Malcolm Gladwell has a short post about executive pay that is interesting in and of itself, but the comments on the post contain the most interesting information. A PERFECT example of how the blog platform can be so effective for sharing information.
Here’s what Gladwell posted:
After
reading the article in the New York Times yesterday on the hundreds of
millions of dollars in compensation given over the past few years to
the CEO of Home Depot, I ran across this: in 1949, the highest paid CEO
in America was Charlie Wilson of General Motors, who earned $586,100 in
salary, bonus and stock. That’s roughly equivalent to what some of the
better-compensated CEO’s are making today.But what did Wilson pay in taxes? $430,350.
Times have changed.
Some commenters were questioning whether the tax rate could really have been seventy-something percent and others pointed out in1949 the top tax rate was indeed 82.13% and it went up to 92% a couple of years later. Yikes!
The commenters also debate whether or not CEOs should make so much more than the average worker, why the US was so economically well off in the post-WWII era, and a few other interesting tid-bits.
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