The problem is the distribution of wealth. It's far from balanced how it was 50 years ago. Do you honestly think that wouldn't cause a market issue in the future? CEOs are making multi-millions while their employees, the people helping them making their money, can barely survive without a dual income. 50 years ago, that wasn't the cause. A two-bedroom living situation could be afforded on minimum wage. I DARE you to try that today.
Just because the CEOs are making multi-millions does not have anything to do with the wages of their employees. You talking about wealth re-distribution. Let use the hamburger joint as an example. The employee is making minimum wage yet there are those that say the hamburger joint should pay them more. Down the street is another hamburger joint (different name) and the employees there make the same minimum wage. Now if we raise the minimum wage up at the first joint, the cost of the hamburgers will go up and this extra expense will be passed on to the customer.. Customers, decide to go to the other hamburger joint to save money and an employee loses his job at the first hamburger joint. Why? because of supply and demand. You pay employee not what they think they are worth by what the product they are making is worth. This example is a entry level position usually for kids in school and maybe other transient persons. They should be increasing their skill level which will increase their wages.
The bottom line is, the hourly employee did not help the owner to make the company anything unless you have input at the top. In this case you get a golden parachute for actually helping the company to become larger and more profitable.
Consider this: Japan's top 100 CEOs make an average of a little more than USD $1 million per year. Their base employees make an average of 1/15th of that, around 65,000 USD on average. US top 100 CEOs make an average of $15 million USD. Their base employees make around 1/357th. That means their base employees make less than the base employees in Japan, with their CEOs making 15 times as much. 50 years ago, we were closer to Japan's numbers.
Who cares? Most of the people that have jobs knew what their wage was fgoing to be when they were hired. You are suggesting that the owners share their wealth with them. This in itself is socialism. Everybody work and get a piece of the pie. But, then you have slackers who don't work as much as the other fellow. Thereby, the fellow that works the most should get the most. How many hours does a CEO put in a week. 60, 70, 80, 90 Hours. ;Try this with an employee of yours. Give them a large raise, and tell them that they have to work 80 or more hours per week. They will take it and in a three month period they will be shouting that they deserve more because of what they are doing. It will never end because you cannot justify long hours, little time with the family, etc with a large sum of money. One other thing; think about the different job description of the CEO and the regular employee. The employee is building widgets one at a time. The CEO is making sure the employee has the materials they need to make widgets, setting up customers to buy their widgets (keeping the employee in a job) and on and on............
As far as the "go out and get a job" argument that these Conservative Capitalists are always shouting, that's a stupid argument. SOMEONE has to flip your lazy-ass's burgers! Why shouldn't they get paid for their hard work too? That's my two cents.
See above, but yes, they are getting paid what the job is worth. Let them quit and twenty others will be in line to get their job. As an employer, I owe the employee nothing more than the wages, raises and benefits I promised them when they took the job. The customer actually pays their wages and if the customer quits paying, I no longer need you.
And obviously I have a career. I also believe in helping those who need it. Not EVERYONE is the lazy who believes in helping others as Fox News wants you to believe. Open your eyes and see it for yourself. People, for the most part, WANT to succeed and don't WANT assistance. Unfortunately, GREED has driven the imbalance in inflation and income so out of balance, they don't have a choice. Is this really not hard to understand?