biggest losers), with no decent cost of living raise; hence a shrinking middle class.

Jesus...you were working a factory job at 13?  How is that even possible?  I had a fricking paper route at that age that requires me to walk 5-6 miles a day but that's allowed for someone that age.

Sure you're not thinking of Detroit?  Minneapolis is Emerald city compared to Detroit.