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abitare (99.38)

Japan Airline's CEO Slashes his Pay Below the Pay of Pilots

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December 01, 2008 – Comments (6)

Japan Airline CEO make less than his own Pilots. U.S. CEO Should Learn from him.

Comments from post: 

On top of that, he only owns 17,000 shares of the company, which last closed at 217 yen per share, which is only worth a bit more than $39k USD.

http://www.jal.com/en/ir/pdf/ir_080606.pdf
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/ ...

Japanese CEOs tend to make less because while their leadership is important it's not seen as something that's worth 30-39 times the average workers pay. They recognize success involves far more people than the guy at the top and they pay around 17 times the average workers pay. Around the world US CEO's are objectively over paid. They make massive amounts of money but many of them lose money and depart with a golden handshake. On a cost benifit analysis the worst expenditure for an American corporation is the CEO. They can cost hundreds of millions and odds are they will do no better than average and they often require exorbitant exit terms.

How did it get this way? Basically Americans all think they could be that CEO so they don't' mind if the CEO is massively over compensated. Americans have this lottery mentality and refuse to acknowledge that the CEO are almost a dynastic line with few coming from outside of certain social networks. The system don't' work. Expensive but unworthy CEO's and fairly expensive union contracts is what is killing American Competitiveness.

 

6 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On December 02, 2008 at 12:41 AM, Option1307 (30.51) wrote:

Interesting article and a very valid point. Just another asset of American corporations that has become horrible distorted.

I would add that I'm all for paying CEO's mega dollars, as long as they are held accountable of their actions. If they are improving the company and increasing the company's revenue etc., by all means, they can, and maybe deserve, a massive salary. However, the opposite is true as well. If the CEO is making terrible managment decisions that are costing the company to dive towards bankruptcy, they should be paid very little, if anything at all. They should be paid and compensated based off of their respective performance, not some ridiculous set level.

Since when did America decide to reward mediocrity, and even failure? There are no eighth place tropheys in a race, I feel we as Americans have forgot this little fact and wnt to reward everybody, even if they don't deserve it...

In my eyes, I'm all for someone making a gazillion billion dollars, if they are worth it. And that is a big "if"...

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#2) On December 02, 2008 at 1:07 AM, Harold71 (28.80) wrote:

As you say...I am aligned.

I think the CEO inflated pay/bonus package will eventually glide back down to earth...every US corporation is entering a world called "reality."

I recently read a report to shareholders of a relatively small local company that I've been invested in for several years, they reported that net income was declining...and yet the board/management were giving themselves a 15% pay increase.  They were already making $300K+, which is quite a lot in the upper midwest.  If you are making that much around here you are definitely in the upper echelons...

I was not impressed.  Now granted I was planning to sell this company anyway, but that put it over the top.  Oh and they can barely cover their interest expense...hehe.

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#3) On December 02, 2008 at 2:58 AM, QualityPicks (34.50) wrote:

What about Steve Jobs, whose salary is $1. Yeap. He only makes money if Apple's stock does well. If there should be exceptions where CEOs should make 50 times the average employee, Steve Jobs should be it. Yet, he ties his compensation to company performance. Wow. He must be from another country, he doesn't seem to understand how companies are run here in the US :) On top of that, Apple has $0 debt and like 14 billion dollars in cash, while most companies are the opposite (14 billion in debt, $0 cash). Seriously, Apple/Steve Jobs does not understand how companies are run in the US. Thank God :)

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#4) On December 02, 2008 at 1:32 PM, thecage41 (97.90) wrote:

"Expensive but unworthy CEO's and fairly expensive union contracts is what is killing American Competitiveness."

 I'd also throw into the mix CEO's willing to risk the entire company since they get paid big bucks if they are successful and big bucks if they fail with severence.

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#5) On December 02, 2008 at 9:38 PM, Tastylunch (29.93) wrote:

I like this a lot. Integrity, self accountability, highly underrated attributes to have in a leader.

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#6) On December 03, 2008 at 9:15 AM, abitare (99.38) wrote:

ALCON

Thank you for the replies.

Option1307,

Most CEOs are not worth gazillions of dollars and they juice the books to make themselves look like they are.

I have nothing to add. 

 

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